Pakistan has a large and growing nuclear arsenal.  The United States has provided substantial assistance to improve the security of Pakistan’s arsenal, such that today it is largely safe and secure during peacetime. The greater danger, however, is Pakistan might place its nuclear forces on alert during a crisis with India.  Such a move would disrupt many carefully designed security procedures and expose Pakistan’s nuclear weapons to much greater risks of theft or unauthorized use.

Executive Summary

Spread over 2,040 square miles in Pakistan’s North-West Frontier Province (NWFP), Dir is fertile and picturesque, producing wheat, barley, and fruits and covered in fir, pine, and walnut trees. However, the terrain is craggy and inhospitable, and most of the population lives in the remote valleys and mountains that dot the district. Like neighboring Swat, Dir was a “princely state” until 1969, when the district was formally merged into the NWFP. Formerly a single district within the NWFP, Dir was divided into two districts -- Upper and Lower Dir -- in 1996.

The Frontier Regions, or semi-tribal areas, of Pakistan act as buffer zones between the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and the adjacent settled districts of the North West Frontier Province (NWFP).[1] However, the Pakistani Taliban have utilized some of these frontier regions as strongholds because of their proximity to important settled districts of the NWFP.