TIRED TALIBAN WANT A TIME OUT. Boo hoo. “The commanders informed Zakir that they and their men were temporarily suspending combat operations and asked that he either transfer them to less hotly contested areas or let them recover in Pakistan until the spring thaw. ‘We have lost many friends and commanders,’ one member of the delegation told Zakir, says Mullah Salam Khan, a midlevel commander in Helmand province who was briefed on the meeting by a participant. ‘We are tired and want to take a rest.'”