Foreign Policy's AfPak Channel

Pakistan-China Relations

Despite the sweeping changes occurring across Asia, visits to Pakistan by the Chinese leadership remain remarkably routine affairs. Premier Li Keqiang's visit to Islamabad this week, his first since becoming premier in March, was no exception.

Step 1: Deck the streets with banners proclaiming "Long Live Pak-China friendship."

Step 2: Prepare a raft of agreements to be signed with fanfare; follow-through is another story.

Step 3: Shower timeless rhetoric on the "all weather," "higher than mountains, deeper than oceans, stronger than steel and sweeter than honey," "iron brother" friendship.

Step 4: Host meetings with the political and military leadership and address Parliament.

Step 5: Issue a joint statement weaving it all together.

Step 6: Prepare for post-visit op-eds praising relations (or the rare critique) in Pakistan and commentary elsewhere on Pakistan's lustrous role in China's "string of pearls" strategy in the Indian Ocean.

So, despite all of the standard pageantry, did anything interesting happen this time around? Six points come to mind.

First, in a conspicuous symbol of robust Sino-Pak defense cooperation, Li was escorted into Pakistani airspace by six jointly manufactured JF-17 fighter aircrafts. Between 2008 and 2012, Pakistan accounted for 55% of Chinese arms exports, pushing China into the ranks of the world's top five arms exporters this year. Despite the logic of a close military relationship driven by historical (read India) and commercial imperatives, China's state news agency has described Beijing as looking for "pragmatic" military cooperation with Pakistan -- a reflection of growing asymmetry in both rhetoric and expectations, even in a sector of close collaboration.

Second, both China and Pakistan are in various stages of a leadership transition, which requires forging new personal ties in a relationship that has held steady across governments for sixty-two years. Pakistan was the second leg of Li's first overseas visit (India was the first), and Li was the first foreign leader to visit Pakistan since general elections were held on May 11. Li's visit notably included meeting with Prime Minister-elect Nawaz Sharif, whose party prevailed in the polls but has yet to officially form a government.

Third, the issue of Uyghur militancy likely made its way into Li's talking points. A video recently emerged showing young children firing weapons at a training camp, reportedly in northwest Pakistan, affiliated with the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM) -- a militant Muslim separatist group in China's restive Xinjiang region which borders Pakistan. The veracity of the video aside, a rare strain in the relationship in recent decades has been such Uyghur militants lodged and training in Pakistan's tribal belt. Although Pakistani cooperation has been forthcoming in eliminating members of the ETIM, a "common threat" according to the joint statement, the issue remains of concern to Beijing, especially as the broader region contends with how a post-2014 U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan will reorient a hydra of militant groups.

Fourth, the two countries inked a nebulous accord on a "China-Pakistan Economic Corridor" that underscores an oft-repeated yet largely thwarted desire to expand energy and commercial ties. In February, China acquired control over the Gwadar port in Pakistan's own restive Baluchistan province, a deep sea port that China helped finance and develop in part to diversify its energy supply routes. Meanwhile, Pakistan's economy remains crippled by an energy crisis that Li flagged as a priority area of cooperation. Such aspirations, however, remain captive to Pakistan's chronic insecurity, examples of which shadowed Li's visit. The National Crisis Management Cell directed a suspension of cellular service upon his arrival -- a security measure to prevent the remote detonation of explosives -- and the day before, a bomb blast in Karachi narrowly missed a bus of Chinese port workers, among the 13,000 in Pakistan who have been targeted before.

Fifth, Li's two day visit in Pakistan was preceded by a three-day visit to India. Such scheduling matters figure prominently in the Indo-Pak dynamic, bedeviling many a trip to the region by senior U.S. officials. Yet Li's port of embarkation and duration of stay does not seem to have generated much rancor in Pakistan -- a sign of confidence in the countries' relationship. Indeed, with Sino-Indian border tensions ramping up and inevitable friction between Asia's two rising and neighboring giants, Li's proposed "handshake across the Himalayas" to India may be genuine, given a robust annual trade of $60 billion. However, China will continue to reach out to Pakistan with the other hand.

Sixth, whereas prior joint statements have referred to the importance of Sino-Pak cooperation in the "region," the current statement refers specifically to the "Asia-Pacific region" - potentially implicating the U.S. rebalance to Asia. China has its work cut out across Asia, repairing fractured ties over border and maritime disputes that have created strategic space for the United States. Neighboring Pakistan provides a welcome reprieve for China from fence mending and hard-charging nationalism. Given a longstanding boundary agreement, agreements on maritime cooperation and boundary management, for example, were easily reached during Li's visit. With voices in China calling on Beijing to increasingly look westward even as America tries to rebalance east, how Pakistan fits into the picture (a possible bridge with China?) is a question with which Washington must contend.

Li's visit may have been high on pageantry yet the prestige China enjoys in Pakistan is unparalleled with a 90% approval rating. How it will exercise its influence and with what effect in Pakistan is a question that will become increasingly important as the U.S. scales back in South Asia. Perhaps the next trip will shed just a little bit more light (but don't hold your breath).

