Pakistan Security Brief

Kerry hosts Brussels talks with Karzai, Kayani; NATO leader calls on Pakistan to crack down on militants; Supreme Court issues contempt of court notice to Zardari, Ashraf; North Waziristan jirga warns of violence if curfew not lifted; IMF offers $5 billion in extended loan aid; IHC denies Musharraf’s bail for assassination case; U.S. Congress holds hearing about drones;  MQM office hit by bomb in Karachi, sparks protests across Karachi; Seven bombings injure over 100, kill dozen in Quetta blasts; Peshawar bombing injures four; Police defuse bomb in Matani; Bomb injures six in Madyan.

Trilateral Talks

• In Brussels on Wednesday, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry hosted a meeting between Pakistani and Afghan officials, including Pakistan Army Chief General Ashfaq Kayani and Afghan President Hamid Karzai, where Kerry attempted to ease tensions between the neighboring countries prior to the U.S. withdrawing from Afghanistan in 2014. The talks’ primary aims are to facilitate discussion about border tensions and the Taliban peace process. After the discussions, Kerry said that the meeting was quite productive, but that success will be measured in results, “not statements at press conferences.” During a meeting on Tuesday in preparation for the Wednesday discussions, NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said that Pakistan “must crack down on militants” who attack Afghan targets across the border and then flee back to the safety of Pakistani tribal regions.[1]

Domestic Politics

• On Wednesday, the Supreme Court issued contempt of court notices for President Asif Ali Zardari and former Prime Minister Raja Pervaiz Ashraf after the two failed to enforce a Supreme Court ruling in the dual national case. The court had ruled that the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) must investigate former and current government officials for fake degrees and dual nationalities.[2]

• On Wednesday, the Islamabad High Court rejected former President Pervez Musharraf’s request for bail in relation to a case connecting him to “to the assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto in 2007.” Musharraf is currently under house arrest in his farmhouse in Islamabad, for a separate case connected to his dismissing top judges in 2007 during his presidency.[3]

Hafiz Gul Bahadur Group

• On Sunday, a North Waziristan jirga warned that it will end a peace agreement with the government if the government does not lift its six day curfew by Wednesday.  In 2007, the Hafiz Gul Bahadur Taliban group and the Uthmanzai tribe signed a peace deal with the government, which they are threatening to “unilaterally” pull out of if the curfew continues through the 24th. Security forces enacted the curfew after a clash between militants and security forces that left eighteen injured, and the jirga requested that roads and business be allowed to open again, and that new checkposts shut down.[4]

IMF Offer

• On Tuesday, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) offered $5 billion in loans to Pakistan to help pay back outstanding debts to the IMF, functionally extending the time Pakistan has to pay back existing loans.  The Pakistani delegation negotiating with the IMF in Washington has not yet committed to the new loan.  The interim Prime Minister’s advisor on finance said the current government would not make a deal with the IMF, as the interim government consider’s such a deal to be the “prerogative of the next elected governemnt.” [5]

Drone Strikes

• On Tuesday, U.S. Congress’s Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Human Rights held a hearing in which eight leading experts on drone strikestestified that drone strikes create fear and anger against America in the civilian population of affected areas.[6]

Militancy

• On Tuesday, two people were killed and fifteen more were injured when a bomb detonated at an election office for the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) in Taimuria, Karachi.  Police suspect the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) was responsible for the attack. In response, the MQM called a strike in protest, largely shutting down businesses and roads across the city. By 4pm, the Karachi Traders Association (KTA) and the Karachi Transport Ittehad (KTI) decided to re-open public transportation and businesses.  Also on Tuesday night, two men opened fire and threw grenades at a medical store in SITE-A, injuring two people.[7]

• On Tuesday, five bombs detonated consecutively across Quetta, killing ten and injuring nearly eighty people.  Early in the day, a car bomb targeting Hazara Democratic Party head Abdul khaliq Hazara detonated in Quetta, missing Hazara but killing four people and wounding twenty six others.  Two of the people who died were soldiers. Four other blasts went off in quick succession across Quetta on Tuesday night.  In Killi Shabo, a bomb exploded in Jinnah Town, causing no casualties. In Gawalmandi Chowk, unknown attackers threw a grenade at a crowd, injuring five people. Two more people were injured in a third attack in Curdat Singh, when a roadside bomb detonated.  In the fourth and final attack, a suicide bomber drove a car into a Frontier Corps (FC) checkpost on Alamdar road, killing six and injuring forty others.[8]

• On Wednesday, two more bombings injured fifteen people in Quetta, after five blasts rocked the city the day before. In the morning, a bomb blew up by a hospital in Quetta’s Satellite Town injured thirteen people. Another bomb, planted on a motorcycle, detonated near the Kechi police station in Quetta later on Wednesday, injuring two police officers.[9]

• On Wednesday, four people were injured when a bomb exploded in a house in Sarki Gate, Peshawar.[10]

• On Tuesday, police in Matani, near Peshawar, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa defused an improvised explosive device (IED) outside a graveyard that was reportedly targeting police and security forces in the area.  No one has taken responsibility for the unsuccessful bombing.[11]

• On Wednesday in Dera Ismail Khan, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, militants detonated a bomb near former member of the parliamentary assembly (MPA) Israr Ullah’s convoy, causing no casualties.[12]

• On Wednesday, a bomb exploded in Madyan, Swat, injuring six people.  No one has reportedly taken responsibility for the attack.[13]