U.S. drone strike kills six, including “high value target;” Al Qaeda bomb maker added to Specially Designated Global Terrorist list; Pakistani troops kill Indian officer on Kashmir border; Nawaz Sharif’s cabinet sworn in; Sharif removes top energy officials; PPP’s Kursheed Shah appointed as NA opposition leader; Pakistan Army to withdraw from Swat; Bill Gates and Imran Khan to talk about polio crisis; Eight kidnapped by TTP will not be released; Drone victims' families urge new government to end strikes; Nawaz Sharif appoints head of IB; No major policy changes to occur vis-à-vis India; U.S. intelligence official calls Pakistan and India’s new tactical missiles a “strategic miscalculation;” Two killed in Charsadda; NATO supply driver killed in Chaman; 10 year old released from militant rehabilitation; JUI-F protests religious leaders’ arrest; Child added to revised death toll in TTP shootout; Musharraf’s counsel requests information on treason allegations; Nawaz Sharif fails to offer new information on Iran pipeline and drones; Two sentenced to death in landmark Karachi case; JUI-F urges negotiations with Taliban while citizens' petition condemns peace talks; 94 Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa checkpoints abolished; Four wounded in Karachi shootings; Grenade thrown at factory; PML-N completes Punjab cabinet.
Militancy
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A U.S. drone strike killed six suspected militants, including a suspected “high value target,” on Friday in the Shawal area of North Waziristan. The U.S. drone strike is the first since the death of top Taliban leader Wali-ur-Rehman on May 29. [1]
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The U.S. Treasury named Abd al Hamid al Masli to the list of Specially Designated Global Terrorists on Wednesday. Al Masli is reportedly living in either North or South Waziristan and is a primary Improvised Explosive Device (IED) maker for al Qaeda. According to the Treasury, targeted sanctions will be used to eliminate Al Masli’s financial and trade networks.[2]
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On Friday, Deputy Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Parliamentary Leader Shaukat Ali Yousafzai declared that the Pakistan Army will withdraw from Swat district. The army had been deployed to Swat since 2009, when a major military operation was launched to retake the district from militant control. The withdrawal will reportedly be a gradual one. [3]
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The Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) has delayed releasing eight kidnapped employees of the Gomal Zam dam project, according to deputy attorney general Iqbal Mohmand in a statement on Thursday. The TTP and Pakistani government had been in the final stages of negotiation; however, the death of deputy TTP commander Wali-ur-Rehman by a U.S. drone strike on May 29 has delayed the process.[4]
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Unidentified men opened fire on a pickup truck in Charsadda, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa on Friday, killing two men, and wounding two others. [5]
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Unknown gunmen on motorcycles shot and killed the driver of a NATO supply truck in Chaman, Balochistan on Friday. The truck had been carrying fuel to U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan. [6]
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A ten year old boy—picked up in lieu of his father—was released on Thursday from a militant rehabilitation center emphasizing vocational and psychological training in Orakzai agency; the boy’s father Khial Khan, is a suspected militant.[7]
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Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) protestors gathered in Mardan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa on Thursday to protest the arrests of three prayer leaders from the district. JUI-F head of Mardan told authorities that the arrested men were JUI-F members, and not affiliated with militants. [8]
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A child was added to the death toll of a firefight between TTP militants and Pakistani security forces in Quetta on Thursday. Initial reports claimed two militants and two women were killed, along with fifteen security forces wounded. [9]
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Maulana Fazlur Rehman, the chief of the JUI-F, on Friday urged the new government under Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to create a healthy environment for talks with the Taliban. According to Rehman, “We have to take them on board, otherwise we will not be able to maintain sovereignty in FATA whether because of Taliban challenging the writ of the state or drones violating our sovereignty.” [10]
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A petition filed by citizens in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa on Friday urged Chief Minister Pervez Khattak to refrain from peace negotiations with the Taliban. The petition’s legal justification falls under Article 256 of the Political Parties Order of 2002 which states, “no private organization capable of functioning as a military organization shall be formed, and any such organization shall be illegal.”[11]
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Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Pervez Khattak issued a directive abolishing 94 police checkpoints in 8 districts throughout Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, raising the number of abandoned posts in the last two days to 142.[12]
