The Guardian, Monday 22 November 2010 TV Highlights Dispatches: City of Fear 8pm, Channel 4 This chilling documentary invites us to imagine that Islamist terror really is the omnipotent spectre we've been encouraged to fear this last decade. It does this by going somewhere where this actually is the case: Pakistan, where more than 3,500 people have died in suicide attacks in the last three years. Dispatches spent a year in the capital, Islamabad, travelling with its beleaguered police and interviewing its terrified – if resilient – citizens. "We have," says one man who lost his wife to a suicide bomber, "a 9/11 or 7/7, if not every day, then every second day." ------------------------------------------------------------ John Crace The Guardian, Tuesday 23 November 2010 A suicide bombing outside Europe or the US barely rates a mention on the lunchtime news bulletins. And has been completely forgotten come the evening. It's somehow just too far away to get worked up about. Besides, it's only foreigners blowing up other foreigners. Dispatches: City of Fear (Channel 4) was a timely reminder of life outside the western bubble. ------------------------------------------- Paul Whitelaw The Scotsman, Wednesday 24 November 2010 ...Dispatches: City of Fear, an eye-opening account of the incessant terrorist threat plaguing Pakistan's capital, Islamabad. Filmed over one turbulent year, it followed police and citizens as they struggled to oppose and come to terms with indiscriminate attacks from Islamic extremists. With 3,500 people killed in suicide bombings in just three years, Islamabad has been forced to accept these attacks as a horrifying fact of life. Fatally under-resourced, the police have no way of counteracting the enemy beyond rounding up suspects and "interrogating" them for leads. This sobering report reiterated that we in the West have no comprehension of the realities of modern terrorism. "We have a 9/11 and a 7/7, if not every day, every second day in Pakistan," sighed a retired army major whose wife was murdered in a suicide attack.

The people of Islamabad are trapped in a harrowing nightmare. Their resilience is humbling, but how can they be saved?