Pakistan Security Brief - March 15, 2010

Pakistan Security Brief – March 15, 2010

Suicide bombing in Swat kills at least 13; Pakistani military strikes Taliban hideouts in Orakzai; top Pakistani security officials due to attend meeting in US; new report indicates US used private contractors to locate Taliban leaders; military announces South Waziristan operation will soon end; anti-Taliban leader gunned down in Mohmand; security officials seize explosives; ISI calls for greater NATO role in securing Afghan border; police commandos deployed throughout Karachi; Pakistani construction worker killed in Afghanistan.

• A suicide bombing in Swat on Saturday has killed at least 13 people, including two police officers and two soldiers, and injured more than 50 others. Witnesses say the bomber was driving a rickshaw when he detonated his explosives at a security checkpoint near the Circuit House in Saidu Sharif, the district’s administrative capital. No group has yet claimed responsibility for the attack.[1]

• A series of airstrikes targeted militant hideouts and training camps in several areas of Orakzai Agency on Sunday, killing as many as 18 militants. The homes of two militant commanders, Aslam Farooqi and Akhtar Jan, were reportedly destroyed but it is still unclear if either was killed in the attack. Military officials also stated that helicopter gunships and artillery had destroyed a large food storage facility in the area.[2]

• High level talks between US and Pakistani officials are set to take place in Washington on March 24. The meeting will cover a broad range of issues and is expected to be attended for the first time by central decision-makers such as Pakistan’s army chief of staff General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani as well as US defense secretary Robert Gates and national security adviser General Jim Jones, among others.[3]

• A report today indicates that the US defense department utilized a network of private contractors to provide them with intelligence that would help US military locate and kill Taliban leaders along the Afghan-Pakistan border. A defense department official said that the program has been shut down and the official who oversaw the operation, Michael D. Furlong, is currently under criminal investigation.[4]

• Pakistani military officials have informed the political leadership in Islamabad that all major objectives of the South Waziristan operation have been achieved and that the operation will formally end on March 30, at which point the military will hand over control of the region to civilian authorities.[5]

• On Saturday, the leader of an anti-Taliban peace committee, Lal Badshah, and his two bodyguards were killed by a group of unknown gunmen on the outskirts of Peshawar. Badshah had reportedly helped raise militias in the Baizai sub-district of Mohmand Agency to protect locals from the Taliban.[6]

• Police in Lahore have seized more than 1,500 kilograms of explosive material during the raid of a local shop near where Friday’s multiple bombings took place. On Saturday, police in Attock district stopped a truck attempting to enter Punjab province and discovered the vehicle was loaded with gunpowder and other bomb making equipment. Authorities seized the explosives but the three men riding in the vehicle fled the scene before they could be apprehended.[7]

• Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) has called for NATO to ramp up its efforts to secure the Afghan border. Major General Athar Abbas stated that the inability of NATO and the Afghan Army to control the border was hindering Pakistan’s campaign to eliminate the Taliban.[8]

• In an effort to improve the security situation in Karachi, police commandos were deployed to approximately 100 “sensitive” locations throughout the city on Sunday.[9]

• One Pakistani construction worker was killed and six others wounded in Kandahar, Afghanistan on Sunday when a roadside bomb explosion struck their vehicle.[10]