Pakistani militant leader escapes suicide attack

Editor’s note: An HBO documentary film about the hunt for Osama bin Laden based on Peter Bergen’s latest book, Manhunt, has been accepted in the Sundance 2013 competition (NYT).

Infighting

On Thursday, a suicide bomber attacked Maulvi Nazir, a militant commander based in Pakistan’s restive northwest who is believed to have signed a non-aggression pact with the Pakistani government (AP, ET).Nazir escaped with minor injuries, but seven other people were killed in the attack.

The United States launched its first drone attack in Pakistan in over a month on Thursday, killing two people in the Azam Warsak area of South Waziristan (ET, Dawn).

Culprits caught

Police in the northern Afghan province of Kunduz have arrested two men suspected of the near decapitation of a 15-year-old girl who had rejected one of their marriage proposals (CNN, Tel, AFP). The men attacked the young woman, Gaiseena, just a few hundred yards from her house while she returned from the river with water for her family earlier this week.

A roadside bomb killed at least ten people in a rural part of the southern Afghan province of Uruzgan on Thursday, most of them women and children (Reuters, BBC, AFP). No group has claimed responsibility for the explosion, and it was unclear who the target was.

Game time

The Indian government is reportedly planning to issue a record number of visas to Pakistani nationals so they can attend a series of cricket matches beginning next month (AFP). An unprecedented 3,000 visas will be issued in time for the first game on December 25, and 1,000 of those Pakistanis will be able to attend the largest match in Delhi on January 6.