The news on 5 December 2012 read like this: Pakistan's Supreme Court has constituted a judicial commission to probe the 2007 Lal Masjid operation in Islamabad in 2007 - a government crackdown on a controversial pro-Taliban mosque in the capital which ended in a bloody eight-day siege killing at least 58 Pakistani troops and seminary students.

Lal Masjid facts have been overwhelmed by politics. The operation marked the beginning of the end of the Musharraf regime. It is said that he brought himself down by first allowing the operation against Lal Masjid and then dismissing the Supreme Court of Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry. The PMLQ, through which he was ruling, wanted no part of the operation because of their deep rightwing conviction not to take on the clerics. As they began distancing themselves from it, his political platform began to slip from under him.

The media, provoked by restrictions he sought to place on it, rebelled, not least also because of the popular support of the mosque under attack. Two opposition parties - PMLN and PPP - wanted him pinned down so that he could be removed from the scene together with his PMLQ facade. The PMLN was clear about what it wanted to do: go all out for Musharraf's ouster. The PPP had a mixed approach because the Taliban were targeting its allies. Then it fell foul of the Supreme Court by delaying its restoration. The Supreme Court had a showdown with Musharraf, backed by popular support, not a little assisted by the media and the PMLN.

Today, the Lal Masjid Operation of 2007 is owned by no one. Musharraf may regret he ordered it. But the facts will not disappear. Tehreek Taliban Pakistan (TTP) was created after the operation. Al Qaeda was furious because it counted a lot on Lal Masjid as its foothold in the capital where most youths believed al Qaeda was not a terrorist organisation and not an enemy of Pakistan. TTP insisted on owning the mosque.

On 6 July 2008, it celebrated the anniversary of the operation by killing 19 in Islamabad through a suicide-bomber, 15 of them policemen. An al Qaeda videocassette marked the first anniversary of the destruction of Lal Masjid in which revenge was sworn.

Understandably, the Supreme Court wants to get to the bottom of what really transpired. It has already taken steps to undo the damage done to the madrassa by the operation.

Amir Mir in his book Talibanisation of Pakistan from 9/11 to 26/11, states: 'Before the bloodshed, the Mosque had a reputation for radicalism, mostly attracting Islamic hardline students from North West Frontier Province (NWFP) and tribal areas where support for the Taliban and al-Qaeda is quite strong...Much before the military operation code named "Operation Silence" was launched by the Pakistan Army, Lal Masjid had become known to the outer world as a centre of radical Islamic learning, housing several thousand male and female students in adjacent seminaries'.

Founder of the mosque Maulana Abdullah Ghazi was murdered in the sectarian war of Pakistan. His sons Abdul Aziz and Abdul Rashid ran the seminary aggressively, targeting elements they thought were flouting the sharia and attacking the Shia. They fed youths into state-sponsored jihad in Afghanistan and Kashmir, connecting the state to training camps run by terrorist organisations under al Qaeda.

'As the Operation Silence unfolded it was discovered that elements from militants groups like Lashkar-e-Taiba, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, Jaish-e-Mohammad and Harkatul Jihadul Islami were present inside the seminary. Lal Masjid compound was being used as a hide-out by dozens of wanted militants who had Kalashnikov rifles, LMGs, hundreds of hand grenades and petrol bombs and a few rocket-launchers in stock'.

Ayman al-Zawahiri said during the Operation: 'This crime can only be washed by repentance or blood... If you do not retaliate....Musharraf will not spare any of you. Your salvation is only through jihad'.

Zahid Hussain in his book The Scorpion's Tail: The Relentless Rise of Islamic Militants in Pakistan and how it Threatens America (2010) noted: 'Abdul Aziz and Abdul Rashid had learned their militancy from their father, Abdullah Ghazi, who was the head cleric of Lal Masjid during the war against the Soviets in Afghanistan and who had developed strong ties with the Islamist groups that joined in the fight. He had received funding and guidance from the Pakistani military and intelligence agencies for recruiting militants to the cause, and Lal Masjid had become a citadel of militancy. After the Taliban's victory in Afghanistan, Abdullah Ghazi became closely associated with al Qaeda.

