Pakistan out to tame its wild west

AWASH with guns, opium, bands of armed Islamic militants, mediaeval laws, smugglers, rugged tribesmen and breathtaking mountains, Pakistan’s remote Afghan border is one of the wildest places on earth. 

But as the hunt intensifies for Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda fighters, pressure is growing to tame the semi-autonomous region and impose 21st-century courts on a people who have defied conquest and state authority for centuries.