Afghan policeman killed in border clash with Pakistani troops

The Rack: Steve Coll, "Remote Control: Our Drone Delusion" (The New Yorker).

Border scuffle

An Afghan border policeman was killed and two Pakistani soldiers were injured in a cross-border clash that lasted around five hours late Wednesday night (Reuters, Dawn, AP). A Pakistani military official said the shooting was sparked by an attack on a Pakistani military checkpost, while the Afghan Interior Ministry spokesman Sediq Sediqi said Pakistani forces had started the firefight by shooting artillery rounds into eastern Nangarhar Province.

A spokesman for the Election Commission of Pakistan, Khursheed Alam, said Thursday that 600,000 security personnel will be deployed during the May 11 election to protect voters and candidates from Taliban attacks (AP). Militants on Thursday blew up two boys’ schools in the village of Chattar in Balochistan Province that were meant to serve as polling centers on election day next week (AFP). And police arrested a suspected would-be suicide bomber in Shahdadkot. Sindh Province on Thursday, who was found with explosives and a suicide vest (ET).

Pakistani politicians on the campaign trail are making a point of highlighting their anti-American sentiments, leading some analysts to believe that regardless of who is elected next week, the new government will be more difficult for Washington to deal with than the last (AP). Other analysts say that even the candidates who are most outspoken on the issues within U.S.-Pakistan relations understand that there will not be much they can do to recalibrate such an important alliance.

An Indian man who had been on death row in Lahore for the past 16 years for his involvement in a series of bombings in Punjab Province, Sarabjit Singh, died at a hospital late Wednesday night, after being brutally attacked by fellow prisoners last Friday (AFP, Dawn). Singh fell into a coma and doctors said he had little chance of survival. Pakistani authorities have charged two of the other prisoners with his murder.

Cuba demands Gitmo closure

During a discussion at the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva about the Cuban government’s human rights record, Cuba’s Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez Parrilla cleverly deflected some of the heat being directed his way by pointing to another violation of human rights in his country, in the form of the U.S.-run Guantanamo Bay detention facility (AFP). Parrilla demanded that the U.S. government close the facility, which, given the U.S. government’s close ties with Cuba, is likely to be a powerful motivator for the Obama administration.

— Jennifer Rowland