Daily brief: American killed at CIA Kabul station

The Rack: Matthieu Aikins, "Our Man in Kandahar" (The Atlantic).

Inside job?

OneAmerican was killed and another wounded Sunday night when an Afghan employed by the U.S. government opened fire on the grounds of what is believed to be the CIA’s headquarters in Kabul, housed in the former Ariana Hotel (Post, WSJ, BBC, NYT, Times, AP, Tel, Guardian, McClatchy, AFP, CNN, ABC, Reuters).The attacker was shot dead after nearly 10 minutes of gunfire and a small explosion in the compound, an annex to the U.S. embassy that is the largest overseas CIA station in the world and one of the most secureareas in Kabul. Officials say they are still unsure of the gunman’s motivation for opening fire (NYT, Guardian). The L.A. Times reports on how the recent string of high-profile attacks in Kabul have rattled the city’s residents (LAT).

Afghanauthorities this weekend arrested a man in the killing of former Afghanpresident Burhanuddin Rabbani, a supposed liaison with the Quetta ShuraTaliban leadership named Hamidullah Akhund (NYT, AFP).Akhund reportedly delivered audio messages from Rabbani to the Taliban leadership, and allegedly set up the meeting between Rabbani and the suicide bomber that took his life last week. Reuters spoke about Rabbaniwith Abdullah Anas, a former anti-Soviet fighter and associate of Osamabin Laden who has been involved in negotiations between the Afghan government and the Taliban (Reuters).

Alsothis weekend, Afghan police say that they disrupted a suicide attack inthe southern province of Zabul after officers shot two attackers dead, detonating their explosives (AP). A German tourist and an Afghan were killed by unidentified gunmen this weekend in the central province of Ghor (Guardian).An American soldier who confessed to taking part in the intentional killing of Afghan civilians, Pfc. Andrew Holmes, was sentenced to seven years in prison Friday (AFP, Guardian, LAT).And a former Army officer, Sidharth Handa, received a 10-year prison sentence Friday for taking more than $300,000 in bribes from Afghan contractors (AP).

Mutual incalcitrance

Pakistaniofficials pushed back this weekend on American assertions of the former’s suspected complicity with the insurgent Haqqani Network, as thewar of words between the two allies continues to accelerate (NYT, WSJ, Bloomberg, AP, BBC, Reuters).Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar said Sunday that the Haqqanis were once the "blue-eyed boy" of the CIA, and that the agency likely has links to terrorist organizations, while Interior Minister Rehman Malik said that the spy agency created the Haqqanis, adding that Pakistan had lost $68 billion fighting terrorism (ET, Dawn, Dawn).Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani criticized U.S. policy in South Asia this weekend, and announced Sunday that he will convene a meeting of thecountry’s political parties to discuss recent developments with the United States (Bloomberg, ET, Dawn, ET).

Pakistaniarmy chief Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani convened an emergency meeting of his top commanders Sunday, asf U.S Central Command chief Gen. James Mattis met with the head of the Pakistani army’s Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee Khalid Shameem Wyne (Guardian, Tel, Reuters, AP, FT, Dawn, AFP).The commanders voted not to pursue an operation against the Haqqanis intheir stronghold in North Waziristan, while army spokesman Gen. Athar Abbas confirmed that the Pakistani military is in contact with the Haqqanis (ET, Reuters, AFP, AP).Kayani has canceled a trip that was supposed to take him to the United Kingdom today, with no explanation given for the change (AP).And Mark Mazzetti, Scott Shane, and Alissa J. Rubin have a must-read feature on the Haqqani Network’s criminal and insurgent enterprises (NYT).

On Friday, a suspected U.S. drone strike reportedly killed at least six "militants" east of the North Waziristan capital of Miranshah (AFP).

The blame game

Afghanofficials said Sunday that Pakistani army outposts had fired more than 300 rockets and mortar rounds into the Afghan provinces of Kunar and Nuristan over the previous five days, and warned that Afghan forces would "respond" if the shelling did not stop (ET, Reuters, McClatchy).Six men arrested last week in Birmingham, England have been charged with terrorism offenses, including two who allegedly traveled to Pakistan to receive terrorist training (BBC, AP, Reuters, Times).In Quetta, police arrested a 12-year-old boy suspected of planting explosives in a Shi’a Muslim neighborhood, as direct flights for Shi’a pilgrims to Iran are under consideration between the two countries’ governments (ET, ET, ET).And Pakistan’s Human Rights Commission released a report this weekend asserting that poverty and fear of Taliban violence have forced many young girls in the country’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) into seminaries (Dawn).

TheInternational Court of Arbitration (ICA) in the Hague has ruled that India cannot conduct "permanent" work on the controversial Kishanganga Dam in the disputed region of Kashmir, but that all other work on the project can move forward (ET, DT, Dawn, ET). The court will also decide if the Indian dam or a Pakistani dam on the same river will be allowed to proceed (ET).

Massive flooding in Pakistan’s south has left nearly two million people sick (AFP).And schools reopened in the Punjab after a 10-day closure due to an outbreak of dengue fever, with students under orders to wear shirts withlong sleeves to guard against mosquito bites (ET). The outbreak has also forced Pakistan to move a national cricket game against Afghanistan to Karachi (Dawn).

Fivestories round out the day: A team from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) will visit Pakistan in November, after the IMF’s Managing DirectorChristine Lagarde and the head of the World Bank Robert Vilke reportedly refused to meet with a Pakistani delegation led by Shaikh this weekend (Dawn, ET).Pakistan’s paramilitary Rangers moved in force into a Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) stronghold of Karachi this weekend, detaining "dozens" of people (ET, ET).Defense attorneys rested their case Saturday in the murder case of Mumtaz Qadri, the admitted killer of former Punjab governor Salman Taseer, as the defense said Taseer’s behavior and lifestyle were, "unbecoming of a Muslim" (ET). The Tribune looks at Pakistan’s suffering public education system (ET). And Mark Magnier profiles controversial Pakistani television host Mathira Mohammad (LAT).

TheL.A. Times reports on Pakistan’s unlikely new literary star, Jamil Ahmad, whose book about his time in Pakistan’s northwest has recently been published nearly 40 years after it was written (LAT). The book, The Wandering Falcon, is set to be released in the United States in October.

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