Ziad Haider is an attorney at White & Case LLP and the Co-Director of the Truman National Security Project's Asia Expert Group. He served as a White House Fellow in the U.S. Department of Justice and as a national security aide in the U.S. Senate. You can follow him on Twitter at @Asia_Hand.

Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";}

Afghanistan 2014

Last week, ten Afghans and six Americans were killed in one of this year's worst insurgent attacks. While the bombing in Kabul raised eyebrows around the world, it was not mainly because of its deadliness, but because of the group behind it -- Gulbuddin Hekmatyar's Hezb-e Islami (HIG).

Once one of the biggest players in the anti-Soviet jihad of the 1980s, HIG took an active role in the civil war of the 1990s and has since emerged as the second largest insurgent group in Afghanistan. Paradoxically, HIG is also a legal political party, whose members make up the largest voting bloc in parliament and are (at the least) former loyalists to Hekmatyar.  Some HIG members even serve as governors, ministers and presidential advisors to President Hamid Karzai. HIG -- the political party -- has publically disassociated itself from Hekmatyar, but many Afghans remain unconvinced, suspecting members of retaining strong attachments to and respect for their charismatic, fugitive warlord leader. Moreover, the militant and political branches of HIG retain a common strand of an Islamist ideology.

However, the story gets more complex as the group's insurgent wing has repeatedly received a ‘red-carpet' welcome in the presidential palace, with Karzai shaking hands with the envoys. Parts of the Afghan press were therefore particularly scathing after last week's bombing, writing such headlines as "The crime of the guests of the Palace." Unlike the Taliban, who refuse to talk to the government, HIG's military wing has embraced direct negotiations with Kabul. It has sent 17 delegations to Kabul over the past three years, though talks were suspended last year. Since then, delegations have only met politicians, including former rivals, and Western generals and diplomats.

HIG stopped its talks with the government in May 2012 to protest the signing of the U.S.-Afghan Strategic Partnership Agreement. After last Thursday's attack, the group's spokesman told journalists it was in response to the Bilateral Security Agreement the United States and Afghanistan are currently negotiating. One of the key conditions of HIG's February 2012 peace offer has been that Kabul must refrain from signing any deal which allows foreign troops to stay in Afghanistan after 2014.

However, at the same time as ordering such a deadly attack, Hekmatyar has been saying positive things about next year's presidential elections and has suggested his party would participate by choosing a candidate to support.

What is one to make of all this? 

First, despite Hekmatyar's claims, hostility to U.S.-Afghan security agreements does not seem to be the main driver of the group's continuing armed opposition to the government. A recent HIG communique and interviews conducted by this author with several of the warlord's confidants suggest he is frustrated with the failure of peace talks and also weary of his never-ending, never-winning armed struggle. This has led him to rethink his strategy.

One of the problems for Hekmatyar is that the government's priority in any peace talks is the Taliban, a group which is larger and deadlier. Hekmatyar, as a prize, may simply not be worth the hefty concessions he is demanding, especially since any peace deal with HIG would earn Karzai more animosity than praise from the group's many rivals, who make up a sizeable part of his government, the Afghan armed forces, and the political opposition.

Hekmatyar also faces different generational demands. For older party members who accompanied him from the 1980s through all the phases of the Afghan war, being kept out of the ruling political system yet again was too wearisome to contemplate, especially as the battlefield gave no hope of victory. This is why, says Muhammad Khan, deputy leader of the legal, political HIG party, many chose to "come in from the cold." According to Khan, the party currently has three cabinet ministers and 47 members of the upper and lower houses of parliament. Karzai has also appointed half a dozen "Hezbis" as provincial governors, with more becoming his high-profile advisors and ambassadors. However, younger members of the faction, who make up the bulk of the current HIG foot soldiers and are impressed by Hekmatyar's fiery language against the "Crusaders," believe the jihad must continue until all the foreign forces are out of Afghanistan and an Islamic state is established.

To keep his group intact, Hekmatyar has to keep all of these members happy, both the war-weary old-timers and the battle-hungry youngsters. This means reshaping his vision to include both political engagement in the 2014 presidential election and jihad against the foreign troops. He is trying to simultaneously promote his political aims through militancy and his military aims through politics. This is how last week's bombing and his latest statement (available only in Pashto), made on the 35th anniversary of the communists' coup d'etat, should be understood. In speaking about his new vision, Hekmatyar stated:

"In the case that a limited number of foreign forces stays and the puppet government of Kabul grants them legal immunity, then Hezb-e Islami [opts for] supporting a candidate closer to its policies and relatively better than the others; he would certainly easily be made a winner with an overwhelming majority [with Hezb's support]. In this case, Hezb-e Islami would continue its jihad on the battle field and badly defeat the enemy on the political field." (Author's translation)

With this statement, Hekmatyar made a U-turn, forgetting his previous demand that a full withdrawal of foreign forces was a precondition for accepting the current political order. Now he says there needs to be a drawdown of international forces and elections to be held next year, both events due to happen regardless of HIG's involvement. However, it's worth noting here that he was utterly opposed to the two previous presidential elections, calling them "ridicule[s]" and dramas performed under the wings of "the occupation's fighter aircrafts which aims at rendering a false legitimacy to a puppet government."

