Our vital Pakistani Allies: WE QUIT! With spring but a few weeks old, the much ballyhood Pakistani effort to capture Al Qaeda has ended. The Pakistani army says it has agreed to stop operations against tribesmen accused of sheltering al-Qaeda suspects near the Afghan border. ... the move brings an end to fighting in South Waziristan in which the army says more than 100 militants and troops were killed last month. At the beginning of the operation there were reports that Osama Bin Laden's deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, was about to be captured. But no senior al-Qaeda figures have been held. The BBC's Paul Anderson in Islamabad says the Americans have been depending on heavy military tactics from Pakistan in the area. American forces have been conducting their own operations on the Afghan side of the border in what they have described as a coordinated "hammer and anvil" operation. With the Pakistani's apparently giving up, the American operation can now be described as a "hammer and thumb, followed by much cursing" operation.