Pakistan Security Brief

U.S. expected to transfer $1.12 billion to Pakistan under Coalition Support Fund by next week; Pakistani Ambassador Sherry Rehman discusses regional security with Senator Harry Reid; Over 100 NATO trucks cross into Afghanistan in last two days; U.S. supports India-Pakistan cricket diplomacy; Supreme Court extends deadline for prime minister to reopen corruption cases against President Zardari; Pakistani Taliban commander killed in South Waziristan; Armed militants attack security check post in Kurram agency.

U.S.-Pakistan Relations

• On Tuesday, Pakistani Finance Secretary Abdul Wajid Rana informed the cabinet’s Economic Coordination Committee that Pakistan’s foreign exchange reserves would increase to $15.89 billion by early next week following the expected transfer of $1.12 billion from the U.S. under the Coalition Support Fund (CSF). Rana estimated the total amount of outstanding payments owed to Pakistan under the CSF at $4.7-5 billion, including $3.5 billion that had not been disbursed prior to May 2011, when Pakistan stopped sending bills for CSF payments following the Navy SEAL raid that killed Osama bin Laden. Pakistan also expects roughly $85 million from the U.S. under the Kerry-Lugar Bill.[1]       

• Pakistani Ambassador to the U.S. Sherry Rehman met with Senator Harry Reid on Monday to discuss Pakistan’s role in improving regional security. According to Rehman’s spokesperson, the meeting was held to “apprise the U.S. leadership on the Hill of Pakistan’s position and concerns on bilateral and regional developments.” The meeting followed the U.S. House’s passage of a defense appropriations bill last week that cut $650 million in aid to Pakistan.[2]    

• During a session of the Parliamentary Committee on National Security (PCNS) on Tuesday, Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar responded to criticisms from opposition parties that the government had ignored parliament when it reopened the NATO supply route. Members of parliament’s national security panel, in particular, objected to the U.S.’s “soft apology,” having previously demanded an unconditional apology for the Salala border strike that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers before permitting the reopening of the route. Khar denied that the government had bypassed parliament with its rapprochement with the U.S.[3]

• According to a Pakistani customs official, more than 100 trucks carrying NATO supplies had crossed the Torkham border crossing in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province in the last two days. In total, roughly 140 trucks had crossed the border into Afghanistan since Pakistan reopened the supply route on July 3. Custom officials estimate that prior to the route’s closing, 150 trucks crossed the Torkham border crossing daily. On Wednesday, three trucks carrying NATO supplies were stopped in the Jamrud area of Khyber agency due to security concerns. The trucks were subsequently sent back to Peshawar. The incident followed Tuesday’s killing of a NATO truck driver by unknown gunmen.[4]

• U.S. State Department Spokesperson Victoria Nuland said on Monday that the U.S. supported India-Pakistan cricket diplomacy and was encouraging both countries to share counterterrorism information and build trust on political issues. Her statement followed India and Pakistan’s recent announcement that both countries would play each other in cricket matches later this year.[5] 

• During a television interview, outgoing U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan Cameron Munter denied media reports stating that he had written a confidential letter to President Barack Obama saying that the Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf (PTI) would sweep the next parliamentary elections.[6]

International Relations

• The Pakistani government filed a suit against the UK-based tabloid The Sun following its story of an alleged Pakistani crime ring that was issuing fake passports and visas that would allow “potential terrorists” to sneak into London as part of the Pakistani Olympic delegation. Minister for Information and Broadcasting Qamar Zaman Kaira called the report “dirty propaganda.”[7]   

Domestic Politics

• On Wednesday, Pakistan’s attorney general Irfan Qadir rejected the Supreme Court’s demand that Prime Minister Raja Pervaiz Ashraf reopen old corruption charges against President Asif Ali Zardari because Zardari had presidential immunity and said that the Supreme Court’s “order [was therefore] not implementable.” Qadir also demanded the lead judge, Asif Saeed Khosa, recuse himself from the proceedings due to his alleged bias against the president. Although Wednesday’s hearing served as the initial deadline for the government to inform the Supreme Court on whether or not Prime Minister Ashraf would fulfill the court’s order, Khosa adjourned the hearing until August 8 in response to the attorney general’s request for more time to make “serious and genuine efforts” to resolve the impasse between the government and the Supreme Court.[8]

• Speaking with Voice of America, UN Human Rights Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) spokesman Aslam Khan denied reports that Pakistan intended to expel 1.7 million Afghan refugees by year’s end. Khan stated that Afghan refugees possessing registration cards would not be sent back to Afghanistan until they were ready to return. Khan added, however, that illegal immigrants might be expelled. Additionally, Federal Minister for States and Frontier Regions, Engineer Shaukatullah said that all registered and unregistered refugees willing to return to Afghanistan would be repatriated.[9]

• On Wednesday, the Supreme Court rejected a Frontier Corps (FC) report claiming that the FC was not involved in recent mining blasts or holding in its custody missing persons from Balochistan. The court dismissed the FC’s request for police powers to search door-to-door for missing persons, and instructed the FC’s advocate to submit in writing that the FC was in “no position to maintain law and order.” Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry called the Military Intelligence (MI), Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), and FC’s failure in maintaining law and order in Balochistan a “constitutional breakdown.”[10]

Militancy

• On Tuesday, unidentified gunmen shot dead a Pakistani Taliban commander in the Shaktoi area of South Waziristan agency. The commander, Maulana Ashraf Marwat, is linked to a 2010 bombing of a volley ball tournament in Shah Hasankhel village in Lakki Marwat district that resulted in the death of almost 100 people. Local police said Marwat also previously killed another Taliban commander named Iftikhar Marwat due to his association with the Afghan Taliban.[11]

• On Wednesday, at least 20 militants armed with assault rifles crossed the Afghan border into Pakistan and attacked the Nawazish security check post in Dalasa village in the Ali Nagar sector of Kurram agency. Two security personnel were wounded in the ensuing crossfire between the militants and Pakistani forces.[12]

• Two people were killed and five others injured in separate incidents of violence in Karachi on Tuesday. Four unidentified armed men riding on motorcycles opened fire and threw a grenade at Haji Zahoor Hotel in Faqeer Colony in Karachi on Tuesday, injuring five civilians. Police in Karachi also found two bodies in Gauharabad and the Korangi Industrial Area.[13]

• Two unidentified assailants riding a bike shot and injured an education official and his companion outside the Directorate of Education near Shah Waksha Road in Quetta, Balochistan on Tuesday. One of the assailants was killed when people in the area retaliated. Police suspect that assailants targeted the education official due to his association with the Hazara community.[14]

• Unidentified attackers threw a grenade into the office of the Pakistan Peoples Party-Sherpao (PPP-S) in the Phase-I area of Hayatabad town in Peshawar, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa on Tuesday, injuring one local party activist. Suspected militants also bombed the Government Girls Primary School in Karokhel in the Badaber area on the outskirts of Peshawar on Tuesday. No casualties were reported in the incident.[15]

• A joint operation between a local militia and police in Balochistan resulted in the arrest of one person and the seizure of 140 kilograms of explosives in two separate raids in the Sui area of Dera Bugti district on Wednesday.[16]