Daily brief: U.S. freezes transfers to Afghan prisons

Event notice: Please join New America Foundation president Steve Coll, AfPak Channel editor Peter Bergen, and Foreign Policy editor in chief Susan Glasser TODAY as they look back on the enduring impact of the 9/11 attacks (NAF).

The BBC first reported Tuesday that NATO forces have suspended the transfer of detainees to at least eight Afghan-run prisons, after a U.N. report set to be released this week revealed "commonplace and systematic" torture and other abuses at the facilities (BBC, NYT, Post, DW, WSJ, Reuters, Tel). The prisons include six sites run by Afghanistan’s National Directorate of Security (NDS) in Herat, Khost, Lagman, Kapisa and Takhar, as well as the NDS’ counterterrorism prison, and two run by the Afghan police in Uruzgan and Kunduz. NATO spokesmen said that the hold on transfers would be in place until the claims could be investigated, though a U.N. official said that the abuse "is not an institutional or government policy of the government of Afghanistan" (Reuters). Afghanistan’s interior minister and security chief denied the accusations Wednesday, and said the halt in prisoner transfers would disrupt efforts to transition to Afghan control of security in the country (AP).

The Times reports on lingering problems in recruiting Pashtuns from the Afghanistan’s south into the Afghan National Army (ANA), while the Post looks at the ANA’s efforts to bolster its religious credentials in order to win support and undercut Taliban propaganda (NYT, Post). McClatchy, meanwhile, highlights departures from an Afghan Local Police (ALP) unit in northern Kapisa province, where wages have been cut since France transferred control of the area to the Afghan government six months ago (McClatchy).

A Taliban roadside bomb in Nangarhar province has killed the district governor of Sherzad, Asil Khan Khogyani, along with three of his guards (ET, Pajhwok). In the central province of Logar, an intelligence agent and three others were wounded when a remote-controlled bomb detonated in a market (Pajhwok). And finally, the Afghan government has engaged in a media campaign to fight the increase in attempted suicides by self-immolation, especially among women (BBC).

As the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks approaches, Reuters and AFP look at the impact of the attacks on American troops currently serving in Afghanistan (Reuters, AFP). The Post has a must-read on the fleeting solidarity of countries around the world with the United States following the attacks (Post). The Telegraph has a collection of newspaper front pages from the day after the attacks (Tel). And Reuters looks at how poorly movies about 9/11 have done at the box office (Reuters).

Deadly vengeance

Two suicide bombers struck the home of the deputy commander of Pakistan’s paramilitary Frontier Corps in Quetta Wednesday, killing at least 23 people, including the officer’s wife and two children (Guardian, NYT, Reuters, AFP, BBC, AP). A spokesman for the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), Ehsanullah Ehsan, claimed credit for the attack, telling journalists that the bombings were meant to avenge the recent arrests of three al-Qaeda figures in Quetta, including Younis al-Mauritani (AFP/ET, Dawn). U.S. defense secretary Leon Panetta lauded Pakistan’s capture of al-Mauritani Tuesday in New York, where he visited the monument to victims of the 9/11 attacks, and said that the United States would likely try to question the key al-Qaeda figure (Reuters, AFP). Panetta also warned that the threat of another major terrorist operation "remains very real" despite progress against al-Qaeda (AFP, AP, Post, NYT). And an al-Qaeda-linked group with bases in Pakistan and Bangladesh, Harakat-ul-Jihad Islami (HuJI), has claimed credit for a bombing Wednesday of New Delhi’s High Court, which has killed at least 11 people (Reuters, NYT).

In Abbottabad, the Danish ambassador to Pakistan, his wife, and a security officer were briefly detained Tuesday as they reportedly tried to visit the compound of slain al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden (ET, Dawn, Tel).  "Official sources" tell the Tribune that the TTP may be planning to kidnap high-ranking Pakistan civilian and military leaders in order to win the release of the members of bin Laden’s family who remain in Pakistani custody (ET). And Reuters reports on how the violence unleashed in Pakistan since the 9/11 attacks has gradually strangled the city of Peshawar (Reuters).

Pakistani Supreme Court justices continued their investigation into the violence in Karachi Wednesday, as the head of the paramilitary Rangers in Sindh, Maj. Gen. Mohammad Ejaz Chaudhry, said the security situation in the city is worse than the tribal region of Waziristan (ET, Dawn). Chaudhry warned Tuesday against withdrawing the Rangers’ temporary police powers, after reportedly being told by Pakistani army chief Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani during a briefing Monday not to take sides in the ongoing unrest (Dawn, ET). Opposition figure and former cricket star Imran Khan called for the imposition of an independent "governor’s rule" in Karachi, while the Pakistan Muslim League – Quaid (PML-Q) withdrew from the government of Sindh Wednesday (ET, ET).

Finally, the TTP has issued a series of demands in exchange for the return of 27 boys they kidnapped from the tribal agency of Bajaur last week (Dawn, ET). The Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) in Lahore is reportedly planning a series of demonstrations in protest of the kidnapping of Shahbaz Taseer, the son of the assassinated former governor of Punjab (DT). And a 2008 U.S. embassy cable from then-U.S. ambassador to Islamabad Anne Patterson released by the anti-secrecy website Wikileaks reveals that at the time, 150 NATO flights used Pakistani airspace each day, with the permission of the government (Dawn).

Buffalo eviction

Islamabad’s city development authority on Tuesday demolished an aging "buffalo compound," after moving the resident buffalo out of the city (DT). The area will be made into "lush green landscape and plantation."

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