Daily brief: Coordinated attack rocks Kabul hotel

Under attack

At least eight suicide attackers reportedly dressed as Afghan police and armed with assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades laid siege to Kabul’s Intercontinental Hotel Tuesday, shaking the relative calm of the capital and killing more than 12 people, including mostly hotel staff and three Afghan police (Post, Pajhwok, AFP, NYT, CNN, Times, BBC, Tel, AJE, WSJ, AP, Reuters, Guardian, LAT, McClatchy, Independent, Bloomberg). The siege ended nearly six hours after a suicide bomber blew himself up at the hotel’s first security checkpoint, when at least one NATO helicopter killed three insurgents on the roof, and Afghan commandos, supported by Western Special Forces, retook the hotel (NYT, WSJ, Times, AFP, BBC, CNN, Post). The Taliban took credit for the attack, and officials believe the target could have been a two-day meeting of provincial government officials who had convened to discuss the transition to Afghan security control (AJE).

Afghan president Hamid Karzai insisted that his government would still take over security in the country according to established timetables, and President Barack Obama will hold a press conference today to discuss the transition, as well as other subjects (AP,
Bloomberg). A group of warlords and political leaders representing minority communities in Afghanistan announced the formation Tuesday of an anti-Karzai political alliance (WSJ). And Kathy Gannon reports on the deteriorating security situation in northern Afghanistan, as militants pour into the area (AP).

Afghanistan’s attorney general issued an arrest warrant for former Central Bank governor Abdul Qadeer Fitrat on Tuesday, accusing him of fraud in connection with the collapse of the Kabul Bank after the latter fled to the United States and announced his resignation (BBC, CNN, Independent, AJE, WSJ, Post). And Afghanistan is reportedly in talks with foreign donors after negotiations with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to unblock $70 million in aid frozen as a result of the Kabul Bank scandal reportedly failed (Reuters, DT).

Isolated leader

McClatchy’s Saeed Shah reports that according to anonymous U.S. officials, evidence seized at Osama bin Laden’s Abbottabad compound reveals that the terror leader was not directly controlling al-Qaeda, and that younger al-Qaeda commanders, "did not take everything he said as right" (McClatchy). Shah also reports on the many Pakistanis arrested and quietly released after the bin Laden raid, and the AP notes the impact the incident has had on exchange programs between Pakistani and American students (McClatchy, AP). And Pakistani officials indicated that the military may soon free Brig. Ali Khan, who was arrested May 6 on suspicion of having links with the banned extremist group Hizb-ut-Tahrir (Tribune).

Finally, the AP details the mistakes in the FBI’s profile of al-Qaeda figure Saif al-Adel (AP).

Wary allies

In testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee Tuesday, Lt. Gen. John Allen, Obama’s nominee to replace Gen. David Petraeus as the commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, expressed support for Obama’s drawdown plan, even as he outlined the challenges facing a settlement, including Pakistan’s hesitation to take on militant groups like the Afghanistan-focused Haqqani Network (Bloomberg, Reuters, WSJ, Post, AFP). Allen and Adm. William McRaven, nominated to head the U.S. Special Operations Command, also testified that they believed Pakistan knew the location of Taliban leader Mullah Omar, a charge Pakistan’s defense minister later denied (Dawn, Dawn).

In a meeting Tuesday with Afghanistan’s foreign minister and U.S. envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan Amb. Marc Grossman, Pakistani foreign secretary Salman Bashir called for an end to the "blame-game" and accusations of Pakistani attacks in Afghan territory (Reuters). Bashir also said that Pakistani forces would continue shelling militants on the Afghan side of the countries’ border (ET).

In other Pakistan news, the Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC) in Karachi today charged six paramilitary Rangers and a civilian with murder in the death of unarmed teenage Sarfaraz Shah (Reuters, AP, AFP, AFP/ET/Reuters). An interior ministry report has concluded that terrorist commander Ilyas Kashmiri, who may have been killed in a drone strike this month, was behind the assassination of slain minority affairs minister Shahbaz Bhatti in March (ET). The commission investigating the murder of journalist Saleem Shahzad has asked the public for help in piecing together the events surrounding his killing (Dawn). And the Tribune writes that the report filed on the shooting deaths of five unarmed foreigners at a checkpoint near Quetta "incriminates law enforcement agencies" and will not be made public (ET).

Rounding out the news, Pakistan’s Water and Development Authority announced Tuesday that blackouts on account of energy shortages will continue in Pakistan until at least 2018 (ET, DT). And two NATO fuel trucks were destroyed in separate incidents in Khyber-Puktunkhwa province on Tuesday (CNN).

Eye of the tiger

The BBC has an interview with Afghan olympian Rohullah Nikpai, who won Afghanistan’s first olympic medal, a bronze in taekwondo, at the 2008 Beijing games (BBC). Afghanistan now ranks seventh in the world for taekwondo.

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