Daily brief: 20 killed in Paktika suicide attack

Wonk Watch: C. Christine Fair, "Under the shrinking U.S. security umbrella?: India’s end game in Afghanistan," The Washington Quarterly. 

Under pressure 

Three Taliban suicide bombers shot their way into a road construction company in the Bermel district of Paktika province in eastern Afghanistan, then detonated a truck full of explosives, killing 20 and wounding around 50 (AP, Reuters, Pajhwok, NYT). A Taliban spokesman said those killed were Afghan and international troops, but an Afghan official said all the casualties were laborers. The Taliban also claimed responsibility for the kidnapping of up to 50 Afghan police recruits, according to Afghan officials, or police officers, according to the Taliban, in the Chapa Dara district of Kunar province over the weekend (McClatchy, CNN, NYT, AJE, AP, BBC). Around 50 tribal elders are said to be in negotiations with the insurgents to release the men, and the Taliban have reportedly demanded a prisoner swap in exchange for those abducted (Pajhwok).  

Afghan officials claim a NATO airstrike in the Now Zad district of Helmand province killed seven Afghan civilians, including three children, on Friday night, and the coalition has launched an investigation (NYT, AFP, WSJ, FT, AP, LAT). In an investigation into the Joint IED Defeat Organization (JIEDDO), McClatchy and the Center for Public Integrity found that the organization employed 1,666 contractors, 110 military personnel, and 142 Army civilians and has spent more than $17 billion on hundreds of initiatives to improve capabilities to detect unexploded IEDs (McClatchy, McClatchy). Roadside bombs are the top killer of U.S. troops in Afghanistan.  

Afghanistan’s Central Bank has agreed to dissolve the troubled Kabul Bank, which experienced a run last fall following the exposure of major fraud (WSJ, Post, FT, AP). The IMF required the step as a condition for financial assistance to Afghanistan to be renewed.

Afghan president Hamid Karzai visited Iran for Nowruz, and is scheduled to meet with Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and spiritual leader Ali Khomeini (AFP). 

Payback 

The Pakistani government is planning to compensate the families of 39 people killed in a suspected U.S. drone strike in North Waziristan on March 17, which Pakistani officials claim killed civilians, which U.S. officials deny (AP, AFP). Each heir will receive $3,530 for a relative who was killed and $1,176 for a relative who was wounded. Obama administration envoy to the region Marc Grossman offered apologies for the deaths of civilians in Pakistan, though did not discuss the March 17 strike specifically (Dawn, DT).  

Four people, including a woman, were killed on Sunday when gunmen fired a rocket at a vehicle traveling in Kurram (APP). A gas pipeline in Baluchistan was also blown up on Sunday (ET).  

Law and order  

The self-confessed killer of Punjab governor Salmaan Taseer, Mumtaz Qadri, reportedly specifically requested to be placed on the governor’s security detail, according to a junior clerk of the elite force assigned to guard him (Dawn, ET). Pamela Constable reports that the assassination of Shahbaz Bhatti, the minority affairs minister who was gunned down in Islamabad on March 3, has sparked a debate within Pakistan’s Christian community over how to respond, and increased tensions in Bhatti’s home village (Post). And an anti-terrorism court in Pakistan has asked the Federal Investigation Agency to seek the help of the international police agency Interpol in carrying out an arrest warrant for former Pakistani president Gen. Pervez Musharraf, on charges related to the 2007 assassination of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto (Post).   

Punjab chief minister Shahbaz Sharif said earlier today that he would rather have resigned from his post than turn Raymond Davis, the CIA contractor who shot and killed two Pakistanis in Lahore in late January and was detained until March 16, over to U.S. authorities (Dawn, ET).   

The Times of India reports that India has asked its envoy in Pakistan to reach out to Pakistani Army chief Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani and intelligence chief Lt. Gen. Ahmad Shuja Pasha, which "could open up new possibilities of deepening Indo-Pak engagement" (ToI). India’s and Pakistan’s home secretaries, the top civil servants in charge of security issues, have begun talks in New Delhi ahead of this week’s semifinal match-up between India and Pakistan in the cricket World Cup, their first formal peace talks since the 2008 Mumbai attacks (Dawn, AFP/Reuters). Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh has asked his Pakistani counterpart Yousuf Raza Gilani to watch the match with him, and also invited Pakistani president Asif Ali Zardari (Dawn).  

And the prettiest Pakistanis are…

A new survey from Gallup Pakistan finds that 55 percent of respondents believe Kashmiris and Pathans are the best-looking in the country, with 29 percent voting for Kashmiris and 26 percent for Pathans (ET). Read the results of the poll here (Gallup-pdf). 

Sign up here to receive the daily brief in your inbox. Follow the AfPak Channel on Twitter and Facebook.