Pakistan Security Brief

Rocket attack from Iran kills one and injures six in Balochistan; PTI continues Peshawar protest against drone strikes; Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa NATO blockade could cost Pakistan $2.5 billion in trade with Afghanistan; Demonstrators in Azad Kashmir protest Indian LoC wall; CIA slow to transfer drone program to Department of Defense; Army forces strike targets in North Waziristan; Eleven kidnapped polio workers released in Khyber agency; Two killed in Quetta attack; Atomic Energy Commission identifies six locations for new nuclear power plants; Prime Minister reportedly decides on new army chief.

Iran-Pakistan Relations

• A rocket fired from across the border with Iran killed one and injured six in Tump, Kech district, Balochistan on Monday. The target was reportedly the house of Mullah Omer, who is the leader of an Iranian-based religious organization known as Jaish-ul-Adl, and several of his associates. Jaish-ul-Adl killed 15 Iranian border guards in October.[1]

Khyber-Pakhtunkwha Protests

• On Tuesday, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) activists led by opposition politician Imran Khan blocked the main supply route for provisions destined for NATO troops in Afghanistan in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa. The protestors blame drones for causing civilian deaths and for crushing any chance of peace talks with the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). Supporters of the Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) were also present at the protest. Pakistan claims to be committed to allowing supplies through, but has not yet intervened to reopen the supply route.[2]

• On Tuesday, several men got into a fight near the PTI camp in Peshawar and opened fire, causing panic among the protestors. PTI Peshawar General Secretary Younis Zaheer said that none of the people involved in the fighting were PTI activists.[3]

• According to a Tuesday report in The News, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s (PTI) blockade of North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) supply lines to Afghanistan will cost Pakistan $2.5 billion in trade with Afghanistan. Representatives of the Afghan Transit Trade say that Afghan trade with Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa has already been reduced by 80 percent, due to the instability in the province, and the blockade could cause trade to deteriorate further.[4]

India-Pakistan Relations

• On Sunday, protestors in Muzaffarabad, Azad Kashmir demonstrated against India’s plan to build a wall along the Line of Control (LoC) in Kashmir, and the working boundary in Sialkot district, Punjab. The protest was organized by Pasban-e-Hurriyat.[5]

U.S. Drone Strikes

• According to a Tuesday article in the Washington Post, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) remains behind the vast majority of drone strikes carried out by the United States. Efforts to transfer the CIA’s drone operations to the Department of Defense highlight a conviction among many senior administration officials that the CIA should return to its mission of intelligence-gathering, but according to Representative Adam Schiff (D-California), a member of the House Intelligence Committee, the push to get the CIA out of large-scale lethal operations is “proving difficult to accomplish.”[6]

Militancy

• On Tuesday, the Pakistan Army began an operation with helicopter gunships in Mir Ali, North Waziristan agency against militant hideouts. The goal of the operation is unclear, as is the identity of the militant group being targeted.[7]

• On Monday, Lashkar-e-Islam militants released a group of polio workers kidnapped last week in Khyber agency while carrying out a children’s polio vaccination campaign at a local school. According to the BBC, tribal elders in Khyber secured the releases after negotiating with the militants.[8]

• On Tuesday, Rangers arrested twenty-four criminals in several targeted raids throughout Karachi. Weapons, including sub-machine guns and other ammunition, were recovered from the criminals.[9]

• On Tuesday, unidentified armed militants fired on a bus near Gahi Khan Chowk, Quetta, killing two.[10]

Domestic

• On Tuesday, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif said the Atomic Energy Commission had identified six locations where future civil-nuclear energy power plants would be built in Pakistan. Sharif emphasized that initiating power projects to overcome Pakistan’s energy shortage is the top priority of the government.[11]

• According to a Tuesday report in The News, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has already made a decision on who he will promote to be the next army chief and the next Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee (CJCSC), and has shared his choice with several close advisers. According to the report, Sharif will disclose his decision the day before the new chief is due to begin taking over his duties.[12]