To avoid looking like he has blatantly changed his mind, Hekmatyar even started telling a new narrative on the war by now referring to the 2014 withdrawal as the "inevitable defeat of the United States and NATO" and "the imminent victory of the mujahedin."

Hekmatyar has also "threatened" to win an overwhelming majority in the 2015 parliamentary elections in order to gain control of parliament and use its legislative power to expel all remaining foreign forces. In other words, he implies that his military goals could finally be achieved through politics. This mixed vision of completing the "liberation" of Afghanistan through democratic means and boasting of victory while still conducting attacks against the government looks designed to keep the foot soldiers loyal. The violence may also be aimed at getting leverage in negotiations. It is a threat to the government to take HIG and its peace overtures more seriously.

Hekmatyar's explicit approval of, and indeed, his intention to participate in the upcoming election may also be an attempt to retain ownership of the many longstanding associates who have grown weary of war, especially as more and more of them have slipped away from the armed wing to join the political process in Kabul. The latest and probably most important member to do this is Qutbuddin Helal, a former deputy prime minister from the mujahedin government in 1990s, who, until last year, was heading Hekmatyar's negotiation efforts.

According to HIG sources who spoke to this author, Helal has joined the government's reintegration program, allegedly in defiance of Hekmatyar's orders. Helal himself said he had not lost allegiance to Hekmatyar as his amir, but that he was now busy discussing a future political solution to the war with tribal elders and what he called "likeminded" parties. By basing himself in Kabul with such a mission, Helal has set up a new nexus of HIG in the capital, adding to the various other minor "breakaway" groups and heavyweights.  

"Once a Hezbi, always a Hezbi," is a modern Afghan saying. Many Afghans believe that whatever name they operate under, even those Kabul-based Hezbis who are working in the government are loyal and will stay loyal to Hekmatyar to the end of their days. This suggests the "Amir's" apparent intention to enter electoral politics could unite all the various political groups, parties, and independent heavyweights who have their roots in HIG but have become scattered during the leader's almost two decade exile from Afghanistan.

However, any comeback, whether in Hekmatyar's own right -- which seems less likely -- or through a political party which explicitly speaks for him, would not be a smooth occurrence. He has bitter enemies among the former mujahedin, particularly from the Jamiat-e Islami group which, among others, fought a bitter civil war in the mid-1990s. Jamiat, a leading faction in the Northern Alliance, has done well in the post-2001 years, with ministers, governors, members of parliament, and a dominating presence in the Afghan security forces. In an attempt to pre-empt their opposition to Hekmatyar's return to politics, his representatives have met many of their old rivals over the past year, but it is unclear what success they've had.

What does seem clear is that Hekmatyar will only take up the government's invitation to insurgents to participate in next year's election if he can give up violence as a means to an end. For now, however, he seems to believe he can best further his party's interests by playing with both bullets and ballots.

Borhan Osman is a Kabul-based researcher/analyst with the Afghanistan Analysts Network.  This piece was adapted from a longer article he co-authored with Thomas Ruttig.  Normal 0 false false false EN-GB JA AR-SA /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;}

Normal 0 false false false EN-US JA X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;}

Event Notice: "Online Radicalization: Myths and Realities" TUESDAY, MAY 28, 2013; 12:15-1:45PM (NAF).

Site Launch: See the New America Foundation's updated drone site here.

"At a crossroads"

In a much-anticipated counterterrorism speech at Washington's National Defense University on Thursday, President Obama declared that "America is at a crossroads" and sought to redefine and narrow the scope of the country's war with al Qaeda and its affiliates (BBC, ET, NYT, Post).  Parts of this realignment include curtailing the use of drones in countries with which the U.S. is not at war, recommitting to closing the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, and seeking new limits on the president's wartime power. It also includes returning the CIA to a more traditional spy agency, which will require a significant culture and generational shift after more than a decade of counterterrorism work and targeted killing (NYT). 

In a recent poll conducted for the BBC, Pakistan came in as one of the most unpopular countries in the world (BBC, ET). The poll asked more than 26,000 people from around the world to rate 16 countries and the European Union on whether their global influence was "mainly positive" or "mainly negative." Pakistan was second to last with only 15% looking upon it favorably, while 55% rated its impact negatively.  Narrowly beaten by North Korea (54% negative view), Pakistan was seen just four percentage points less negatively than Iran (59% negative view).  

Violence in Pakistan continued on Friday when three people were killed in a suicide attack outside a madrassa in Peshawar (Dawn, ET).  Jamatud Dawa leader Haji Hidayatullah was believed to have been the target of the attack, though he was not near the madrassa at the time of the blast.  Elsewhere in Peshawar, gunmen opened fire on a NATO convoy Friday, killing the driver and injuring another (AFP, Dawn). 

In Karachi on Friday, unidentified assailants threw a hand grenade at a government school, injuring a teacher and three students (Dawn, ET).  No deaths were reported in this attack, but four people died and two were wounded in three separate firing incidents across the city. 

