Pakistan Security Brief

India captures Pakistani spy; TTP spokesman to personally contact senior Pakistani politicians over ceasefire; Interior Minister announces two groups of LeJ operating in Pakistan; Interior Minister calls on Interpol to help extradite Faqir Muhammad; Interior ministry warns of terrorist attacks;; PAF kills 10 TTP militants in Tirah; Security forces clash with LI militants, killing 5;Attack on Sufi shrine kills three; Several dead in Karachi; Two bodies found in Islamabad; 60 suspected militants captured in Peshawar raids; Ulema Conference postponed; Pak-Afghan People’s Forum working for release of Afghan prisoners.

Indo-Pak Relations

• On Monday, Indian police announced that they arrested a man accused of being a spy for Pakistan during recent military exercises in Rajasthan, near the Pakistani border.  The police officer accused the Indian man of spying for Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), saying he had sent classified information about Indian national defense to Islamabad using a cell phone and email.[1]

TTP Leader’s Extradition

• On Saturday, Pakistani Interior Minister Rehman Malik announced that Pakistan will call on Interpol to help push for senior Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) leader Maulvi Faqir Muhammad’s extradition from Afghanistan, because Afghan officials are refusing to extradite him.  Faqir Muhammad is currently being held in Afghanistan after Afghan security forces caught him and four other TTP members traveling near the Pakistani border early last week.[2]

Taliban Peace Talks

• On Monday, TTP spokesman Ehsanullah Ehsan mocked Pakistani Interior Minister Rehman Malik, calling him a comedian, and saying that the government should replace him with someone “serious” if they wanted to pursue peace talks.  On Saturday, a TTP official speaking on the condition of anonymity said that TTP leader Hakimullah Mahsud had ordered central TTP spokesman Ehsanullah Ehsan to personally approach Nawaz Sharif, Maulana Fazlur Rahman and Syed Munawar Hassan, requesting that they be guarantors of peace talks with the government.[3]

• On Sunday, Interior Minister Rehman Malik announced at a press conference that there are two separate groups of Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) operating in Pakistan; one operating under the recently arrested Malik Ishaq, the other under Maulana Ludhianvi, the head of Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat (ASWJ), a pseudonym for the Sunni sectarian organization Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP).  During a speech on Saturday, Interior Minister Rehman Malik again offered to negotiate with both the TTP and the LeJ, on the condition that “they will have to first surrender at Islamabad’s D-Chowk (the square in front of the Parliament House).”[4]

Militancy

• An explosion at Dargah Hajan Shah Mauri, a Sufi shrine, in Shikarpur, Sindh province left three dead. A police official from Sindh province said that 12 others were injured in the attack. The explosion marks the second attack on a Sufi target in less than one week. The exact source of the explosion has not yet been identified and no group has yet claimed responsibility for the attack.[5]

• On Sunday, two police officers were killed and six injured when Pakistani security forces clashed with Lashkar-e-Islam (LI) militants in Nala and Arjali Nadi areas of Bara sub-district, Khyber agency killing five LI militants and injuring 10 others. A shootout erupted when security forces conducting a search operation encountered LI militants.  Police forces also arrested two suspects during the search operation.[6]

• An unidentified number of assailants attacked a police convoy on Saturday in the town of Rashakai, Nowshera. One officer was killed and three others injured when assailants attacked the convoy with small arms fire and a hand grenade. Police officers returned fire and killed three militants and recovered two assault rifles, two pistols and a hand grenade from the deceased.[7]

• On Sunday, the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) launched an aerial assault on TTP militants killing at least 10 and wounding eight others in Mandikas, Bachi Nehar and Yousaf Talab located in Bara sub-district, Khyber agency. The attack also destroyed five militant hideouts and a vehicle.[8]

• On Sunday, officials from the interior ministry sent a threat alert to the Pakistani government warning it of possible terrorist attacks The issued alert warned officials of 12 Taliban-affiliated terrorists that have entered the country  to carry out attacks targeting minorities and possibly abduct foreigners and NGO officials. A senior Gilgit-Baltistan police official said that one terrorist had been captured in Gilgit.[9]

• On Friday, a bomb disposal squad responded to reports of a suspected improvised explosive device (IED) placed along the wall of a house in Satellite Town, Quetta. The bomb disposal squad defused the IED and discovered approximately 4-5kg of explosives. [10]

• On Monday, an IED detonated inside the Fort Slope military base in the Bara sub-district of Khyber agency killing at least one Frontier Corps (FC) soldier and wounding five others. The FC media outlet reported that the IED was inside a vehicle which had been seized by the FC. [11]

• On Monday, several  people were killed and injured in shooting incidents in Karachi. One man was shot and killed in Kunwari colony, another in Kharadar, and a woman was killed in Machar colony.  Three people were injured in firing incidents in Malir and Memon Goth areas. Two others were injured when unidentified assailants opened fire on a vehicle in Pakistan’s Employees Cooperative Housing Society. Police also recovered three bodies in the city. Two bodies were recovered in Ibrahim Hyderi’s Rehri Goth area and another in Orangi town. On Saturday, one person was killed when unidentified assailants opened fire near Kala Pul Bridge. Another man was killed from a shooting incident near North Nazimabad. Unidentified assailants attacked a clinic in SITE town, killing a leader in the Awami National Party and injuring four others. [12]

• Police forces recovered 10kg of explosives and a detonator from a vehicle carrying two passengers in Sargodha, Punjab province on Monday. Both passengers were arrested.[13]

• On Saturday, two wanted men opened fire on police after being pursued in Bahawalpur district, Lahore.  Police returned fire and killed the assailants.[14]

• A doctor and his son were kidnapped on the Ring Road near Landi Arbab, Peshawar on Monday.[15]An IED detonated in Faqirabad, Peshawar damaging the office of Peshawar Electricity Supply Company on Saturday.

• On Friday, police arrested 60 suspects during raids conducted in various areas of Peshawar. During the raid police recovered a hand-grenade, four assault rifles, and 25 additional weapons.[16] 

• Seven people were injured when unidentified assailants opened fire in Liaquat Market, Quetta on Saturday.[17]

• On Sunday, the FC killed two suspected militants and captured five others during targeted operations in Qila Abdullah, Chaman, Balochistan. FC soldiers also recovered a large quantity of hand grenades, assault rifles, and explosive materials. [18]

• Unidentified militants opened fire killing six people in Pasni, Gwadar district, Balochistan on Sunday.[19]

Ulema Conference

• Officials associated with the Ulema Conference as part of Afghan reconciliation efforts originally scheduled for early March and to be held in Kabul announced on Friday that the conference will be postponed due to disagreements between Afghan and Pakistani clerics, largely about who should be permitted to attend the conference.  Significant contention about whether to invite the Afghan Taliban, and how to treat the Taliban generally, led the Pakistani Ulema Council to boycott the conference all together.[20]

Pak-Iran Pipeline

• During a press release on Thursday, when asked whether Pakistan’s pursuit of a pipeline deal with Iran came under the U.S.’s “sanctionable terms,” State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said that, as the situation was developing, she was not in a position to make an assessment. She added, however, that the U.S. believes there are “better…more secure ways and more cost-efficient ways for Pakistan to get its power.” In the same press release, Nuland spoke about various cooperative energy projects around Pakistan, including renovating dams and building new power plants, which should combine to add power for 2 million households.[21]