Daily brief: Zardari returns to Pakistan

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Get back

Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari flew back to Pakistan Sunday night from Dubai, where he was receiving treatment after suffering "stroke-like symptoms," landing in the city of Karachi (NYT, Dawn, ET, Reuters, BBC, AJE, WSJ, CNN, Tel). Zardari’s return comes as Pakistan’s Supreme Court begins hearings into the "Memogate" scandal Monday, while tension between Pakistan’s civilian government and military continue to mount (NYT, AP, ET, Post, DT, FT). Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani sought to dispel talk of discord between the military and the government after meeting for three hours with army chief Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani Friday (AP, ET, Dawn, ET, AFP, Dawn). Former U.S. National Security Advisor Gen. James L. Jones, the man who forwarded the memo in question to then-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen, also filed an affidavit Friday in which he said he did not consider the memo credible, and did not think it came from former ambassador to Washington Husain Haqqani, as Pakistani-American businessman Mansoor Ijaz claims (ET).

Haqqani will appear Monday before the commission investigating the covert May 2 raid that killed Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad, after responding to allegations that he authorized visas for "several hundred" alleged CIA operatives ahead of the operation (ET, Dawn). Asma Jahangir, Haqqani’s lawyer, said Monday that Pakistani intelligence chief Lt. Gen. Ahmad Shuja Pasha should have resigned in the wake of the raid (Dawn). Meanwhile, Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) founder Hafiz Saeed led a massive protest in Lahore this weekend against U.S. and NATO forces, and promised to continue to fight India (ET, AFP). The Tribune reports on the fragmentation of the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, as sources suggest that TTP leader Hakimullah Mehsud is isolated and afraid to meet even with his most trusted lieutenants (ET). And a British law firm representing a Pakistani man who says his father was killed in a U.S. drone strike has submitted questions to British Foreign Secretary William Hague, demanding to know the British government’s policy on the strikes (BBC, ET).

Three Pakistani soldiers were killed in an explosion in Kurram Saturday, while a former councilor to the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) was shot dead by unknown assailants in Balochistan this weekend (The News, AFP, ET). Sindh’s government has filed a request for private security guards working in the province to be allowed to carry automatic weapons (Dawn). In Peshawar, community police will guard schools following repeated attacks by militant groups (Dawn). And Rob Crilly reports that the parents of some of the "drug addicts" found chained in the basement of a religious school in Karachi last week knew of and even approved of the treatment (Tel).

Six stories finish off the weekend Pakistan news: Roughly 30 politicians and former government ministers are set to join Imran Khan’s opposition Pakistan Tehrik-i-Insaf (PTI) party, as former President and military dictator Pervez Musharraf announced Sunday that he would return to Pakistan this coming January (Dawn, ET, ET). Pakistan’s border with Iran has reportedly re-opened after being closed for nearly three months, while the United States is said to have offered to help finance the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-Iran (TAPI) gas pipeline (Dawn, ET). Twelve Indian fisherman were detained this weekend after allegedly crossing over into Pakistani waters (ET). And Pakistan mourned the death this weekend of Air Marshall Nur Khan, who led Pakistan’s Air Force in the 1965 war against India (DT, Dawn).

So many talks, so little time

Reuters reports that half-dozen secret meetings between the United States and Taliban representatives over the last 10 months have led negotiations between the two sides to a "turning point," with the U.S. said to be considering the transfer of Taliban prisoners from Guantánamo Bay (Reuters). An Afghan government negotiator with the Taliban said Sunday that the insurgent group was ready to open a political office in an "Islamic country," though Afghan President Hamid Karzai said this weekend that face-to-face talks with the group could not begin until they established a clear representative (Reuters, CNN).

Karzai also said Sunday that strategic partnership negotiations with the United States may involve the presence of U.S. troops in the country after the 2014 withdrawal date, a position supported by leading American military officers (AFP, National Journal, CNN). A NATO spokesman said Monday that controversial night raids, conducted by NATO and Afghan forces, will continue despite facing major opposition (AP). NATO also announced Monday that Pakistan had sent liaison officers back to coordination posts manned by U.S. and Pakistani forces on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border (Reuters). And the Post looks at the ongoing Twitter war between the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) and the Taliban (Post).

Insurgents attacked a district police station in western Kabul Friday, though no casualties were reported in what was initially described as a suicide attack (WSJ, AFP, BBC, Reuters). On Monday, two suicide bombers struck a market in Nimroz province, though they failed to kill anyone but themselves (AFP). In Kandahar, Taliban fighters on Sunday killed a government adviser and former provincial minister of border and tribal affairs, Abdul Baqi Raghbat (LAT, AP). The Afghan government this weekend denied having made a deal with the Taliban to avoid targeting schools, even as analysts argue that such a deal might have been behind the drop in attacks against schools recently (AFP). And international and Afghan forces this weekend freed 11 Afghan policemen held captive for two weeks by militants (AP).

Finally, the newly-appointed governor of Afghanistan’s central bank, Noorullah Delawari, said Sunday that he believed that up to 80 percent of the $825 million it cost to bail the bank out after a massive fraud scandal could be recovered (AFP).

There’s an app for that

Using $30,000 of his own money, a U.S. Army officer has built an iPhone application that uses GPS technology and the phone’s camera to help map coordinates and guide artillery fire (Bloomberg). Nearly 8,000 American, Canadian, and Australian soldiers have downloaded the app, and the Department of Defense is trying to create a an "app store" to securely download a whole network of programs designed to help soldiers fight.

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