Pakistan Security Brief - June 11, 2012

U.S. to resume aggressive drone campaign; Al Qaeda’s media arm says al Libi not dead and will be in new video; Relationship between U.S. and Pakistan appears increasingly adversarial; Pakistani Army Chief Ashfaq Parvez Kayani declines to meet with U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense; U.S. negotiators quit NATO supply route talks; India and Pakistan meet to discuss Siachen; Bomb blast kills six and wounds 50 others in Balochistan; Suspected militants kill ten in South Waziristan; 15 people killed in Karachi over the weekend; Balochistan justice blames foreign intelligence agencies for instability in the region; Punjab government rejects Afridi’s transfer to jail in Rawalpindi.

Drone Strikes and the Death of Top Al Qaeda Leader

• U.S. President Barack Obama is directing the CIA to increase the aggressiveness of its drone campaign in Pakistan, according to two U.S. officials quoted by Bloomberg on Saturday. The Obama administration has become increasingly frustrated with local militants who cross into Afghanistan and carry out deadly attacks on U.S. and allied troops, according to the two U.S. officials. Days after U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said the U.S. relationship with Pakistan is “reaching the limits of our patience,” the resumption of an aggressive drone campaign in Pakistan may result in the Obama administration approving targeted strikes that may otherwise have been vetoed.[1]

• Al Qaeda’s Sahab media arm posted onto two websites on Sunday that they will air a new video featuring the group’s deputy leader Abu Yahya al Libi, who the U.S. confirmed killed in a drone strike in North Waziristan this past Monday. The two websites – Ansar and Alfidaa – claimed that al Libi, reportedly al Qaeda’s second-in-command behind Ayman al Zawahiri, remained alive and promised “soon, a video message by Sheikh Abu Yahya al Libi, may Allah protect him.”[2]

U.S.-Pakistan Relations

• The relationship between Pakistan and the U.S. has reached its lowest level since the 9/11 attacks, with the two countries looking increasingly more like enemies than allies, according to a report by the Associated Press. Maleeha Lodhi, Pakistan’s ambassador to the U.S. when the 9/11 attacks occurred, said the relationship “has taken on attributes and characteristics now of a near-adversarial relationship.” The latest irritant in the relationship between the two countries is a stalemate between the two countries in negotiations over reopening NATO supply routes. Referencing U.S. frustration over Pakistan’s refusal to reopen NATO supply lines and allegations that Pakistan is not doing enough to fight the Haqqani network, a senior U.S. official described the relationship between the two countries as “the worst it has ever been.”[3]

• Pakistani Army chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani declined to meet with U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Peter Lavoy, according to Pakistani officials speaking to The News on Monday. Though it is unclear whether Lavoy was provided a reason for the rejected meeting proposal, one Pakistani official said Kayani declined to meet with the deputy assistant secretary of defense due to allegations by the U.S. that Pakistan was not doing enough to fight local militants near the border with Afghanistan. The unnamed official added that the rejection was meant “to tell the Americans that you cannot be bad-mouthing us day in and day out and then expect a meeting with Pakistan's most powerful personality."[4]

NATO Supply Routes

• Speaking to reporters on Monday, Pentagon spokesman George Little said U.S. negotiators attempting to reach a deal with Pakistan over reopening NATO supply lines are quitting talks and returning to the U.S. “for a short period of time.” The negotiators have failed to reach an agreement after seven weeks of haggling over transit prices and the politics surrounding Pakistan’s demand that the U.S. apologize for a NATO air strike that killed 24 soldiers near the Afghanistan border in November. While Pakistani officials initially demanded a price of $5,000 per truck on each supply route trip, a senior American official speaking on the condition of anonymity said the figure has “dropped to a much more realistic level” after talks between American deputy secretary of state Thomas R. Nides, and Pakistani Finance Minister Abdul Hafeez Shaikh. Though the U.S. has offered to repave the highways between Karachi and the Afghan border, Pakistan’s upcoming election has prompted President Asif Ali Zardari to avoid anything that could appear as a concession to the U.S. Pentagon spokesman Little told reporters that “Part of the team left Islamabad over the weekend, and the rest will return shortly.”[5]

