Pakistan Security Brief - October 31, 2011

Sunday drone strike kills 6; Pakistan condemns continued drone strikes; U.S. looks to ISI to arrange negotiations with Taliban and Haqqani Network; 100,000 attend political rally in Lahore; MQM hosts rally in Karachi; Pakistan spied on German police in Afghanistan says German newspaper; KP minister escapes Taliban attack; Pakistan Army to stay in KP until security is established; Roadside IED injures 3 soldiers in Miram Shah; Boy kidnapped by Taliban returns home; NATO oil tanker driver and cleaner kidnapped; Woman threatens self-immolation; Balochistan experiences increase in illegal cattle smuggling; Security officials arrest terror plot mastermind; Police have yet to file charges against man involved in 230 target killings; Political activist killed by gunmen; Gilani calls for repatriation of 3.5 million Afghan refugees.

Drone Strikes

• A U.S. drone strike in Datta Khel, North Waziristan reportedly killed six suspected militants and injured another two on Sunday. The drone allegedly fired “more than six missiles,” targeting both a militant compound and vehicle.  Meanwhile, tribesmen in the Datta Khel area claimed that the men killed in the vehicle were actually “four miners travelling from Miram Shah to Datta Khel to work in the chromites mines near the Afghan border.”[1] 

• On Friday, over 2,000 Pakistanis gathered in Islamabad to voice anti-U.S. sentiments and demand an “end to U.S. drone strikes, claiming they kill more innocent civilians than Taliban and al Qaeda leaders.”  This peaceful demonstration came as U.S. officials announced the death of two senior al Qaeda leaders, Abu Miqdad al Masri and Abd al Rahman al Yemeni, in two separate drone strikes that occurred on October 14.  Both were reportedly active in planning al Qaeda operations and Masri was considered a “former associate of Osama bin Laden.”  On Saturday, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani condemned recent U.S. drone strikes, citing the attacks as an underlying factor in deteriorating U.S.-Pakistan relations.  Gilani noted that Pakistan had never granted the U.S. permission to launch such attacks. Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar also expressed frustration over last week’s drone strikes, calling the attacks “unjustified” and “counterproductive.”[2]

U.S.-Pakistan Relations

• On Sunday, the New York Times reported on the Obama administration’s change in tactics in dealing with Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), noting that the U.S. is “now relying on the [ISI] to help organize and kick-start reconciliation talks aimed at ending the war in Afghanistan.” U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton termed the strategy “Fight, Talk, Build” in a visit to Islamabad earlier this month, citing that the U.S. was optimistic that the ISI could bring the Haqqani Network and the Taliban “to the negotiating table.”[3]

Political Rally

• Imran Khan, a former cricket star turned politician, led an “anti-government rally” in Lahore on Sunday that was attended by over 100,000 people. Khan’s political party Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf (PTI), or the Justice Party, currently holds no seats in Pakistan’s Parliament, but the “rousing welcome” Khan received from the crowd at the rally led several political analysts to speculate whether Khan may emerge as a “serious challenger to the governing Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and its longtime rival, the Pakistan Muslim League-N (PML-N)” in the 2013 general elections. Meanwhile, enthusiasm for Khan has not gone “unnoticed” by PML-N, which reports that it is “closely monitoring [Khan’s] political moves.” [4] 

• On Sunday, the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) staged a massive “pro-Zardari” rally in Karachi also attended by PPP and Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q) leaders. MQM chief Altaf Hussain called for an end to “conspiracies against democracy and…abusive remarks against President [Asif Ali] Zardari,” urging “PPP, PML-Q and [the] Awami National Party (ANP) to organize a ‘peace rally’ in Karachi to spread the message of love and harmony.”[5]

Spy Charges

• The German newspaper Bild am Sonntag reported Sunday that Germany’s foreign intelligence agency, Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND) had “warned its Interior Ministry that Pakistan had spied on 180 German police officers deployed in Afghanistan to train locals.” Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry rejected the accusation on Monday, and Pakistan Army spokesman Major General Athar Abbas “said the report was not worth commenting on.”[6]

Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa

• Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Minister for Housing and Physical Planning, Amjad Khan Afridi, escaped an attack in Kohat district on Monday, which a Peshawar intelligence official attributed to the Taliban.[7]

• On Saturday, Lieutenant General Asif Yasin Malik vowed that Pakistan Army troops would not retreat from Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa until “complete security had been ensured” in the region.[8]

FATA

• Three Pakistan Army soldiers were injured by a roadside improvised explosive device (IED) blast on Sunday in Miram Shah on the Miram Shah-Bannu road.  Security officials had previously implemented a curfew on residents of Miram Shah, Mir Ali, and Razmak to allow for the movement of troops along the road.  Meanwhile, authorities reopened the Thall-Parachinar road, which links Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province to the FATA, after five years of closure.   The reopening of the road was marked with a ceremony attended by local tribal leaders, as well as “representatives of Sunni and Shia communities and political administration.”  The reopening of the Thall-Parachinar road, in concert with the implementation of the Murree Peace Agreement, will facilitate the return of “80 Sunni families displaced from Parachinar in 1982.”[9]

• A boy kidnapped by the Taliban nearly two months ago has escaped captivity and reached his home in Bajaur agency.  The boy, who was one of 25 boys kidnapped, is the third to return home in the past month.[10]

Balochistan

• A NATO oil tanker driver and cleaner were kidnapped by unidentified gunmen on Sunday in Bolan district.[11] 

• A woman has threatened to set herself on fire in front of the Balochistan Assembly if her brother, who was reportedly “kidnapped” by security officials on September 20, is not “safely returned” to her family.  The woman maintained that her brother “had no affiliation with any political party or organization and had never been involved in any illegal activities,” and demanded that any charges against him be brought to court.[12]

• Balochistan is reportedly experiencing an “unprecedented” increase in “illegal cattle and flock smuggling to Afghanistan and Iran,” according to locals. Despite a ban on animal smuggling, the problem persists due to the “absence of checks” along highways leading to Pakistan’s neighbors, Afghanistan and Iran.[13]

Punjab

• On Sunday, security officials in Okara arrested “the mastermind behind [a] terrorist plot to attack the Pakistan Parliament.”  The suspect, Saadullah, was formerly an elite commando in Pakistan’s Special Services Group (SSG).  Security officials had previously arrested four suspects in connection to the plot on October 8.[14]

Karachi Violence

• Karachi police officials have reported that “almost every specialized unit of the police [has] showed reluctance to investigate charges and prepare a charge-sheet” against a “suspected hit man” with connections to 230 target killings given the challenge of establishing “his indirect involvement in so many cases.”[15]

• An “office-bearer” of Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat (ASWJ), formerly known as Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan, was killed by two gunmen on Sunday in Karachi.  Another ASJW “associate” was injured in the attack.[16]

Afghan Refugee Repatriation

• Prime Minister Gilani has called on the international community to assist in the repatriation of over 3.5 million Afghan refugees to “their homeland,” saying that the refugees’ stay has resulted in “numerous difficulties” for Pakistan.[17]