Losing momentum

Despite the momentum for rapprochement between the Karzai government and the Taliban that seemed to be building last December, each suicide attack, kidnapping, and roadside bombing of the Taliban's spring offensive erodes Afghan confidence that a peaceful resolution will be found before the withdrawal of coalition forces next year (Post).  Negotiations between the Taliban and U.S. officials broke down in December, and while Afghan President Hamid Karzai finally reached an agreement with Qatar on a proposed Taliban office in March, the group seems to have little interest in moving forward.  With the U.S. commitment to remove its troops by December 2014, both the Afghan government and the Taliban believe time is on their side.

While President Obama promised to complete the security transition in Afghanistan in his speech on Thursday, the focus remained on training the Afghan national security forces, not providing them with the life-saving equipment they seem to need most -- helicopters (Pajhwok). According to a recent report by the Washington Post, the U.S. evacuated 4,700 Afghan soldiers by air while the Afghan air force managed only 400 such rescues (Post).  The U.S. has spent millions training and equipping the Afghan air force but with only 60 helicopters in its arsenal, many of which are out of commission at any given time, injured Afghan forces in remote areas will have to wait for military ambulances and the number of men who die from minor injuries will increase.

In Helmand province, four policemen were killed on Thursday when a roadside bomb ripped through their vehicle (Pajhwok).  Afghan officials blamed the Taliban for the attack, though no one has yet claimed responsibility. 

Summer fun

A few short years ago, the Swat Valley was under the iron fist of the Pakistani Taliban, until a Pakistani military operation ousted the militants in 2009. Now, despite some reports that the Taliban have reasserted themselves in the area, families are turning out en masse and unthreatened to blow off steam and escape the rising temperatures on the banks of the Swat River (ET).

Normal 0 false false false EN-US JA X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;}

Event Notice: What's next for Pakistan's new government? TODAY, May 23, 2013; 12:15-1:45 PM (NAF).

Site Launch: See the New America Foundation's updated drone site here.

Policy changes

In his speech on counterterrorism at the National Defense University Thursday, President Obama will discuss his administration's plans to refocus the war on al Qaeda and its allies by restricting the use of drone strikes in countries with which the U.S. is not at war, and by shifting control of them from the CIA to the U.S. military (NYT). According to the Times, new classified policy guidelines "will impose the same standard for strikes on foreign enemies now used only for American citizens deemed to be terrorists."

The administration also admitted on Wednesday to killing four Americans in drone strikes in Pakistan and Yemen (ET, NYT). In a letter sent to Congressional leaders on Wednesday, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder revealed that the U.S. had killed Anwar al-Awlaki, al-Awlaki's son Abdulrahman, and Samir Khan in Yemen, and Jude Kenan Mohammed in Pakistan. According to the letter, of the four, only Anwar al-Awlaki was specifically targeted. In outlining the methods that will be used to identify potential targets going forward, Holder said lethal force will only be used against targets who pose "a continuing, imminent threat to Americans" and cannot feasibly be captured, suggesting a move away from the "signature strikes" often cited as killing more civilians than militants. 

At least 13 people, including eight police officers, were killed and at least 17 were wounded on Thursday when a powerful remote-controlled bomb hidden in a rickshaw ripped through their truck in Quetta, the restive capital of Balochistan (Dawn, ET, NYT, Pajhwok, Reuters). There have been no immediate claims of responsibility. Elsewhere in Quetta, at least five civilians -- four of whom were women -- were killed when four gunmen on motorcycles opened fire at a house in Sibi (Dawn). Police sources suggested "the house could have been targeted by religiously-motivated militants for suspected involvement in ‘immoral' activities allegedly taking place at the premises." 

In Pakistan's tribal region, two security personnel were killed and 18 were injured in a clash between government forces and militants in central Kurram (Dawn).  Fifteen insurgents were reportedly killed in the fighting as well.  In Bajaur, militants attacked a security checkpoint, wounding two, and an electric power line was destroyed, halting electricity to the region. 

Springtime clashes

Seven people were killed and several dozen were injured in a second suicide bombing in Ghazni on Wednesday (AP, Pajhwok).  The attack took place around 7:30 p.m. at a restaurant where three members of a public uprising in the Mazur district were meeting.  A local resident claimed the bomber wanted to kill Habibullah Khan, the commander of the anti-Taliban group.  As reported yesterday, five people were injured in a suicide bombing in Ghazni on Wednesday morning in an attack targeting police officers. 

Contrary to reports that fighting between insurgents and security forces in the Sangin district in Helmand province were winding down, clashes continued Wednesday, bringing the death toll to as many as 47 insurgents and five police officers (Pajhwok).  An additional 18 insurgents and nine security personnel have been injured since fighting began on Monday.  Both the Afghan security forces and the Taliban claimed victory in the offensive, further complicating conflicting reports of the numbers of fighters involved in the clashes (VOA).

A day after 75 schoolgirls fell ill after a suspected poisonous gas attack in Faryab province, at least 17 girls were brought to a hospital for possible poisoning in Bamyan province on Wednesday (Pajhwok).  According to the Bamyan public health director, the students started vomiting and fell unconscious after smelling gas in their classrooms.  There have been no claims of responsibility but an investigation is currently underway. 