India-Pakistan Relations

• Indian and Pakistani defense officials met at the Pakistani ministry in Rawalpindi on Monday for the thirteenth round of talks between the two countries over the disputed Siachen Glacier. An April 7 avalanche that killed 140 people at a Pakistani army camp prompted Pakistani Army chief General Kayani to call for a demilitarization of the area. India, however, is reluctant to withdraw from the Siachen peaks, with an Indian defense official saying “our stand on Siachen is well known to the other side and the talks would continue within those parameters.” Both sides noted that a breakthrough is unlikely, with India’s Defense Minister A.K. Antony saying “do not expect any dramatic announcement or decision on an issue which is very important to us, especially in the context of [our] national security.” The delegations – led by S.K. Sharma on the Indian side and Nargis Sethi on the Pakistani side – plan to release a joint statement on Tuesday.[6]

Militancy

• A bomb blast killed six people and wounded 50 others on Monday when an explosive device planted on a motorbike detonated as a bus drove by near the town of Dreengar in Mastung District, Balochistan, an area about 40 kilometers south of the provincial capital of Quetta. According to an official from Mastung District, unidentified assailants attempted to time the explosive device to explode near a convoy of vehicles carrying Shia Muslims, but instead hit a passenger bus transiting from the town of Nushki near the Iranian border.[7]

• At least two men were killed and two children wounded when a remote-controlled explosive device detonated in the Tirah valley in Khyber tribal region on Monday. According to security sources, a first bomb exploded near the borders of Khyber’s Landi Kotal and Bara districts, ripping through a pickup truck and killing the driver instantly. As first-responders examined the destroyed vehicles, a second bomb exploded, wounding two children and killing a man security sources later identified as militant commander Umer Afridi.[8]

• Suspected militants killed at least ten people and injured ten others in a series of rocket attacks on a security checkpost in the town of Wana in South Waziristan on Sunday. Security forces were conducting routine patrols at midnight when eight rockets hit the checkpost, killing a security officer and wounding three others. Nine more people were killed and seven others injured as rocket firing continued until morning.[9]

• A police operation supported by armed tribesmen that was launched against a gang involved in banditry and kidnapping in the Chaghi district of Balochistan province on Friday resulted in the death of 16 people, including twelve gang members and four tribesmen.[10]

• Violence continued in Karachi over the weekend with 15 people killed across the city. Five people were killed and another wounded when two criminal groups exchanged gunfire in Musharraf Colony near Hawk’s Bay. Police discovered one body in Baldia Town’s Mawach Goth area, two bodies dumped at Liaquatabad, another body near Safoorah Goth, Gulistan-e Jauhar area, and one more in Lyari on Sunday. Unidentified gunmen also killed six people, including a Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) activist, in PIB Colony, sparking reprisal violence that resulted in the injuring of six more people. Four members of Waziristan’s Mehsud tribe were also killed when unidentified gunmen opened fire on a rickshaw in Al Asif Square.[11]

Law Enforcement

• Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, in reference to the possible imposition of martial law in the country, said the era of martial law has ended. Prime Minister Gilani was speaking to the media at a press conference in Lahore, where he said “there is no room for martial law in Pakistan.”[12]

• Justice Javed Iqbal, head of the judicial commission formed for the recovery of missing persons, blamed foreign intelligence agencies for the deteriorating security environment in Balochistan. Speaking at a news conference at the Civil Secretariat in Quetta on Saturday, Justice Iqbal claimed to have concrete evidence implicating foreign intelligence agencies in a crime related to 42 bodies of missing persons that were recently found in Balochistan. Justice Iqbal added that these foreign intelligence agencies “wanted to deteriorate the situation in Balochistan in order to destabilize Pakistan.”[13]

Osama bin Laden Informant

• Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa’s information minister Mian Iftikhar Hussain said on Sunday that the Punjab government rejected a request to transfer Shakil Afridi, the doctor who helped the CIA locate Osama bin Laden, to the Adiala Jail in Rawalpindi. The Punjab government claims that Dr. Afridi is a security threat and that the province does not want to add to its existing law and order problems. Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa’s home and tribal affairs department had earlier requested the federal government shift Afridi from a central prison in Peshawar to Adiala jail due to security concerns.[14]