Ex-president Musharraf flees after Islamabad High Court issues arrest orders

On the lam

Former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf fled the High Court in Islamabad on Thursday after a judge ordered his arrest in a case challenging his imprisonment of the country’s top judges while he was in power in November 2007 (NYT, Reuters, ET/AFP, Dawn). In a statement on Musharraf’s official Facebook page, a spokesperson said the state security apparatus escorted Musharraf from the courtroom "in the face of specific and credible physical threats to his life by the enemies of Pakistan."

Officials of Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) said Wednesday that "a horde of 100 miscreants" attacked KHAN’S home and beat his brother-in-law, and blamed the government for failing to provide security to the politician and his family (AFP). But Islamabad police chief Bani Amin denied that there had been a break-in at Khan’s home, saying that, "If anything has happened at Imran Khan’s home, it may have been because of his workers who are demonstrating at his house for party tickets." PTI members have been protesting outside Khan’s home over what they see as the unfair allocation of constituencies to certain PTI candidates.

Fighting season

At least 24 people were killed in five separate attacks across Afghanistan on Wednesday, including seven women and children who died when their bus hit a roadside bomb in Herat Province (AP). In the eastern province of Ghazni, another roadside bomb killed five men who worked for a local government security force. In the eastern province of Laghman insurgents attacked a checkpoint, killing four local policemen. In the northern province of Jawzjan insurgents opened fire on a group of village elders, killing two health workers who were caught in the crossfire. And six Afghan soldiers were killed by the Taliban after being kidnapped while travelling home for vacation in Jawzjan.

At least 17 high school girls lost consciousness and were hospitalized after a suspected poison gas attack on their school in the northern province of Takhar on Thursday (Pajhwok). ISAF troops reportedly killed a village elder and injured his wife during an operation in the southeastern province of Paktia on Wednesday (Pajhwok). ISAF said in a statement that the operation had targeted a Haqqani Network leader.

The northern Afghan city of Mazar-i-Sharif has seen a much-needed business boom in recent years, but that economic uplift has been accompanied by a troubling expansion of the city’s sex trade (NYT). Mazar-i-Sharif is less conservative than other parts of Afghanistan, and brothels once flourished openly there. Now, the prostitutes, most of whom have been forced into the trade by poverty, divorce, or the death of their spouse, operate through a secretive network and often host clients in nondescript apartments around the city, or even their own homes.

Man on the run 

As Musharraf ran for his Chak Shazad residence following the high court’s issuance of arrest orders, Twitter saw a flurry of posts criticizing and mocking the former president (ET).  Some compared his speed to that of Usain Bolt, the Jamaican sprinter known as the fastest man in the world, while others commented that he had taken "running for president" literally.