In Kabul, more than 200 male Kabul University students protested the 2009 Elimination of Violence Against Women law, claiming the president decree for women's rights is un-Islamic (Pajhwok, Post).  The protestors demanded a repeal of the law -- which includes a ban on child and forced marriages, makes domestic violence a crime, and protects rape victims from prosecution -- and warned that protests would continue if parliament approved the law.  Some even said they would join the Taliban and incite an uprising against the government if the legislation were passed.

In welcome news, the British government released a proposal Wednesday that will allow six hundred Afghan interpreters who have worked with British troops for more than a year to relocate to Britain on a five-year visa (Pajhwok).  Those who do not meet the year-requirement will be given training and education packages with the Afghan security forces and wages equal to their current salaries.

Wish list

Returning from a two-day trip to India, Afghan President Hamid Karzai said he left a "wish list" of military equipment with the Indian government (Pajhwok, Reuters).  Not your average Bed, Bath, and Beyond registry, Indian media reported 105mm artillery, medium-lift aircraft, bridge-laying equipment, and trucks were some of the items requested.

Pakistan Elections 2013

Two weeks from now, former two-time Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif will take the oath of office for the third time, and this time it will be administered by President Asif Ali Zardari, the irony of which should not be lost on anyone.

The Pakistan People's Party (PPP) and the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) took turns running the government during the 1990s, creating a rivalry that politicized institutions, allowed personalities to dominate government affairs, and used official resources to settle personal scores. Under Sharif's last government in 1999, Pakistani courts convicted Zardari and his wife Benazir Bhutto of corruption, sentenced both to five years imprisonment, and barred them from holding political office.

The upcoming Sharif-Zardari oath taking ceremony makes the personalized, cutthroat, dramatic, and oft-violent politics of the 1990s seem like ages ago. The first democratic transition of power in the country's history is a solid example of that.

Unfortunately, Pakistan is not that lucky. Just this week in Karachi, gunmen murdered Zahra Shahid Hussain, Vice President of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI). PTI blames the killing on political rival the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), pointing to London-based MQM leader Altaf Hussain's call to party workers to protest election results.

Clearly MQM is still in the business of settling scores, along with a host of other individuals and groups that make up the complicated and powerful network of Pakistan's political elite. With Sharif's return to elected politics, many are wondering if he plans to use his stronger position to do the same thing, especially because there is no shortage of scores for a man known to have a very long memory.

Two men in particular come to mind when imagining Sharif's revenge - Pervez Musharraf and Asif Ali Zardari. Sharif's approach to both men will clearly indicate how "moderate" his approach to politics has become, as many in his party would have us believe.

Former President Pervez Musharraf is still under house arrest in Islamabad for multiple cases registered against him, none of which are actually directly related to the military coup he engineered against Sharif's government in 1999.

From exile in Saudi Arabia in 2007, Sharif claimed he had no interest in settling scores with Musharraf upon his return to Pakistan later that year; but he still emphasized that Musharraf's tenure was unconstitutional and he should step down. On the campaign trail just a month ago, Sharif showed relative consistency in his remarks when he pardoned Musharraf for a "personal vendetta...but the crimes the former military dictator committed against the nation are too big to be forgiven."   

Sharif is likely weighing the pros and cons of letting the courts run their course with Musharraf, or stepping in to engineer some face-saving escape for the retired general in order to avoid ire from the military. Much of the work, however, is already done for him. The courts are already very much set against Musharraf for ousting some of their own senior judges from their positions when he was in power.

If Sharif pushes too hard for due process and rule of law in the Musharraf case, he potentially risks relations with the military, which is protecting Musharraf with augmented security and views resolution of the cases as important for the institution's own reputation.

Which power center would Sharif rather risk ties with - an activist Supreme Court or the military? Perhaps the question is more an issue of which problem is more urgent - settling the score with Musharraf under the guise of due process or sustaining relations with the military in order to "overhaul" national security policies, as Sharif and Chief of Army Staff Ashfaq Kayani discussed earlier this week. The decision seems pretty clear, but can Sharif see it?

Sharif must also seek clarity in his relationship with Zardari. After decades of bitter fighting, exile, and imprisonment,  PML-N and PPP found common ground in 2006 when Sharif and Benazir Bhutto formed an alliance to end Musharraf's military rule by signing the Charter of Democracy. The partnership was not meant to be. Bhutto was assassinated by the Taliban in late 2007, which eventually won the PPP a large sympathy vote in the 2008 elections and put the PML-N in the opposition.

Sharif could have used his time in the opposition to settle some personal scores with the PPP-led government. But he did not exact the revenge many expected; instead, the PML-N appeared more cooperative and engaged with the PPP than it had ever been in the past. The two sides could not agree on a caretaker Prime Minister for the political transition, but they adhered to the letter of the law throughout the consultation process, and accepted the final decision made by the Election Commission of Pakistan. Of course, as with Musharraf, Sharif did not have to settle scores since the Supreme Court's targeting of Zardari for corruption was doing the job well enough.

In October of last year, the PPP government agreed to write a letter to Swiss authorities requesting that corruption cases against Zardari be re-opened. This seems to have temporarily resolved a three year conflict between the PPP and the courts, but Zardari's vulnerability remains open to legal interpretation. Furthermore, when his presidential term expires in September he will no longer be protected under constitutional immunity.       

