AF/PAK SWEEP W 1.20.2010

PAKISTAN

1.  A roadside bomb on Wednesday injured a Pakistani provincial lawmaker and four others in the northwest city of Peshawar, a frequent target of attacks by Taliban militants, officials said. Aurangzeb Khan, a local legislator with the secular Awami National Party (ANP), saw his politician brother Alam Zeb Khan killed in a similar bombing last year, but escaped life-threatening injury in Wednesday's attack. DAWN

2.  Al Qaeda is seeking to de-stabilise the entire South Asia region and could trigger a war between nuclear-armed Pakistan and India, US Defence Secretary Robert Gates told reporters on Wednesday. Groups under al Qaeda's “syndicate” in Afghanistan and Pakistan are trying “to destabilise not just Afghanistan, not just Pakistan, but potentially the whole region by provoking a conflict perhaps between India and Pakistan through some provocative act,” Gates said during a visit to New Delhi. DAWN

3.  Five terrorists including a key militant commander were killed in Mohmand Agency during the last 24 hours while 30 suspects were arrested from Kurram Agency and Dir. According to Frontier Corps Media Cell, peace committee of Mohamand Agency killed 2 militants and apprehended 2 others in an action in Khewazai area. Militant commander Ghulam is among the killed. GEO TV

4.  An explosive-laden vehicle have been recovered from two saboteurs nabbed by Hub police, Geo News reported Wednesday. ASP Hub Muhammed Usman Ghani Siddiqui told Geo News that two extremists have been arrested from an area near Hubco Power Plant and recovered from their possession a car packed with explosives. GEO TV

5.  Pakistan’s government reached an agreement to hand back responsibility for maintaining order in the longtime Taliban stronghold of South Waziristan to tribal leaders after a three-month military offensive. Elders from the Mehsud tribe, which dominates the area, endorsed a government proposal with a unanimous show of hands at a gathering in Tank, the tribal agency’s winter capital. The two sides plan to sign the agreement on Feb. 10. Business Week

6.  Nine years after their mysterious disappearance following the toppling of the Taliban in Afghanistan, the US still believes the two top al Qaeda leaders Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri are in hiding in northwestern Pakistan. According to the latest report on al Qaeda and its expanding network by a powerful Congressional committee, the two leaders are in hiding in tribal areas on the Pakistan-Afghan border. The Senate Committee's views are in variance with those of Pakistani leaders, who believe Osama might well be dead. In a major observation, the report said al Qaeda appears to have increased its influence among the myriad Islamist militant groups operating along the Af-Pak border. The 21-page report by the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations examines the role of al Qaeda in international terrorism and its expansion in new areas - Yemen and Somalia - beyond its nerve-centre in Afghanistan and Pakistan. ZeeNews

AFGHANISTAN

7.  Two US soldiers were killed by a bomb blast in southern Afghanistan on Wednesday, the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force announced. The statement by the headquarters of the international force in Afghanistan did not say exactly where the soldiers were killed, but the provinces of Helmand and Kandahar are the focus of the Taliban insurgency. Thirty foreign soldiers, 18 of them American, have been killed in Afghanistan so far this year, after last year saw record losses totalling 520 foreign soldiers. US military deaths in Afghanistan doubled in 2009 to 317, compared to 155 the previous year. ZeeNews

8.  Taliban militants ambushed a police convoy in Ghazni province of southern Afghanistan on Wednesday, killing three people and wounding a police commander and his two sons, provincial police chief Khayalbaz Shirzai said. Xinhua

9.  Air raids against militants' hideouts in Badghis province, in northwest Afghanistan, left more than a dozen insurgents dead early Wednesday, senior police commander in the region Ikramudin Yawar said. Considered as a hotbed of Taliban militants in Badghis province, Balamirghab has been the scene of Taliban activities since early 2009. Xinhua

10.  A former top diplomat for the Taliban said a new government plan to persuade insurgents to lay down their arms in exchange for jobs or money was corrupt and would only hinder efforts to reach a peace deal. Abdul Salam Zaeef, who served as ambassador to Pakistan when the Taliban governed Afghanistan, told Reuters in an interview on Wednesday that the movement was also suspicious about foreign countries' and the Afghan government's motives in proposing peace talks at a time when they are beefing up military strength. Afghanistan's government will soon announce details of the plan for getting Taliban fighters to lay down their arms. It will be a focus of a London conference on the country, where President Hamid Karzai is expected to seek funding for it. Diplomats say the project includes jobs, training and economic incentives to lure militants away from the Taliban, who have intensified their insurgency in recent years despite tens of thousands of Afghan and international troops on the ground. REUTERS

11.  The 68-nation London conference at the end of this month will focus on the future of Afghanistan, against the backdrop of major new military commitments by the United States and NATO, promises from the international community of increased civilian assistance, and pledges of new anti-corruption measures from President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan. (NYT Op-Ed)

12.  Stanley McChrystal, the American Commander of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan, is calling for calling for an intensification and fundamental strategic shift in the deployment of the German armed forces, the Bundeswehr, in the country. Spiegel

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PAKISTAN

1.)

