Pakistani doctor sentenced to prison for working with CIA

Wonk watch: Scott Bates and Ryan Evans, NATO Strategy in Afghanistan: A New Way Forward (CNP).

Feelings of betrayal: Dr. Shakil Afridi, the Pakistani doctor arrested last May for allegedly working with the CIA to track down Osama bin Laden, was sentenced on Wednesday to 33 years in prison for treason by a four-member tribal court in Khyber Agency (ET/AFP, Post, AP, Reuters, Dawn). Dr. Afridi was found guilty of attempting to help the CIA obtain DNA samples from the members of bin Laden’s family who were living with him inside their compound in Abbottabad.

Gunmen opened fire on a rally for the nationalist Awami Tehreek party in Karachi on Tuesday, killing twelve people and injuring around 30 (AP, CNN, AFP, BBC, Dawn, ET, DT, The News). The shootings sparked a gunfight lasting several hours between the attackers and police, who suspect that the gunmen belonged to a rival political party. A U.S. drone strike on a compound in Datta Khel Kalai village in North Waziristan on Wednesday killed four suspected militants (AP). Pakistani fighter jets struck militant hideouts as part of an ongoing military operation in the northwestern tribal agency of Orakzai on Wednesday, killing 12 suspected militants (Dawn). Security officials say the operation has cleared over 92 percent of Orakzai of militants.

The U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee voted Tuesday to cut the amount of aid to Pakistan requested by the Obama administration for fiscal year 2013 by 58 percent, and to tie $50 million in contributions to the Pakistan Counterinsurgency Capability Fund to the reopening of NATO ground supply routes (Reuters, AP). In an interview for the Express Tribune on Wednesday, Pakistani Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar defended Pakistan’s participation in the NATO summit, calling it "an excellent opportunity" for the world’s leaders to engage each other on achieving stability in Afghanistan (ET).

Turkmenistan’s state-run gas company signed gas sales agreements with Pakistan’s Inter State Gas Systems and India’s state-run utility company GAIL on Wednesday, setting in motion a deal to construct the 450-mile TAPI pipeline across Afghanistan, the success of which depends heavily on Afghan security conditions (Reuters, AFP, AP, WSJ).

Without a trace

Afghan authorities said on Wednesday that two foreign women and three Afghan men working for an aid group that brought food to children and pregnant women in remote areas of the northern Afghan province of Badakhshan were kidnapped on Tuesday (CNN,Reuters, AP, BBC). No group has yet claimed responsibility for the kidnappings or made any demands for the hostages’ release.

Reuters’ Mirwais Harooni and Rob Taylor reported on Tuesday that Afghans appeared to be optimistic about the outcomes of this weekend’s NATO summit in Chicago, citing the progress made in health care and security over the past ten years as promises of a better future for Afghanistan with international support (Reuters).

But the AP’s Deb Reichmann pointed out on Tuesday that the international community is not in complete control of the endgame in Afghanistan; the Taliban, Pakistan, and Iran are all still major players in the Afghan war that could either cooperate with or derail NATO’s exit strategy (AP). The Taliban on Tuesday called the NATO summit a "show" with "no results."

Table tennis terminations

Despite winning dozens of awards in numerous tournaments, Pakistan’s table tennis champions are facing unemployment, and perhaps even the extinction of their sport in Pakistan, after being fired by their sponsor, Habib Bank Limited (HBL), due to company downsizing (ET). To add insult to injury for the country’s top players, HBL retained its women’s table tennis team.

— Jennifer Rowland