'In 1998 he travelled to Kandahar to pay homage to Mullah Omar, whom Pakistani radical Islamists regarded as their spiritual leader, and he took his younger son, Abdul Rashid, with him. During this visit Abdul Rashid became radicalised. He met with bin Laden alone for an hour and discussed with him issues that had troubled him for a long time. At the end of the meeting, he recounted, he picked up bin Laden's glass of water and drank from it. An amused bin Laden asked him the reason for his action, to which Abdul Rashid replied, "I drank from your glass so that Allah would make me a warrior like you".' (p.112)

'Rashid's elder brother condemned Pakistan's Army's decision to fight the terrorists. In 2001, he declared to a packed gathering, "Allah has punished America for its anti-Islam policies and the sinful life of its population". When Musharraf sent troops to Waziristan in 2004 Abdul Rashid led a campaign against the military operation and issued a fatwa together with a number of leading clerics declaring the military action in Waziristan un-Islamic and proclaiming, "Those killed in the battle against Pakistani forces are martyrs".' (p.113)

Two months after the Lai Masjid siege, an 18-year boy blew himself up inside the high-security base of Zarrar Company, the elite commando unit of the Pakistan Army responsible for Operation Silence; 22 soldiers were killed. It was an insider job. Zahid Hussain writes: 'One of the officers identified was Captain Khurram Ashiq, who had been with Pakistan's Special Services Group and had also served in Zarrar Company' (121). Captain Khurram Ashiq died in Helmand fighting on the side of al Qaeda. His brother Captain Haroon Ashiq too worked for al Qaeda, killing an SSG commander Major-General Feisal Alvi in Islamabad. He has been acquitted this year by an anti-terrorist court in Adiala Jail.

British journalist Owen Bennett-Jones in his lengthy study Questions Concerning the Murder of Benazir Bhutto (London Review of Books, 6 December 2012) refers to one of the assassins of Benazir Bhutto named Husnain Gul who joined the gang of her killers because of Lal Masjid:

'Husnain Gul was a madrassa student who in 2005 had received small-arms training at a camp in North-West Pakistan. The Joint Investigation Team (JIT) report says that when he was arrested he had a hand grenade and clothes belonging to his friend, Bilal. In his confession, Gul described how a friend of his had been killed when Musharraf ordered an assault on the Red Mosque in Islamabad in July 2007. The attack on the jihadis who had seized the mosque was a turning point in modern Pakistani history, persuading many Islamists that the Pakistani state was not their friend but an enemy that must be attacked. Gul decided to avenge his friend's death and persuaded his cousin, Muhammad Rafaqat, to join him'.

The clerics who visited the mosque to intercede with the Ghazi brothers included: Grand Mufti Rafi Usmani of Karachi, Harkatul Mujahideen commander Fazlur Rehman Khalil and Al Qaeda lawyer Javed Ibrahim Paracha. Maulana Fazlur Rehman of JUI was at first opposed to the Ghazi brothers for not listening to advice till he was tamed by fellow clerics through a reprimand.

As 2012 draws to a close, we should all cast a thought to the roughly 68,000 American living in dusty military outposts in places such as Kabul and Kandahar who are celebrating the holiday season far from their loved ones. It has been a busy year in Afghanistan -- U.S. forces have downsized by one-third, Afghans have assumed much more responsibility for the security of their country, NATO supply lines through Pakistan were reopened, and the U.S.-Afghan Strategic Partnership Agreement was signed. But the question remains: Are we really winning this war?

When assessing the facts and figures, it's hard to separate spin from substance. Reaching any hard conclusions about where Afghanistan is heading is no easy task. For those who want to believe the mission is going badly or who believe the war is a distraction from more pressing American national priorities, it is easy to find dismal trends to make their case. For those still hopeful, it is comparably easy to identify signature successes that put the United States on track to achieving President Barack Obama's stated goal of ending the current mission by 2014.

Take the recent debate, spurred by the Pentagon's December 2012 semi-annual "1230" report to Congress, on the evolution of Afghan security forces' capabilities. That report identified only one Afghan army brigade that is in the top tier of readiness and no longer requires any outside help for its operations. Some critics have concluded that this illustrates the failure of U.S. efforts to develop strong Afghan security partners.

Admittedly, the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF), the country's military and police forces, is a work in progress at best. But at a time when the ANSF lacks ample airpower or logistics support, this is in fact inevitable. These deficits are almost by design, as such capabilities were viewed by NATO and Afghan officials as secondary priorities -- to be emphasized once the core infantry force structure was built.

Beneath the surface, meanwhile, there have been significant improvements within the Afghan military. It is now near its full, intended size of roughly 350,000 soldiers. There are now 92 kandaks -- formations of battalion size, or a few hundred soldiers -- scoring in the top two tiers of readiness. That's triple the number of late 2010, and 30 more than at this time last year.

A better indicator of ANSF preparedness is the percentage of missions Afghan forces are now leading -- or even conducting entirely independently of foreign assistance. This metric not only speaks to technical readiness, but morale, leadership, and the commitment of the armed forces to the nation.

Encouragingly, these numbers are improving fast. A year ago, Afghan forces led less than 40 percent of all missions -- today, according to the "1230" report, the figure is closer to 85 percent. Admittedly, this information does not tell us if the Afghan forces are now leading the most challenging operations or how well they are doing, but it does tell us something about their willingness to put their lives on the line for their country. The Afghan special forces represent a particular bright spot: They are not only leading a large fraction of all special operations missions -- they are undertaking responsibilities that are in fact quite difficult.

