Daily brief: senior Pakistani military officer assassinated in Islamabad

A hail of bullets

A high-ranking Pakistani military official was assassinated by two suspected militants on motorbikes in a residential area of Islamabad this morning, along with another Pakistani soldier, in what is believed to be the first targeted attack on a senior military officer in the capital (New York Times, Dawn, AP, AFP, BBC). Brigadier Moinudin Ahmed was the head of Pakistan’s U.N. peacekeeping mission in Sudan, and his death in Pakistan’s eighth terrorist attack this month affirms two things: ongoing militant desire to target Pakistan’s security institutions, and extremists’ reach into all areas of the country (AFP, Dawn, Wall Street Journal, Reuters).

Yesterday morning’s reported drone strike in North Waziristan, which may have actually been an explosion, not a drone, may have killed several insurgents including a top al Qaeda leader, though details of his identity are fuzzy (AFP, Dawn, The News, Daily Times). Missile strikes in Pakistan could cause the fraying of a fragile accord between the Pakistani military and a powerful tribal commander who controls the territory where the alleged drone hit yesterday, as the Pakistan Army continues to battle Taliban militants in South Waziristan (AP, Guardian). Since the launch of the anticipated offensive on Saturday, 16 Pakistani soldiers and 105 militants have been killed according to Pakistan’s army, including 25 in the last day, though independent verification of these figures is impossible (Dawn). The Pakistan Army has released the first footage of the war zone in the mountainous terrain of South Waziristan (BBC).

The last installment of New York Times reporter David Rohde’s account of his seven month long ordeal, in which he was kidnapped by Haqqani militants and held in nine different locations in Waziristan, describes his dramatic escape from captivity (New York Times). The epilogue rounds out the must-read series (New York Times).

Poppystan

A new report from the United Nations found that Afghan opium, a $65 billion worldwide market, kills 100,000 people every year, has given the Taliban some half a billion dollars in “taxes” over the past four years, and accounts for 92 percent of the world’s supply of the main ingredient in heroin (CNN, BBC, AP, Reuters, McClatchy). Heroin overdoses kill some 10,000 people in NATO countries annually — more than five times the total number of NATO soldiers killed in Afghanistan since the war began in 2001 (AFP, Times of India). The full report is available from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC, 152 pp, pdf).

Rajiv Chandrasekaran outlines the “fragile” gains that have been made in Nawa, a district of Helmand province in Afghanistan’s troubled and poppy-riddled south, since a battalion of U.S. Marines was deployed in early July, providing a potential model for success across Afghanistan (Washington Post). The number of troops in the district went from 100 to 1,100 and focused on providing population security instead of hunting militants, leading to a near-disappearance of attacks on civilians and NATO forces by insurgents, who have reportedly moved about 10 miles to the northwest.

Election: the redux

Afghan election officials, aided by the U.N., are scurrying to prepare for the runoff between incumbent President Hamid Karzai and second place candidate Abdullah Abdullah, scheduled for November 7 (AP, Guardian). In an attempt to limit fraud in the second election, Afghan officials will cut about 7,000 of the 24,000 polling places, mostly in areas that were too insecure to open on August 20, and replace about 200 of the nearly 3,000 district-level election coordinators suspected of misconduct (AP).

Plans for security arrangements on the second election day are also underway, and a Taliban spokesman told the Wall Street Journal that the militants’ leadership met yesterday to discuss how it will deal with the new vote (Wall Street Journal). And concerns about potentially inflamed ethnic tensions are rising ahead of the second round (Financial Times).

Chatter is increasing about a possible coalition government between Karzai and Abdullah, though the prospect seems remote (New York Times, McClatchy, Times of London, Washington Post, Bloomberg). The Obama administration has been signaling that a hotly debated decision about troop levels in the country is linked to the results of a second round of elections in Afghanistan (AP).

Vroom vroom

The number of driver’s licenses issued to women in Afghanistan in the Kabul area went up fourfold between April and October, though women face many obstacles to driving in the “male-dominated Muslim society” that has traditionally discouraged women from participating in public life (Los Angeles Times). The Taliban declared in May 2001 that having women behind the wheel was both “against Afghan traditions” and “has a negative impact on the environment,” but women are driving more anyway.

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JOHN D MCHUGH/AFP/Getty Images