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Four men were wounded in three separate shootings in Karachi on Friday. Unidentified men opened fire on two men on the Banaras Bridge, while the other two were wounded when fired upon on Ispahani Road and Lyari Expressway respectively. [13]
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Unknown men lobbed a grenade at a closed marble factory on Friday in Karachi; no one was killed or wounded in the attack. [14]
Indo-Pak Relations
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On Friday, Pakistani troops allegedly shot and killed an Indian army officer in the Poonch sector of the Kashmir border. According to a senior Indian army officer, “suddenly there was firing from the other side and our officer was killed.”[15]
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Despite cordial gestures between Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, senior Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) officials indicate that no major foreign policy changes are in the works between the two nations. The reason for this, according to PML-N sources, is that the government plans on focusing on energy priorities for the next one year and also sees little enthusiasm in the Indian government for undertaking a major foreign policy shift vis-a-vis Pakistan. Both Singh and Sharif had invited one another to visit each other’s respective countries following Sharif’s May 11 election. [16]
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On Wednesday, a U.S. intelligence officer labeled Pakistan and India’s development of new precision-strike missiles as dangerous and unstable. Both Pakistan and India’s newly developed missiles are intended to allow strikes within each other’s respective countries, without “retaliatory escalation.” However, according to the U.S. intelligence officer, such beliefs could create “more possibilities for dangerous strategic miscalculation.” [17]
New Government
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This Friday, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s 25-member cabinet was sworn into office by President Asif Ali Zardari. [18]
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In response to the current electrical crisis, Nawaz Sharif removed the chairman of the Water and Power Development Authority (WAPDA) and all of the heads of power distribution companies on Thursday. Sharif “called for getting rid of incompetent officials as well as useless machines to put the country on road to development.” [19]
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Syed Kursheed Shah of the Pakistan Peoples Party was announced as leader of the opposition in Pakistan’s National Assembly on Friday. The PPP won the second-most seats at the center and its candidate for prime minister received the second-most number of votes during voting on Wednesday. [20]
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On Thursday, the families of drone victims sent Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif a letter pleading the new government to end drone strikes, by military force if necessary. The families urged Sharif to follow a May 9 Peshawar High Court ruling, which labeled the drone strikes a “war crime.”[21]
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Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif appointed Aftab Sultan as the country's chief civilian spymaster, the Director General of the Intelligence Bureau, on Friday. Sultan served in the same position between 2011 and 2012 under former Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani. [22]
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Pervez Musharraf’s legal counsel, Ahmed Raza Kasuri, asked the Supreme Court to clarify the new government’s views on Musharraf’s treason proceedings on Thursday. The interim government had deferred the decision, claiming charging Musharraf with treason was “not in its mandate” and would be a matter for the incoming government to decide. [23]
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In a statement to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Thursday, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif notably left out guidance on the Iran-Pakistan pipeline, as well as U.S. drone strikes, avoiding two contentious issues in U.S.-Pakistan relations. [24]
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The PML-N completed its Punjab cabinet on Friday; Rana Sanaullah has been named senior minister of the Punjab cabinet, Zaeem Qadri will be minister of education, Khawaja Mushir will be minister of health, and Iqbal Chantar will be minister of prisons, with Mujtaba Shuja ur Rehman serving as minister of finance and Khalil Sindho as minister of minorities.[25]
U.S. Pakistan Relations
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According to the Express Tribune, Bill Gates and Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf leader Imran Khan are scheduled to speak on the telephone together in the near future regarding the eradication of polio. Gates has already sent a personal letter to Khan regarding polio in PTI’s stronghold, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa. The Taliban have banned polio vaccines in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, alleging espionage by polio aid workers. [26]
Domestic
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In the culmination of a high profile case on Friday in Karachi, two wealthy young Pakistani men were sentenced to death for shooting a university student, Shahzeb Khan. The case was notable for the fact that both the men accused came from two of the wealthiest families in Pakistan and the degree to which activists used social media to build pressure on law enforcement officials and the courts to take action against the perpetrators. [27]