Daily brief: Pakistani Taliban kills 15 Frontier Corps personnel

Revenge

The Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) has claimed credit for killing 15 paramilitary Frontier Corps personnel kidnapped last month in North Waziristan (BBC, NYT, ET, Reuters). TTP spokesman Ehsanullah Ehsan announced that the men, whose bodies were found Thursday morning, were killed in retaliation for the deaths of 12 TTP members in Khyber province last month as well as the Pakistani government’s subsequent arrest of female members of the dead militants’ families. And Dawn reports that police in Karachi on Thursday arrested a TTP commander, Abdul Qayuum, along with three "companions" (Dawn).

The Red Cross announced Thursday that a British doctor working with the group — a recent convert to Islam, according to the Tribune — had been kidnapped by unknown gunmen in the city of Quetta (Tel, ET, AP, Reuters). Pakistanis on Wednesday observed the one-year anniversary of the killing of outspoken Punjab governor Salman Taseer by his security guard Mumtaz Qadri, while the Sunni Ittehad Council publicly offered Rs100 million ($1.1 million) to purchase the "holy gun" Qadri used to slay Taseer (ET, Dawn, ET, DT, ET, DT, ET). Also Wednesday, the husband of Asia Bibi, a Christian woman imprisoned on charges of blasphemy, said that his wife is doing "well" and faces "no threat" in prison (AFP).

The judicial commission investigating the "Memogate" scandal sent notices Wednesday to President Asif Ali Zardari and opposition politician Nawaz Sharif to submit testimony or appear before the commission by January 9, while former ambassador the Washington Husain Haqqani will challenge the legal basis for establishing the commission (Dawn, ET, ET). U.S. ambassador to Pakistan Cameron Munter, meanwhile, said Wednesday that former National Security Adviser James L. Jones had "no intention" of traveling to Pakistan to provide testimony for the commission (ET). A court issued contempt notices Wednesday for five ruling Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) officials after they participated in a press conference criticizing the behavior of Pakistan’s Supreme Court in the "Memogate" case (ET, ET).

In other news, members of the Awami National Party (ANP) stormed out of Pakistan’s National Assembly Thursday in opposition to a debate about the creation of new provinces in South Punjab and elsewhere (Dawn, ET). Pakistan’s cabinet moved Wednesday to require all people drawing a salary from the state, including members of the armed forces and civil servants, to declare their assets publicly (Dawn). Supreme Court chief justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry said Wednesday that the door for military courts in Pakistan was "permanently closed" (Dawn). And the political party of former President and military dictator Pervez Musharraf, the All Pakistan Muslim League, has filed a request with the Sindh high court to host a rally on January 8 (ET).

Deal progress?

Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Wednesday welcomed direct U.S.-Taliban talks and the creation of a Taliban office in Qatar, adding that talks would "eliminate the foreigner’s excuses for and actions to continue war and bloodshed in Afghanistan" (Post, NYT). However, other possible conditions of talks with the Taliban, including the release of several prominent Taliban prisoners held at Guantánamo Bay, are reportedly on hold (AFP).

The Post’s Ernesto Londoño has a must-read on Iran’s stepped-up efforts to influence events in Afghanistan as it grows increasingly concerned about a post-2014 U.S. presence in the country (Post). This effort, according to Afghan officials and others, includes strengthening cultural and political links with Afghanistan while also purportedly cultivating ties with the Taliban.

Afghan authorities confirmed Thursday the assassination of a local official in Helmand, Haji Fazel Mohammad, one of a growing number of killings of government officials in Afghanistan’s south (AP). And finally, the AP looks at what the case of Sahar Gul, an Afghan child bride brutally tortured by her in-laws for her refusal to become a prostitute, says about the condition of women in Afghanistan 10 years after the U.S. invasion (AP).

Special treatment

In a move to increase exports of mangoes to the United States and elsewhere, Pakistan will soon receive an American "irradiation unit" to preserve the mangoes for sales abroad (The News). Currently the fruit must be shipped to the United States before being treated with radiation, a technique used to kill bacteria and microorganisms.

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