Daily brief: Pakistan ambassador to U.S. resigns over memo scandal

The AfPak Channel staff will be out of the office Thursday, November 24 and Friday, November 25. The Daily Brief will resume Monday, November 28. Happy Thanksgiving! 

On the outs

Pakistan’s ambassador to the United States Husain Haqqani resigned on Tuesday amid allegations that he wrote a memo delivered by Pakistani-American businessman Mansoor Ijaz to then-U.S. military chief Adm. Mike Mullen, asking for American help to prevent a coup from Pakistan’s military after the secret U.S. raid to kill Osama bin Laden (AP, Post, Reuters, NYT, Guardian, CNN, AFP, WSJ, LAT, BBC, Tel). The former ambassador had originally offered to step down last week, and was told by Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani Tuesday that it would be best for Haqqani to resign so that the investigation into the alleged memo can be "carried out fairly, objectively and without bias." Haqqani said in a statement following his resignation: "I have resigned to bring closure to this meaningless controversy threatening our fledgling democracy," and that the scandal now known as "Memogate" is an "artificially created crisis over an insignificant memo written by a self-centered businessman" (AP, Post, AFP). Bonus reads: Kalsoom Lakhani, "Missing the forest for the memos" and Huma Imtiaz, "Memogate claims its first victim" (FP, FP).  

Prime Minister Gilani on Wednesday appointed Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) parliamentarian and former Information Minister Sherry Rehman as Pakistan’s new ambassador to the United States (ET, WSJ, AJE, AP, Reuters, Dawn). Rehman, a well-known liberal, is seen as an acceptable candidate by both Pakistan’s military and its civilian establishment. The Lahore High Court on Tuesday rejected a petition filed Monday for treason charges to be brought against Haqqani, while the Pakistan Muslim League – Nawaz (PML-N) filed a petition in the country’s Supreme Court Wednesday for a probe into the affair (The Nation, ET). The White House Tuesday called Haqqani’s resignation an "internal issue" for Pakistan, and called the former ambassador "a close partner," whose replacement the U.S. will undoubtedly be able to work with as well (ET). Bonus read: Shamila N. Chaudhary, "Out with the old, but what of the new?" (FP).

In other political news, PML-N leader Nawaz Sharif formally invited former Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi on Tuesday to join his party during Qureshi’s visit to Sharif’s home in Lahore, and students in Gujrunwala were reportedly "forced" by their teachers to attend a PML-N rally the same day (ET, ET). Prime Minister Gilani told five visiting British officials Tuesday that a stable, independent Afghanistan is in Pakistan’s interest, and that he expects an Afghan delegation to visit Pakistan soon as part of the investigation into the assassination of former Afghan President Burhanuddin Rabbani (Dawn). Pakistan Tehrik-i-Insaf (PTI) head Imran Khan on Wednesday pledged legal action against British newspaper The Sunday Times, which reported on Sunday that Khan had met with Pakistani intelligence chief Ahmed Shuja Pasha in the presence of U.S. ambassador to Pakistan Cameron Munter, a claim all parties involved have denied (ET). And Commerce Secretary Zafar Mehmood reportedly said Tuesday that the preparation of a list of goods that will remain protected in trade with India prevents India from having complete "most favored nation" status, as political parties in Pakistan-administered Kashmir called for strikes in protest of the agreement (ET, The News, The Nation). Bonus reads: Mohsin Khan, "India-Pakistan trade: The MFN breakthrough," and Nisha Taneja, "Come together, right now-over trade" (FP, FP).  

Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) spokesman Ehsanullah Ehsan denied reports Wednesday that the group had declared a ceasefire against Pakistan’s government, citing as proof an attack on a police station in Pakistan’s northwestern Dera Ismail Khan District Wednesday that killed two police officers (AFP/ET, AP). Elsewhere in Pakistan’s northwest, the Pakistani Army said Wednesday that at least 18 militants were killed in Kurram Agency as part of an ongoing operation there (ET). The Advisor to the Prime Minister on Human Rights, Mustafa Nawaz Khokar, told Pakistan’s National Assembly Tuesday that the government plans to bring data on "unsanctioned" U.S. drone strikes to the United Nations (ET). Finally, two Pakistani cricket players convicted of match-fixing, Salman Butt and Mohammad Amir, will appear before a British appeals court on Wednesday seeking to overturn their sentences (Guardian, The News).

Money matters

The World Bank on Tuesday issued a warning that according to its most recent analysis, Afghanistan will need around $7 billion per year for the next ten years from foreign donors in order to sustain the current levels of Afghan government expenditure (Post,Reuters, NYT, Guardian). The World Bank’s country director for Afghanistan, Josephine Bassinette, said that any cuts in aid to Afghanistan must be done gradually, because a sharp drop-off in aid "almost always destabilizes a country."

At least three Afghan civilians were killed in the eastern province of Laghman when their vehicle hit a roadside bomb on Tuesday (BBC, AFP). Reuters spoke with a young Afghan named Islamuddin, who is serving a four and a half year prison sentence in a juvenile detention center for planning to carry out a suicide attack on a U.S. convoy in Kunduz Province (Reuters). Islamuddin says he had never thought about joining the Taliban until his best friend was shot and killed by U.S. troops during a night raid, leaving him angry and vulnerable to being "deceived by the Taliban."

And the U.N. Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) released a report Wednesday showing that Afghan authorities are failing to enforce the Elimination of Violence Against Women law that was passed over two years ago (Reuters). The report found that prosecutors filed charges in just 155 cases out of about 2,299 reported incidents of violence against women. Bonus read: Gayle Tzemach Lemmon, "Afghan women are not ‘pet rocks’" (FP).

Fighting spirit

Afghanistan’s first Olympic medalist, Rohullah Nikpai, brought home a bronze medal in taekwondo in 2008, and hopes to upgrade his status to gold-medalist in the 2012 Olympics in London (Reuters). Nikpai first began training at the age of ten in an Iranian refugee camp, but despite being used to practicing with little formal support he says the lack of training, equipment and security in Afghanistan makes preparing for the games difficult.