Other metrics are also on their way up. For example, about half of all Afghan security forces now have at least first-grade levels of literacy. The bad news, of course, is that this is a very low standard. The good news is that the figure was under 10 percent just two years ago, so progress has been rapid.

The casualty rate for Afghan forces is telling, too. Afghan army and police suffered around 1,000 fatalities a year from 2007 to 2009, then the figure grew to about 1,500 in 2010, 2,000 in 2011, and more than 3,000 this year.

This may sound as if the Afghan army is suffering more defeats with each passing year, but the story is more complicated than that. These high loss rates for Afghan forces suggest they are committed to and fighting for their country. Of course, such figures also indicate that the enemy is still resilient and dangerous, so the message is mixed. U.S. losses have declined as the ANSF has stepped up: Despite dozens of insider attacks this year -- which thankfully began to slow toward year's end -- American fatalities declined from some 500 in 2010 and more than 400 in 2011 to around 300 in 2012.

For Afghans, of course, the big question is whether their nation is getting less violent. Here too, the statistics are mixed: A broad gauge of violence, as measured by enemy-initiated attacks, is down only a few percent this year relative to last year, which was itself a modest improvement relative to 2010. The net reduction of violence over the past two years is about 10 percent.

The good news is that the numbers are going down, even as NATO starts to downsize. Fully 100,000 American "boots on the ground" worked to ensure peace and stability in 2011 -- since the surge ended, that figure has declined by more than 30,000 soldiers. Many of the cities have seen notable improvements: Kabul remains quite safe, accounting for fewer than 1 percent of all nationwide attacks -- with NATO troops providing very little of the security. Kandahar City and the northern hub of Mazar-e-Sharif are much improved, with attacks down 60 percent or more in each city this year. The western city of Herat is somewhat safer too, and the nation's ring road, which essentially follows the nation's perimeter, appears substantially more usable than a couple years ago.

The bad news, however, is that the 10 percent decline in violence nationwide is within the likely error margins, since not all violence is observed or documented by NATO or Afghan troops. As a result, it is hard to claim too much major improvement. And by other metrics -- like the number of civilians killed by the Taliban -- there is no progress at all.

Again, reaching a bottom line on what's happening in Afghanistan is hard. There is grist for both hope and anxiety in such figures.

Afghanistan's economy presents a similarly mixed picture. The good news is that it has consistently grown at a 6 to 8 percent clip in recent years. The bad news is that much of this growth is due to the twin stimulants of the huge foreign presence in Afghanistan and revenues generated from the opium economy. Even worse, widespread corruption means that wealth doesn't always trickle down to those most in need.

Other indicators of how life is improving for Afghans are less ambiguous. Some 90 percent of the population has access to basic health care within an hour's walk of their homes -- and as a result, life expectancy appears to have increased by more than a decade over the course of a few short years. Nearly 10 million children are in school, and more than 38,000 are enrolled in vocational schools, an increase of one-third over the last 12 months, preparing students for the types of jobs that Afghanistan's economy actually generates. Electricity production is up fourfold since the mid-2000s.

But even amid such statistics, there are troubling indicators. For example, access to electricity in rural areas as well as urban slums is still quite limited, and the increased availability of power has mostly benefited the privileged urban elites.

President Hamid Karzai's government is itself a mixed bag. He is personally popular and continues to poll well, with 70 percent of Afghans or more regularly saying they hold a favorable opinion of him. And more Afghans than not say their country is moving in the right direction: The latest figures from the Asia Foundation show a 52-31 favorable-unfavorable split when asked about the basic trajectory of their country. That's better than in most recent years -- or for that matter, most other countries in the world. But there are still enough disaffected Afghans to produce ample recruits for the insurgency, and uncertainty about the 2014 elections has led to fears about a possible return to civil war should the campaign exacerbate sectarian tensions.

Afghanistan also can't be at peace unless its neighbors stop using it as a battleground from which to pursue their interests. Pakistan's role in the conflict has improved somewhat, with greater tactical cooperation near the border and a reopening of supply lines in 2012. But it continues to allow the operation of fertilizer plants within its territory that provide the raw materials for roadside bombs, rather than insisting on the production of more benign forms of fertilizer. Islamabad also continues to allow the Haqqani network to operate in North Waziristan, among its other ties with insurgent groups.

As we prepare to ring in 2013, determining what lies ahead for Afghanistan remains a murky venture. It's a close call as to whether the good news slightly outweighs the bad, but there are certainly glimmers of hope. Anyone who claims to be able to predict the future there has a clearer crystal ball than we possess.

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When Problems are so Big & Your Strength is no Longer enough to CaRRy them, Don't Give uP; Because where your Strength Ends the Grace of Almighty ALLAH Begins