When Zardari steps down, he could be open to further attacks by the Supreme Court, especially from Chief Justice Ifitkhar Chaudhry, who is known to have his own personal vendetta against Zardari. But Chaudhry himself retires in late December because of mandatory age limits. Between September and December, Zardari will be in a legal limbo that could be helped or hurt by the likes of Sharif. What happens in the Supreme Court after Chaudhry leaves is also a risk factor; it is unclear whether the court will continue the activist agenda laid out by the departing Chief Justice or take a more moderate approach.  

Sharif cannot be seen as interfering with the rule of law. At the same time, he must avoid isolating Zardari and the PPP because of their importance to Sharif in the Senate, where PPP maintains a plurality of seats and is needed to pass any legislation introduced by the government.

The unknown factor here is the extent to which the difficult past still shapes Sharif's thinking on Zardari, the PPP, Musharraf, the military, and a host of other relationships. Initial signs from Sharif indicate he has in fact become more moderate, calculated, and conciliatory: his recent meeting with Kayani, visiting political rival Imran Khan in the hospital after a campaign-related injury, and welcoming all parties to join the government.

Perhaps it is better for Sharif to focus on rebuilding these relationships and using them to implement the large mandate he has been given. In the end, victory on these fronts will be the best revenge.   

Shamila N. Chaudhary is a South Asia analyst at the Eurasia Group and a senior fellow at the New America Foundation. She served as director for Pakistan and Afghanistan at the White House National Security Council from 2010-2011.

Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;}

Normal 0 false false false EN-US JA X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;}

Site Launch: See the New America Foundation's updated drone site here.

Event Notice: What's next for Pakistan's new government? TOMORROW, May 23, 2013; 12:15-1:45 PM (NAF).

Winding down

A two-day battle in the Sangin district of Helmand appeared to be ending Tuesday night with Afghan forces saying as many as 26 Taliban insurgents and four policemen were dead (Pajhwok, WSJ). The governor's spokesman claimed hundreds of Taliban fighters launched coordinated attacks on police posts in the district and that they had no help from coalition forces. Spokesmen for the NATO contingent were more circumspect, saying the Taliban force totaled between 80 and 100 fighters, that the attacks were no more than "drive-by shootings," and that U.S. Marines in the area would have joined the fighting had the Taliban presented a significant threat to Afghan forces (NYT). 

In separate incidents on Tuesday, at least eight insurgents and one civilian were killed in Helmand and Ghazni provinces (Pajhwok). One civilian was killed and three others were wounded in a roadside bombing in Helmand, while in Ghazni, eight insurgents were killed and four were wounded during an operation by Afghan forces.  The Taliban gave a different account of the Ghazni attack, saying it was 11 policemen who died and four civilians who were injured. 

Five other civilians were injured in Ghazni on Wednesday when a suicide bomber on a bicycle tried to detonate his explosives near a police vehicle but crashed into a rickshaw instead (Pahjwok). The bomber was killed and the five civilians on the rickshaw were wounded, two critically. A day earlier, the Ministry of Interior said in a statement that while it is concerned about suicide attacks, they do not represent any strategic threat to the transition process or the 2014 elections (Pajhwok).  Instead, they represent the last option for groups trying to make their presence felt.

Evidence of that transition came Tuesday evening as the first military convoy carrying coalition equipment out of Afghanistan arrived in Quetta, Pakistan (Dawn).  About 50 trucks and armored vehicles reached the Balochistan capital amid tight security measures, and will head to Port Qasim in Karachi on Wednesday. Afghan President Hamid Karzai made clear on Wednesday that there is "no circumstance that will allow [him] to stay as president," and he will not make any attempt to run in the April 2014 elections (NYT). Karzai gave two reasons: "One is, I'm exhausted. Really, totally exhausted and I would like to be retired. And second, why would I ruin my legacy by staying on and taking an opportunity away from Afghanistan to become an institutionalized democracy?"

And finally, the New York Times' Matthew Rosenberg reports on the evolution of the militant group Hezb-i-Islami (HIG), which was a powerful fighting force at the beginning of the war, but has since come to rely more on its political wing to wield influence (NYT). While some analysts say HIG is morphing into a primarily political group, others believe it has no intention of giving up militancy, and is using an increasingly popular anti-Western political party to shore up its waning military strength.

Decline of the drones

Ahead of President Obama's long-awaited address on drones at Washington's National Defense University on Thursday, the New York Times reports that drone strikes in Pakistan have fallen sharply since their peak in 2010, perhaps in response to increasing scrutiny of the program from Congress and the American public (NYT).  The pace of strikes in Yemen has also slowed and there's been no report of a strike in Somalia for over a year.  Many expect Obama's speech will be his most ambitious attempt to define his justification for the strikes and what they've achieved.

The British Foreign Office also revealed that it had conducted opinion polls on the CIA drone campaign in Pakistan and that the proportion of respondents in the country's Federally Administered Tribal Areas who believed the strikes were "never justified" had risen to 63 percent in 2011, from 59 percent in 2010 (ET).  And in Brussels, the International Crisis Group released a report on Tuesday stating the CIA campaign may disrupt militant attacks, but it cannot destroy insurgent networks (RFEFL).  

