Pakistan Security Brief - June 24, 2009

Pakistan Security Brief – June 24, 2009

• Around eighty people were killed after a series of drone strikes in South Waziristan on Tuesday targeted the funeral of a militant killed in an earlier strike. The attack on the funeral took place in the Ladha region after the funeral prayers were offered for Khwaz Ali Mehsud, a commander of Beitullah Mehsud and the Pakistani Taliban. It is rumored that a number of Taliban leaders may have been present, including Beitullah Mehsud, Qari Hussain and Sangeen; Qari Hussain and Sangeen were reportedly killed in the strike, however, militants associated with Qari Hussain indicated Hussain was still alive.[1]
   
• Reports indicate that Maulana Shah Dauran, a senior deputy in the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) Swat, has been seriously wounded following Pakistan military operations in Swat while other militants were reportedly killed in the Kabal area of Swat district.[2]
   
• U.S. Colonel John Spiszer, commander of the 1st Infantry division based in northeast Afghanistan, stated that the operations of the Pakistan military against the Taliban militants in the frontier have “cut insurgent attacks across the border in eastern Afghanistan” and  “[deprived] them of a cheap supply of arms.” He made specific reference to operations in Bajaur agency as being responsible for the militants suffering a shortage of money and arms in Afghanistan.[3] 
   
• A Beitullah Mehsud deputy has officially claimed responsibility on behalf of Beitullah for the killing of his rival, Qari Zainuddin Mehsud. Wali Rehman told reporters that Zainuddin had to be killed because of “his involvement in activities against the TTP interests in the tribal belt.” He further warned that “Anybody who was found involved in anti-TTP activities will face the same fate.” Gulbaddin Mehsud, the attacker that Beitullah allegedly dispatched to kill Zainuddin, managed to escape after the attack.[4]
   
• An aid group has said that militant groups were operating in refugee camps and communities housing IDPs across the country. It says these “political actors” were providing aid to the displaced in the midst of a shortage of relief supplies facing other aid agencies. UN officials say that “only about 30 percent of a $543 million aid appeal it launched in May in a bid to avert a long-term humanitarian crisis had been met.” Aid groups blame the delays for creating a “vacuum which militants and other ‘political actors’ were filling.”[5]