Pakistan Security Brief

Pakistan’s Supreme Court rejects Prime Minister Gilani’s appeal; Supreme Court gives Inter-Services Intelligence until February 13 to present missing detainees; “Memogate” commission says Mansoor Ijaz may record statement from London; Interior Minister Malik says Pakistan is ready to begin talks with Baloch separatists; Police disperse protest rally in Karachi; Pakistan “strongly rejects” findings of U.S. Congressional hearing on Balochistan; Malik says NATO is not sending supplies through Pakistani airspace; PTI Chairman Imran Khan says his party will “shoot down” U.S. drones if it gains power; Pakistani security forces kill 11 militants in Kurram agency; Indian government releases five Pakistani prisoners; President Zardari suggests increasing bilateral trade with Sri-Lanka; Pakistani government allegedly arrests suspected assassins of former Afghan president.

Domestic Politics

• On Friday, Pakistan’s Supreme Court rejected Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani’s appeal against contempt charges. Gilani will have to appear before the court on Monday to face contempt proceedings for refusing to reopen an investigation into President Asif Ali Zardari’s corruption charges. If he is found guilty, Gilani could face six months in prison and removal from office.[1]

• On Friday, a three-member bench of the Supreme Court heard the case regarding the seven suspected militants who have been detained by the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) Directorate since 2010. Four of the detainees in this same group died under mysterious circumstances over the past six months. The court ordered the Director General of ISI, the Director General of Military Intelligence and the Judge Advocate General branch to bring the missing prisoners to the Supreme Court hearing on February 13.[2]

• The Supreme Court’s “memogate” commission decided on Friday that Pakistani-American businessman and key witness Mansoor Ijaz, who has refused to come to Pakistan, may record his statement at the Pakistani High Commission in London. The commission’s secretary will go to London to collect evidence from Ijaz. On the same day, a parallel inquiry being run by the Parliamentary Committee on National Security (PCNS) decided not to record Ijaz’s statement outside of Parliament. According to the PCNS’s chairman, going abroad for such purposes “is contrary to the parliamentary traditions and norms.”[3]

• On Friday, Pakistan’s Interior Minister Rehman Malik announced that “the government is ready to hold [talks] with Baloch separatists.” Malik also claimed that a “third force is trying to destabilize the situation in Balochistan,” and that unnamed elements may be conspiring to separate Balochistan from Pakistan.[4]

• The Balochistan government announced on Friday that out of the 148 people reported missing in the province, 59 had been found alive and 16 found dead.[5]

• Police dispersed a protest rally in the Saddar area of Karachi on Friday using batons, teargas shells, and water cannons. Led by Pasban Voice Against Injustice activists, the rally was in protest to the detention of Dr. Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani citizen sentenced by U.S. courts to life in prison for assault with intent to murder. The rally intended to march toward the U.S. Consulate. Dr. Siddiqui’s sister was among the rally leaders arrested by police.[6]

U.S.-Pakistan Relations

• According to a spokesperson for the Pakistan Embassy in Washington, Pakistan’s Ambassador to the U.S. Sherry Rehman said that the Pakistani government “strongly rejects” the findings of Wednesday’s Congressional hearing on Balochistan. The government considers the hearing an “ill-advised and ill-considered” move that “will have serious repercussions for Pakistan-US relations.” Rehman also said that the hearing showed a “blatant disregard for the history of the issue and manipulated selective facts.” In Pakistan’s Senate, Senator Raza Rabbani condemned the Congressional hearing, claiming that the U.S. Congress has “no jurisdiction to call a hearing on any issue happening in Pakistan,” and that “such interference was intolerable.”[7]

• On Friday, Pakistan’s Interior Minister Rehman Malik refuted U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan Cameron Munter’s statement that NATO supplies are being sent through Pakistani airspace. Malik told the Senate that NATO supplies “have not been restored” and that “no airport or airbase” in Pakistan was being used to ship supplies to NATO troops in Afghanistan. However, the Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) and Pakistan Muslim League – Nawaz (PML-N) senators were not satisfied with Malik’s response and subsequently “staged a walkout from the house.”[8]

• At a rally in Swabi, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa on Friday, Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan announced that if his party comes to power after the upcoming elections, “PTI will not let the U.S. attack Pakistan via drone strikes” and will shoot down U.S. drones. Khan said the current government should be embarrassed for allowing U.S. drone strikes to continue to violate Pakistan’s sovereignty.[9]

Militancy

• In an ongoing military operation in Kurram agency, Pakistani security forces fired artillery shells at three suspected militant hideouts in the Mamuzai area on Friday, killing 11 militants and injuring 19 others.[10]

• After PTI Chairman Imran Khan’s rally in the town of Swabi, unidentified assailants threw two hand grenades at a police van and then opened fire on the crowd, injuring seven people, including four policemen. Khan had already left the rally when the attack occurred.[11]

International Relations

• On Friday, two Afghan government officials reported that Pakistan arrested two people in connection with the September 20, 2011 assassination of former Afghan president Burhanuddin Rabbani. According to the Afghan officials, the two individuals were arrested last week in Quetta. In response to this report, a Frontier Corps spokesperson and the police chief in Quetta both claimed that they had no knowledge of the arrest. Rabbani, an Afghan peace-broker to the Taliban, was killed at his home in Kabul by “a suicide bomber posing as a peace emissary from the Taliban. Elements of the Afghan government held Pakistan responsible for Rabbani’s death after an Afghan investigation determined that the assassin had been a Pakistani citizen.[12]

• The Indian government released five Pakistani prisoners arrested for mistakenly crossing the border and handed them over to officials from the Pakistan Rangers at the Wagah border on Friday.[13]

• During a meeting between Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa and President Zardari in Islamabad on Friday, Zardari suggested increasing bilateral trade between Sri Lanka and Pakistan from $375 million to $2 billion in the next three years.[14]