China's premier, Li Keqiang, arrived in Pakistan on Wednesday for a two-day visit, his first to the country since becoming premier in March (Dawn, ET).  The two countries are expected to sign agreements relating to energy, technology, and space, though increased trade is something else Pakistan is interested in.  A lunch held in Keqiang's honor was attended by Pakistan prime minister-elect Nawaz Sharif, who sees China as an important partner in turning around Pakistan's economy.

Two months after being kidnapped by gunmen in Quetta, former Balochistan Advocate General Salahuddin Mengal returned home Tuesday night (Dawn, ET).  It was unclear, however, whether his recovery was the result of paying a ransom to the kidnappers or a law enforcement operation to secure his release. 

Free at last

After much anticipation, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf leader Imran Khan left the hospital Wednesday, two weeks after sustaining a fall that broke several vertebrae and ribs (Dawn, ET). The cricketer-turned-politician who electrified much of the Pakistani electorate was seen walking gingerly but unaided from his hospital room on the third floor to the exit.  He is expected to return to a fully functional capacity in six to eight weeks. 

-- Jennifer Rowland and Bailey Cahall

Normal 0 false false false EN-US JA X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;}

Plague of deadly attacks

A string of deadly attacks continued in Herat on Tuesday when a powerful roadside bomb killed at least seven Afghan policemen (BBC, Dawn, Pajhwok).  The officers were guards at the Salma Dam and were heading to Herat City, the provincial capital, when they hit the buried device.  The Salma Dam, a hydroelectric site, is of strategic importance and has been targeted before.  

The violence continued elsewhere in Afghanistan when Mullah Abdul Rouf, a Taliban commander, and seven of his followers were killed in a NATO airstrike on the outskirts of Logar province; local Taliban commander Mullah Wahid and an accomplice were killed in Uruzgan province; and four Afghan policemen were killed in Farah province when a man believed to have ties to the Taliban opened fire at their checkpoint (Pajhwok, Pajhwok).

The body of a man was found Tuesday near the U.S. Special Forces base in Wardak Province, where he was last seen being taken for questioning in November (NYT). Afghan officials say the man, Sayid Mohammad, was seen in a video being subjected to torture by Zakaria Kandahari, a translator for a U.S. Army Special Forces A Team. U.S. Special Forces were forced to withdraw from the base in Wardak in March due to allegations that they were involved in the torture and killing of at least 15 civilians in the area. American officials have said their investigations turned up no U.S. military involvement in the murders, and that Zakaria Kandahari is an Afghan citizen, not an American.

Defense Ministry spokesman Gen. Zahir Azimi told reporters in Kabul on Monday that violence could dramatically increase in eastern Afghanistan since a number of Pakistani madrassas had been closed to allow their students to commit suicide attacks (Pajhwok). Citing intelligence information, Azimi said the students had been specifically tasked with carrying out suicide and bomb attacks and that the country was already seeing an increase in attacks claimed by the Taliban. He went on to say, however, that Afghan forces have the ability to prevent these attacks and are already conducting 90 percent of the operations against insurgents.  He expects 100 percent of the operations will be conducted solely by Afghan forces by June of this year. 

Human Rights Watch released a report Tuesday stating that the number of Afghan women jailed for fleeing forced and abusive marriages, and other "moral crimes," has soared to 600 since 2011, despite the fact that fleeing abuse is not a crime under Afghan law (Pajhwok, Post). Coming a day after the Afghan parliament failed to pass a law protecting women from violence, the report says many of the prisoners interviewed were hoping to escape beatings, stabbings, burnings, forced prostitution, and unscientific "virginity tests."  While running away is not illegal, the country's supreme court has ordered the prosecution of these women, but not the suspected abusers. 

On Tuesday as many as 75 schoolgirls were sickened in a suspected poisonous gas attack on a school in Faryab province (Pajhwok).  An unknown man hurled a poisonous substance into the air outside the school and a manhunt is currently underway.  This attack comes a month after as many as 74 girls fell sick in Takhar province after smelling gas, and is the latest in a string of such attacks against girls' schools in the country. 

Interest of peace

Prime minister-elect Nawaz Sharif on Monday threw his weight behind the idea of a peace process to end the Pakistani Taliban's insurgency when he told newly elected lawmakers from his Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz party, (PML-N) and independent candidates who have joined with the PML-N, that there is no option but to negotiate with the militant group (AFP, ET). Considering the human and material cost of delaying dialogue with the group, Sharif said: "We have lost around 40,000 lives, wasted billions of dollars and ruined our economy as a result.  Why can't we start [a] dialogue...and make our country peaceful?" (ET). 

In Nowshera on Monday the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) and Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Sami (JUI-S) parties agreed to make joint efforts to restore peace to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province (Dawn). JUI-S party chief and Muttahida Deeni Mahaz president Maulana Samiul Haq said that terrorism attacks will automatically end if the provincial and federal governments work to address its root causes and create a foreign policy that is in line with national interests and free from foreign influence. 

