Daily brief: Lahore suicide attack kills at least 7

Breaking news

Initial reports about a blast just heard in Lahore say that at least 7 people were killed, including four policemen, and at least 47 wounded in an explosion near a Shia mourning procession at the Bhati Gate (The News, Geo, Dawn, AP, BBC). Police said the blast, coming as thousands of Shia worshippers marked the end of the holy month of Muharram, was a suicide attack by a teenage boy.

Karin Brulliard describes the University of Karachi, where last semester ended "with a flurry of clashes involving armed student organizations, a professors’ strike against violence, canceled exams and a lunchtime bombing," as a microcosm of ethnic and political conflict in the southern port city, where three times as many people died in political violence in 2010 as in 2009 (Post). Pakistani interior minister Rehman Malik recently ruled out an army operation in Karachi, though did say the Pakistani army would be sent "wherever the need arises" (The News, Dawn).

Flashpoint

Leaders from the Indian political party the BJP, a Hindu nationalist group currently in the opposition, were reportedly detained at the airport in Jammu en route to making an attempt to raise the Indian flag in the Lal Chowk area of Srinagar, the summer capital of Indian-administered Kashmir in commemoration of Republic Day tomorrow, marking India’s adoption of a democratic constitution (AP, IE, Hindu). More than a dozen Kashmiri separatist groups said they would oppose any such attempts, and Indian and Kashmiri authorities are concerned the move would cause violence in the valley.

The BJP members were trying to go ahead with their plan to raise the flag and hold a rally beginning on the border of Jammu and Kashmir and the Indian state of Punjab, and have apparently been ignoring calls from Indian home minister P. Chidambaram to "give up the path of confrontation" (WSJ, PTI, IE). The three leaders were reportedly arrested at the border earlier today (Hindu). A standoff continues at the border, where authorities have sealed off routes into Kashmir and forced around 7,000 BJP supporters into buses to be taken away (Reuters). The remaining 2,500 protesters face arrest.

Deal making

The U.S. and U.N. have offered the first international endorsements of the deal reached between Afghan president Hamid Karzai and Afghan parliamentarians to open the parliament tomorrow, rather than in a month as Karzai proposed last week, and keep the special tribunal appointed by Karzai to investigate fraud in last year’s parliamentary elections, rather than abolishing it as the MPs demanded (AP, Tolo, WSJ, McClatchy, AP). Observers and Afghan MPs are concerned that Karzai will use the tribunal, whose constitutionality has been condemned by the international community, to filter out opposition legislators. NATO said yesterday that the alliance plans to start transferring security control to Afghan forces in some areas of the country in March, with secretary general Anders Fogh Rasmussen emphasizing the "need for a timely opening of parliament" to contribute to a "stable political environment" (Reuters).

Outgoing special inspector general for Afghan reconstruction Arnold Fields said yesterday in congressional testimony that of 884 bases scheduled to be built by the U.S. for Afghan security forces by the end of fiscal 2012, only 133 have been completed and 78 are under construction, leaving 673 not yet begun (AFP, Post). More than $11 billion in American funding for the base construction projects is reportedly "at risk of being wasted" because the Pentagon has no "comprehensive plan" for the program, according to Fields, who steps down next month.

A tree grows in Lashkar Gah

As many as 100,000 trees will be planted in Afghanistan’s southern Helmand province as part of a greening initiative in and around the provincial capital, Lashkar Gah (Pajhwok). Afghan authorities have 114,000 saplings in stock, and farmers are also bringing seeds to bazaars.

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