Daily brief: U.S. will investigate Davis case: Kerry

The Rack: An occasional new AfPak Channel Daily Brief mini-feature with highlights from the magazine rack. Today: Pakistan’s Herald has a four-part investigation into the country’s blasphemy laws: the law of diminishing utility, shrunken space, law unto themselves, and what the law says. Send suggestions!

Davis drama continues

Yesterday in Lahore, senator John Kerry expressed regret over the deaths of two Pakistani men shot and killed late last month by Raymond Davis, who the AP reports showed Pakistani officials an ID card indicating that he is a Department of Defense contractor, and promised the U.S. will investigate the case if Pakistan were to release Davis (AP, WSJ, Post, Tel, ET/AFP, AFP, AP, ABC, BBC, LAT). Getting involved for the first time, U.S. president Barack Obama also said yesterday that Davis has diplomatic immunity and must be released at once.

Pakistan’s Foreign Office sent a letter to the law ministry declaring that Davis qualifies for diplomatic immunity, and tomorrow the Pakistani government is expected to tell a court in Lahore that most of its legal experts believe he is immune from prosecution (AP, Geo, Daily Times, Dawn, Reuters). Former Pakistani foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi, the most prominent member of Pakistan’s federal cabinet not to be reappointed in a recent reshuffle, however, asserted that his expert advisers told him Davis does not qualify for "blanket immunity," and implied that this belief cost him the foreign ministry job (ET/AFP). Jane Perlez reports that Qureshi was "widely interpreted by politicians here [in Pakistan] as following the wishes of the military" (NYT). Davis is due back in court tomorrow. Bonus read: Raymond Davis and the cost of immunity (FP).  

A Pakistani military offensive in the northwest tribal region of Mohmand has killed 120 militants, and a tribal official said 90 percent of the agency has been cleared (AP). And in Baluchistan, militants continue to attack gas pipelines (The News). Bonus read: Baluchistan: Pakistan’s other war (FP).

Out and out

As the Post mentioned yesterday, the Times of London reports that Gen. David Petraeus, top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, will rotate out of the country by the end of this year, and speculation about his next role includes chairman or vice-chairman of the joint chiefs (Post, Times, Tel, Guardian, Stars and Stripes). Brig. Gen. Jukka Savolainen, the chief of the E.U.’s police training mission in Afghanistan, is one of few to question NATO’s decision to draw down troops by 2014, commenting, "The locals are so afraid. They are convinced that once we leave, their throats will be cut" (NYT). And the AP interviews villagers in Kandahar who say that in spite of the surge of international troops, security is scarce (AP).

The IMF has recommended that the troubled Kabul Bank be placed into receivership, a type of bankruptcy, and quickly sold off, which a senior Afghan official said would be "politically unacceptable for President [Hamid] Karzai and the political elite alleged to have profited from the bank’s largesse" (AP, FT, NYT, Times). A federal grand jury in the southern district of New York is reportedly hearing evidence about the alleged involvement of Mahmood Karzai, Hamid Karzai’s brother and a dual U.S.-Afghan citizen who owns a 7 percent stake in the Kabul Bank, in racketeering, extortion, and tax evasion, in what U.S. officials believe "would likely represent their best chance to try a high-profile Afghan corruption case in an American court, sidestepping an Afghan justice system that has shown little inclination to tackle high-level graft" (WSJ).

A little footie

A 28-day football (soccer) tournament kicked off today in Afghanistan’s southern Uruzgan province, taking place in Uruzgan city although it lacks a playing ground (Pajhwok). Sixteen teams from nearby villages will participate. 

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