ISLAMABAD -- A courtroom in Pakistan's southern port city of Karachi now becomes the center of international media attention with the start of the trial for last month's brutal slaying of U.S. journalist Daniel Pearl. The trial speaks volumes about the country's emerging and intense internal-security challenges.
The chief suspect, Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheik, and 10 accomplices, are accused of abducting and then killing Pearl. The incident came a couple of weeks before a grenade attack killed five worshippers, including two American citizens, and injured five others at a church frequented by foreigners in Islamabad.
Taken together, the two events have generated nothing but adverse publicity about Pakistan's internal-security conditions and called into question the government's ability to quickly tackle worsening lawlessness.