MPA Aurangzeb Khan injured in Peshawar blast
January 20, 2010
PESHAWAR: A roadside bomb on Wednesday injured a Pakistani provincial lawmaker and four others in the northwest city of Peshawar, a frequent target of attacks by Taliban militants, officials said.
Aurangzeb Khan, a local legislator with the secular Awami National Party (ANP), saw his politician brother Alam Zeb Khan killed in a similar bombing last year, but escaped life-threatening injury in Wednesday's attack.
Local television stations showed footage of a blackened car, rubble and a small crater in the centre of the capital of the North West Frontier Province, which is governed by a coalition led by the Pashtun nationalist ANP.
“It was a remote-controlled bomb buried in the road,” Kiramat Khan, a police official on the scene, told reporters.
The explosives detonated near Khan's home as the politician passed by in a car, Peshawar's top administrative official Sahibzada Mohammad Anis told AFP, while the main hospital treated five people with blast wounds.
“We have received a total of five injured... Aurangzeb has wounds on his forehead, chest and one arm but he is out of danger,” said Abdul Hameed Afridi, chief executive of the city's Lady Reading Hospital.
Aurangzeb Khan won his brother's provincial seat after Alam Zeb Khan was killed by a bomb planted in a bicycle in Peshawar in February 2009.
Last month, another ANP northwest provincial assembly member, Shamsher Ali Khan, was killed when a suicide bomber walked onto the grounds of his home in Swat valley and blew himself up.
Peshawar, on the edge of Pakistan's lawless tribal belt, has seen the worst of the Taliban insurgency. Last October, about 125 people were killed in the city when a suicide car bomb ripped through a busy market.
http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/news/pakistan/metropolitan/03-explosion-near-mpas-house-in-peshawar-ss-01
2.)
Al Qaeda could provoke new India-Pakistan war: Gates
January 20, 2010
NEW DELHI: Al Qaeda is seeking to de-stabilise the entire South Asia region and could trigger a war between nuclear-armed Pakistan and India, US Defence Secretary Robert Gates told reporters on Wednesday.
Groups under al Qaeda's “syndicate” in Afghanistan and Pakistan are trying “to destabilise not just Afghanistan, not just Pakistan, but potentially the whole region by provoking a conflict perhaps between India and Pakistan through some provocative act,” Gates said during a visit to New Delhi.
“It's important to recognise the magnitude of the threat that the entire region faces,” he said following talks with his Indian counterpart, A.K. Antony.
Gates cited three main groups operating under Al-Qaeda's “umbrella,” the Taliban forces fighting in Afghanistan, Taliban elements targeting Pakistan's government and the Islamist group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) in Pakistan focused on India.
Although he praised India for exercising restraint after the 2008 Mumbai attacks - which Delhi blamed on LeT - Gates suggested India could not be expected to remain restrained if it was attacked again.
“I think it's not unreasonable to assume India patience would be limited were there to be further attacks,” he said.
Gates described India as a vital partner in the struggle against extremist threats, expressed appreciation for its economic aid to Afghanistan and said that he discussed how to bolster US-India military cooperation.
http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/news/world/03-al-qaeda-could-provoke-new-india-pakistan-war-gates-ss-02
3.)
Key commander among 5 killed in Mohmand
January 20, 2010
PESHAWAR: Five terrorists including a key militant commander were killed in Mohmand Agency during the last 24 hours while 30 suspects were arrested from Kurram Agency and Dir.
According to Frontier Corps Media Cell, peace committee of Mohamand Agency killed 2 militants and apprehended 2 others in an action in Khewazai area. Militant commander Ghulam is among the killed.
A suspected women belonging to Azad Kashmir area of Mandi Bazar has also been nabbed.
http://www.geo.tv/1-20-2010/57415.htm
4.)
Explosive laden car recovered from Hub
January 20, 2010
HUB: An explosive-laden vehicle have been recovered from two saboteurs nabbed by Hub police, Geo News reported Wednesday.
ASP Hub Muhammed Usman Ghani Siddiqui told Geo News that two extremists have been arrested from an area near Hubco Power Plant and recovered from their possession a car packed with explosives.
The Bomb Disposal Squad has been called on the spot to neutralize the explosives.
The terrorist Habibulla and Safdar—aged between 40 and 42-- are said to belong to outlawed militant outfit Lashkar-e-Jhangavi.
