NATO allies dismayed by US Defense Secretary's cutting the Afghanistan war short by one year without notice. Taliban is playing hard to get over peace talks while Pakistan retaliates for being cut out by letting an Al Qaeda front-man run for parliament.

Amid spiraling Pakistani-US tensions, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani Sunday, Sept. 25, recalled Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar from New York shortly after she warned the US against "hot pursuit" of terrorists on Pakistani soil. Pakistan's army chief Gen. Ashfaq Kayani held a "special" meeting of top commanders "to review the security situation" – exacerbating the sense of crisis. debkafile: Pakistan appears to be steeling itself for a possible military clash with US soldiers after being accused of harboring and running terrorists.

Tuesday July 12, the day French President Nicolas Sarkozy arrived in Afghanistan and stated that a quarter of France's 4,000-strong contingent would be pulled out by the end of 2012,  Afghan President Hamid Karzai's half-brother, Kandahar strongman Ahmad Wali,was shot dead by a bodyguard. This was no coincidence, debkafile's sources note: Taliban was again refuting the accounts of the situation in Afghanistan presented by US, British and French leaders as having little resemblance to reality.

The Osama bin Laden operation was part of a US-Pakistani-Afghan package for getting US troops out of Afghanistan by removing the root-cause of the war and bringing the Taliban to the negotiating table through Pakistan's good services.