Daily brief: Dozens dead in Peshawar blasts

The Shelf: Brian Fishman and Assaf Moghadam, Fault Lines in Global Jihad: Organizational, Strategic, and Ideological Fissures, Routledge.

The Rack: Mohammad Hanif, "Pakistan’s General Problem," Open.

Dual bombings just minutes apart near a popular market in the Pakistani city of Peshawar soon after midnight on Sunday killed at least 39 and injured over 100 people (Reuters, AP, AFP/ET, AJE, BBC, CNN). Police indicated that the first explosion was small, bringing police and onlookers to the scene, before a second, larger explosion was triggered, reportedly by a suicide bomber on a motorbike. Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) spokesman Ehsanullah Ehsan denied responsibility for the carnage in a phone call to the AFP, saying, "We did not carry out this attack in Peshawar. It is an attempt by foreign secret agencies who are doing it to malign us" (AFP, Dawn, DT).

The attacks occurred just after a surprise visit to Pakistan by CIA chief Leon Panetta, who arrived in Islamabad on Friday (Post, BBC). Panetta reportedly confronted Pakistan’s military and intelligence leadership over alleged collusion between militants and security forces, after the United States provided intelligence in mid-May about bombmaking sites in North and South Waziristan that were then evacuated within 24 hours of the information being handed over (TIME, Post, NYT, Tel, AFP, ET).

Pakistan army leader Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani and intelligence head Lt. Gen. Ahmad Shuja Pasha also reportedly refused to grant the CIA permission to conduct independent operations in Pakistan, and insisted on the continued removal of some U.S. personnel from the country (Dawn, CBS, AFP, ET, DT). Huma Imtiaz looks at a new report from the Congressional Research Service (CRS), which argues that corruption, stalled economic reforms, and U.S. requirements to certify Pakistani non-cooperation with militants may inhibit the delivery of American economic aid to Pakistan (ET). And an American jailed last month for allegedly spying on Pakistan’s nuclear facilities, Matthew Craig Barret, may be deported in the next several days (ET).

A friendlier visit

Also in Islamabad this weekend was Afghan president Hamid Karzai, who met with Pakistan’s president Asif Ali Zardari as well as prime minister Yousaf Raza Gilani to discuss the fight against the Taliban as well as political and economic issues between the two countries (AJE, AFP/ET, Dawn, CNN, AFP/ET, AFP). Both sides took part Saturday in the first meeting of a joint "peace commission" designed to promote an end to the insurgency in Afghanistan, and the two countries also signed a 23-point "declaration" on trade, development, and cultural and political exchanges (McClatchy, Dawn, Reuters). Pakistan also reportedly promised to target militants who refused to take part in the Afghan government’s reconciliation process (AP, DT).

Three Pakistani soldiers were killed this weekend in a roadside bomb attack in South Waziristan, while in Islamabad one person was killed and three injured in two separate explosions (AFP/ET, AP, BBC, CNN, ET, DT, ET). The Pakistani army is reportedly planning to  urge tribal elders in North Waziristan to assemble lashkars, or local militias, to force out militants operating from the area (ET). And Pakistani military leaders have reportedly expressed their concerns to the civilian government about the low conviction rate of terrorists in the country’s courts (Dawn).

Pakistan’s paramilitary Rangers have handed over four more personnel to police investigating the killing, captured on video, of the unarmed Sarfaraz Shah in Karachi last week, as inquiries into the case continue (AFP, ET, DT, ET, Dawn). The suspects in the killing will reportedly be tried before an anti-terrorism court, while the government will not fight a Supreme Court order to remove the Rangers’ commander in Sindh province and the province’s police inspector general (ET, Dawn). The anti-terrorism court in Rawalpindi this weekend re-issued a permanent arrest warrant for former military dictator Pervez Musharraf related to the 2007 killing of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto (The News, Dawn, ET, DT). And opposition political figure Imran Khan led a "sit-in" in the city of Quetta to block NATO supplies from entering Afghanistan (ET).

Finally today, Declan Walsh has a must-read about Pakistani journalist Waqar Kiani, who was abducted and tortured in 2008 while working on a story for the Guardian about alleged cooperation between Britain and Pakistan in the capture and abuse of suspected militants (Guardian).

A terrible record

A string of attacks and explosions across Afghanistan this weekend killed more than two dozen people, including 16 members of one family in the country’s south after their van drove over a mine, a child killed by a young suicide bomber pushing an ice cream cart in Ghazni province, a police rapid reaction force commander and three others killed in a suicide blast in the eastern province of Kunar, and six killed in mortar fire in the province of Loghman (McClatchy, CNN, Tel, AJE, AFP, LAT, Reuters, Tel).

The UN announced this weekend that last month was the deadliest on record for Afghan civilians, as at least 368 civilians were killed, 82% by "anti-government elements" and 12% by NATO and "pro-government" forces (BBC, NYT, CNN). The Journal reports that NATO forces are considering additional safeguards to ensure civilians are not killed in combat operations, and the AP looks at the efforts in the provinces surrounding Kabul to keep the capital safe (WSJ, AP).

The Times reports that the United States is sending 80 counterintelligence specialists to Afghanistan to help prevent infiltration of militants into the Afghan security forces (NYT, AFP). Afghan security force members have engaged in 19 attacks since March 2009, killing 57 people. The preparedness and security of Afghan forces remains largely an open question as lawmakers in the United States increasingly push for a speedy withdrawal from Afghanistan, and the Obama administration debates how many troops to bring home starting next month (CSM, Independent, AFP, Post, National Journal, LAT). And Reuters considers the possible consequences for Afghanistan’s women of a U.S. withdrawal and an Afghan government peace deal with the Taliban (Reuters).

Closing out the weekend, the Times looks at Afghanistan’s south, where military operations have greatly reduced the effectiveness of insurgents, but concerns remain about a future without U.S. forces (NYT); lack of oversight of local police forces known as arbakai, some of whom are former Taliban fighters, has sparked fear of an eventual return to the kind of instability and warlordism Afghanistan saw in the early 1990s (NYT); The Times of London reports that the Taliban have surrounded the provincial capital of the isolated eastern province of Nuristan (Times); and a soldier charged with allegedly killing three Afghan civilians in January 2010 along with several members of his unit has been released from pretrial detention, as the officer overseeing his case recommended that the murder charge against him be reduced to manslaughter (Reuters).

Tagging in a war zone

Jason Burke this weekend profiles a small group of graffiti artists in Kabul who are trying to pose difficult questions about politics and Afghan society on the city’s walls (Guardian). The artists struggle with continuing insecurity in the city, but have received assistance and instruction from international artists in helping to build the city’s contemporary art scene.

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