Pakistan Security Brief

Ranger sentenced to death for Sarfaraz Shah killing; TBIJ report highlights civilian casualties from drone strikes; U.S. aid to Pakistan could be constrained by debt concerns; Police officials investigated for attending U.S. Consulate Iftar dinner; Gunmen kill police, free militants; TTP claims responsibility for Peshawar female suicide bombing; Journalist abducted in N. Waziristan; FATA MPs to seek FATA province.

Sarfaraz Shah Trial

• On Friday, Judge Bashir Ahmed Khoso sentenced a soldier in the paramilitary Rangers force, Shahid Zafar, to death for his role in the killing of an unarmed civilian. Zafar, along with five other paramilitary rangers and a security guard, was accused of shooting 19-year-old Sarfaraz Shah in a public park on June 8 and letting him bleed to death. The other six men involved have been sentenced to life in prison. The defense has stated “the sentences [will] be appealed in a higher court.” AFP reports that Zafar’s death sentence is the first ever handed to “a serving member of the military.”[i]

Drone Strikes Report

• A Bureau of Investigative Journalism (TBIJ) report on the use of drones in Pakistan claims 385-775 civilians have been killed in alleged CIA drone strikes. The report also says as many as forty-five civilians have been killed in drone strikes so far this year, conflicting with Obama administration counter-terrorism advisor John Brennan’s claim that “the U.S. government has not found credible evidence of collateral deaths resulting from U.S. counterterrorism operations outside of Afghanistan or Iraq.” An anonymous U.S. official doubts the numbers given by TBIJ, explaining that given improvements made in the drone strike process over the years, “it really defies logic that now [the CIA] would start missing all these alleged noncombatant casualties.” According to the New York Times, drone operators watch and analyze the movements of suspected militants for days before they decide they are in fact militants and launch the strike. They do the same after the attack to count and identify the casualties.[ii]

U.S.-Pakistan Relations

• Pakistani news outlet Dawn reports that a recent Congressional Research Service (CRS) report explains efforts to limit U.S. aid to Pakistan as being linked to “budgetary constraints.” The U.S. recently suspended $800 million in military aid to Pakistan and further reductions in aid have been proposed. The aid reductions had been framed in the Pakistani press almost exclusively as aggressive measures to punish Pakistan for not cooperating fully with U.S. counter-terrorism efforts.[iii]

• The Inspector General (IG) of Police for Punjab Javed Iqbal is reportedly demanding an “explanation from seven high ranking police officials” as to why they attended the U.S. Consulate in Lahore’s Iftar dinner. The IG has started an investigation along with intelligence agencies regarding “possible ties Punjab Police officials may have with American diplomats.”[iv]

Peshawar

• On Friday, gunmen freed two militants and killed the three policemen who were transporting them. The police were taking the militants “from Central Jail to Institute of Radiotherapy and Nuclear Medicine (IRNUM) Hospital.”[v]

• Also on Friday, the leader of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) in Mohmand, Omar Khalid “al Khorasani,” claimed responsibility for Thursday’s twin blasts in Peshawar. After an initial remote-controlled blast, two women came to the site and one exploded a suicide vest. The blasts killed six people, excluding the two women. Khorasani stated the attack was a response “to the current military operation in the tribal areas.” He said the TTP would continue such attacks as long as the Pakistani military launched operations “to appease the United States.”[vi]

FATA

• According to “tribal sources,” unidentified armed men abducted Rahmatullah Darpakhel, a local journalist, in Miram Shah on Tuesday. Darpakhel reportedly wrote for Ausaf and repeatedly refused to cooperate with “the foreign media” for fear of damaging his credibility and incurring the wrath of militants.[vii]

• The News reports that on Friday, the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) Parliamentarians will “formally recommend to President Zardari that provincial status be given to the tribal areas.” The Parliamentarians are reportedly against the Awami National Party’s (ANP) plan of “including [the] FATA in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa” because they fear the Khyber-Pukhtunkhwa government will be able to further misuse funding intended for the FATA.[viii]