Pakistan Security Brief

Pakistan’s Supreme Court indicts Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani for contempt of court; Seven missing prisoners presented before Supreme Court; Pakistan Army begins court martial proceedings against Brigadier Ali Khan; Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) claims responsibility for kidnapping European aid workers; Afghan security forces cross border into Pakistan and kidnap suspected Taliban militants; Taliban shura says peace accord with government should be honored;  Difa-e-Pakistan Council vows to resist reopening of NATO supply routes; Prime Minister Gilani says Pakistan never gave permission for drone strikes; Pakistan’s National Assembly says U.S. Congressional hearing on Balochistan is “intervention;” U.S. Court of Appeals hears appeal by Dr. Aafia Siddiqui; Baloch Republican Army detonates bomb in Balochistan, killing two; Bin Laden’s brother-in-law says bin Laden urged his children to “study” and “live in peace.”

Domestic Politics

• On Monday, Pakistan’s Supreme Court indicted Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani for contempt of court, stating that he had “willfully flouted, disregarded and disobeyed” court orders to reopen an investigation into President Asif Ali Zardari’s corruption charges. The hearing was adjourned until February 22, and Gilani, who pleaded not guilty, does not have to appear before the court until further notice.[1]

• Seven missing prisoners, who have been detained by the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) Directorate since 2010, were brought before Pakistan’s Supreme Court on Monday following the court’s delivery of an ultimatum demanding the prisoners be produced. The court told the ISI and Military Intelligence chiefs, the Judge Advocate General, and the Chief Secretary Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa to submit reports describing the details of the detention, including how and why the prisoners were detained and why their health conditions are deteriorating. The prisoners’ counsel told the court that three of the prisoners are suffering from kidney failure, while the rest are suffering from other chronic diseases. The court ordered a medical board to be constituted to examine the prisoners’ health, so that they can be provided with proper medical treatment.[2]

• At a Difa-e-Pakistan Council (DPC) rally hosted by Jamaat-e-Islami in Karachi on Sunday, religious and political leaders warned that they would lay siege to parliament on February 20 and would turn every square of Pakistan into Tahrir Square if the government restored the NATO supply routes. The council presented a 10-point agenda for “liberating the country from the aggression of the United States,” as leaders demanded that the Pakistani government disengage from the “war on terror” and stop its tacit support of U.S. drone strikes.[3]

U.S.-Pakistan Relations

• Prime Minister Gilani told Al-Jazeera on Saturday that the Pakistani government never gave permission for U.S. drone strikes which, he said, cause “collateral damage” and are “counter-productive,” because they undermines Pakistan’s efforts to distinguish between innocent tribal members and militants.[4]

• On Monday, Pakistan’s National Assembly adopted a resolution, declaring the U.S. Congressional hearing on Balochistan an “intervention” in Pakistan’s “internal affairs.”[5]

• On Friday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit heard an appeal by Dr. Aafia Siddiqui, the Pakistani neuroscientist who was sentenced to 86 years in prison for allegedly attacking U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan. Siddiqui’s lawyer argued that because of Siddiqui’s severe mental illness, she should have been barred from testifying and any incriminating statements should not be used against her.[6]

Militancy

• Military sources said on Saturday that the Pakistan Army has started court martial proceedings against senior army officer Brigadier Ali Khan for his suspected links to banned extremist group Hizb-ut-Tahrir (HuT). Khan was detained in 2011 soon after the bin Laden raid, and according to his counsel, Khan was taken into custody for demanding that someone in the military be held “accountable” for the “covert US raid.” HuT is banned in Pakistan due to its extremist propaganda, and it was very critical of the Pakistan Army for its “failure” during the Abbottabad raid.[7]

• On Saturday, a senior militant commander said that the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP)  is holding the two European aid workers kidnapped from Multan on January 19. He told Reuters that the two men, a German and an Italian national, are in good health, and no demands have been made yet.[8]

• Afghan security forces crossed the border into Pakistan on Saturday and raided tribal elder Sadullah Kakar’s house in Badini, kidnapping two suspected Taliban fighters and later killing them. The Balochistan government, upset by the border violation and the Afghan forces’ refusal to return the dead bodies to their relatives, has requested a meeting with the Quetta-based Afghan Consul General to discuss the incident.[9]

• In a pamphlet released by the Shura-e-Muraqiba on Saturday, the shura condemned the attacks on Pakistani security forces in North Waziristan and stated that it was “compulsory” for the mujahideen to honor the ”peace accord” with the Pakistani government. The five-member shura council, formed a few months ago, represents Pakistan’s largest militant groups and includes the North Waziristan Taliban led by Hafiz Gul Bahadur, the South Waziristan Taliban led by Maulvi Nazir, and two factions of the TTP led by Maulvi Waliur Rahman in South Waziristan and by Maulvi Noor Saeed in Orakzai.[10]  

• Two children died and 17 people were injured on Monday in Dera Murad Jamali, Balochistan, when unidentified assailants detonated a remote-controlled bomb planted on a motorcycle as a police van passed by the area. The Baloch Republican Army claimed responsibility for the attack.[11]

• On Saturday night, the Baloch Republican Army claimed responsibility for kidnapping two policemen from Jaffarabad district, saying they had murdered the policemen and dumped their bodies in the Shahpur area.[12]

• A rocket was fired on the outskirts of Quetta in the Killi Geo area on Saturday night, but no casualties were reported.[13]

• On Sunday, at least seven people were killed in an explosion resulting from a bomb hidden in a television set in a house in Peshawar.[14]

International Relations

• An Afghan Taliban spokesman said Monday that Obaidullah Akhund, one of the top deputies of Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar, died on March 5, 2010 in a Pakistani jail after being arrested in 2007.[15]

• In an interview published in Britain’s Sunday Times, Zakaria al Sadah, the brother of bin Laden’s Yemeni wife Amal, said that bin Laden urged his children to “study” and “live in peace,” and he did not want them following “him down the road to jihad.” According to al Sadah, Amal and her children, along with bin Laden’s other wives and children found in the Abbottabad compound, are being detained in a three-bedroom apartment in Islamabad guarded by Inter-Services Intelligence. Al Sadah said that the children who have been “traumatized” by the raid and their father’s murder “need a caring environment, not a prison.”[16]