http://www.geo.tv/1-20-2010/57406.htm
5.)
Pakistan, Tribesmen reach security accord in Taliban war zone
Jan. 20 (Bloomberg) -- Pakistan’s government reached an agreement to hand back responsibility for maintaining order in the longtime Taliban stronghold of South Waziristan to tribal leaders after a three-month military offensive.
Elders from the Mehsud tribe, which dominates the area, endorsed a government proposal with a unanimous show of hands at a gathering in Tank, the tribal agency’s winter capital. The two sides plan to sign the agreement on Feb. 10.
Mehsud leaders failed to prevent the rise of militancy since the U.S. invaded neighboring Afghanistan in 2001 and removed the Taliban in that country from power. Thousands of Mehsud men joined the Taliban to form the biggest terrorist threat in Pakistan, killing scores of pro-government elders.
Pakistan hopes that cooperation from the tribes will help quell violence that claimed more than 600 lives in nationwide suicide bombings and gun battles since 28,000 troops launched an offensive in South Waziristan in October. It would also pave the way for an eventual military withdrawal.
“First the government has to completely wipe out the terrorists from the area,” said Syed Alam Mehsud, an independent analyst in Peshawar, northwest Pakistan. “Then the tribes will be willing and able to implement the government’s demands.”
Pakistan has said 80 percent of attacks in its cities were planned by Mehsud Taliban. More than 3,000 people were killed in terrorist attacks in the country last year, according to the Pakistan Institute for Peace Studies in Islamabad.
Dispute Resolution
Syed Shahab Ali Shah, the government’s chief representative for South Waziristan who attended the meeting, has held eight gatherings, known as jirgas, on a security deal since Dec. 15. About 550 leaders from the Mehsud tribe, the main clan in the northern half of South Waziristan, were present today.
Jirgas, which take place in the north and west of Pakistan and in Afghanistan, are the traditional Pashtun form of consensus building and dispute resolution. Participants wearing traditional turbans sat in a circle on the ground as a speaker announced the agenda and sought a show of hands to proceed. The end of the jirga was signaled by a prayer by the most senior tribal elder.
In today’s gathering in Tank, the government reiterated that the Mehsuds must hand over 382 wanted militants and agree not to facilitate terrorism. Shah told the gathering that they must not allow foreigners or Pakistanis from outside South Waziristan to enter the tribal agency.
‘Civil War’
“Why can’t the government get the wanted persons themselves,” said Zubair Khan, a professor of international relations at Peshawar University. “Making demands like this will lead to a civil war between factions of the Mehsud tribe.”
The tribes will need to raise an army of fighters to resist militants, Shah said in an interview. The army and paramilitary troops will stay in South Waziristan “to protect the tribes and help reconstruct” the region, army spokesman Athar Abbas said earlier. “We will facilitate the tribal army when needed.”
The central bank said this month the nation may miss its fiscal deficit target of 4.9 percent of gross domestic product this year because of war expenses. Finance Minister Shaukat Tarin has said the cost of battling militants in northwest tribal areas bordering Afghanistan is rising.
The Mehsuds will be responsible for any militant activities in South Waziristan under a special law governing the region that dates back more than 100 years, Shah said. They will also be required to hand over all heavy weapons including rocket launchers and anti-aircraft guns.
Under the 1901 Frontier Crimes Regulation, tribes are collectively responsible for any criminal acts in territory under their control. The three main factions of the Mehsud tribe dominate different areas of South Waziristan.
Return Refugees
There are an estimated 20,000 fighters in the federally administered tribal areas, of which 5,000 are in South Waziristan, according to Pakistan’s army.
“We have accepted the demands in principle,” Salahuddin Khan Mehsud, general secretary of the Mehsud Peace Committee said in an interview before the jirga. “The difficulty for us is that we are refugees right now and until we return home it’s very difficult for us to meet these conditions. We need time.”
As many as 500,000 refugees from the Mehsud area of South Waziristan are living in Dera Ismail Khan and Tank, according to the government. Troops have cleared 80 percent of South Waziristan from militants and refugees will return within two months, according to the army.