In Karachi and Hyderabad, however, supporters of the Muttahida Quami Movement (MQM) took to the streets on Monday to protest statements from PTI leader Imran Khan blaming MQM leader Altaf Hussain for the slaying of PTI vice president Zohra Shahid on Saturday (Dawn, Reuters). MQM leaders said they could accept everything but derogatory remarks against Hussain, and Khan is being sued by the party for libel, to the tune of 50 billion rupees (Dawn).

Tensions between the two parties were further heightened when re-polling results in Karachi's NA-250 constituency showed the PTI won one National Assembly seat and two in the provincial assembly, beating the MQM candidates who were running (ET). Supporters of Khan woke up to good news on Tuesday when it was reported he would walk out of the hospital Wednesday, two weeks after falling 15 feet from a forklift (BBC, Dawn/AFP, ET/AFP). Despite sustaining multiple fractures to his spine and a few broken ribs, Khan has recovered quickly and has already been walking around the hospital, with the help of a back brace.  He will have to wear the brace for about four to six weeks and will likely need some physical therapy to fully recover. 

Normal 0 false false false EN-US JA X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;}

U.S. government officials said Monday that while the Obama administration plans to move the CIA drone program to the Pentagon, drone operations in Pakistan will continue under agency auspices, for now, to keep the program covert and maintain deniability for both countries (Reuters).  The move is in response to calls for greater transparency of the program and would allow the CIA to return to more traditional spying and intelligence analysis (ET).  The news comes as Obama prepares to give a speech on the use of drones as a counterterrorism tool at the National Defense University on Thursday, though it is unclear if the speech will address this shift or the questioned legality of the program. 

Soda diplomacy

A new ad by Coca-Cola called "Small World Machines" showcases what happened when two high-tech Coca-Cola vending machines were placed in shopping malls in Lahore, Pakistan and New Delhi, India earlier this year (Post).  Instead of traditional machines that require money to purchase a soda, these two were connected and "payment" was extracted by doing something in conjunction with the other - like dancing, tracing images such as peace signs and hearts, and touching hands through the screen.  The ad plays to the "McDonald's theory of conflict resolution," which states no two countries with McDonald's restaurants will ever go to war.  But with PepsiCo dominating the Pakistani market and announcing plans to open a plant in Afghanistan by 2014, peace may be a bit more difficult to achieve than just opening a can of soda (WSJ, BR).  

-- Jennifer Rowland and Bailey Cahall 

Normal 0 false false false EN-US JA X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;}

Event Notice: Jihad and Politics in North Africa. TODAY, May 20, 2013; 12:00-1:30PM (NAF).

Unclaimed violence continues 

A wave of violence swept Afghanistan this weekend, killing dozens of police officers and civilians. The attacks continued on Monday when a suicide bomber wearing a police uniform struck the provincial council building in the capital of Baghlan province, killing 14 and wounding 9 (Dawn/AFP, Pajhwok, AP, NYT, WSJ, VOA). The attack specifically targeted Rasoul Mohseni, the head of Baghlan's provincial council, who was killed in the blast. Widely regarded as the most powerful man in Baghlan, Mohseni was a veteran commander who had led northerners in a revolt against the Taliban (NYT). There were no immediate claims of responsibility, though President Hamid Karzai blamed "enemies of Afghanistan," a phrase often used in reference to the Afghan Taliban (Pajhwok). 

In Kandahar on Friday, two bombs hidden in a motorcycle and a car exploded inside a gated community that was developed in part by Mahmood Karzai, President Hamid Karzai's younger brother, killing at least 9 and wounding more than 70 (NYT).  An investigation is currently under way to determine how the explosive-laden vehicles slipped past the complex's heavy security but there has been no immediate claim of responsibility.  

Two gunmen on motorcycles shot and killed Abdul Ghani, a district police official in the Khaki Safed district of Farah Province in western Afghanistan, in front of his home on Friday night (NYT). A spokesman for the Farah governor said the attack appeared to have been in retaliation for a recent crackdown on the Taliban that killed several militants. In the southern province of Helmand on Saturday, six Afghan policemen were killed and four others wounded when a roadside bomb was detonated near their vehicle in the volatile Gereshk district. And a bomb blast on Saturday morning in Khost, which borders Pakistan to the east, killed one border police officer and wounded eight others.

On Saturday, women's rights activists proposed revisions to Afghanistan's Elimination of Violence Against Women Act in the country's lower house of parliament, and then quickly withdrew them in the face of fierce criticism from mullahs and other conservatives (NYT). The bid to alter the unprecedented law, led by ambitious women's rights proponent and member of parliament Fawzia Koofi, has been criticized by other activists as a danger to the very existence of the law. Any attempt to amend it could result in conservatives dismantling it entirely.

Hundreds mourn PTI vice president

Hundreds of mourners turned out for the funeral of Zohra Shahid, the vice president of Imran Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party, who was gunned down outside her home in Karachi on Saturday (AP, BBC). Police said gunmen on a motorcycle killed the senior party leader in an attempted robbery but others believe the attack was politically motivated. There were no immediate claims of responsibility, though Khan has blamed Muttahida Qaumi Movement party leader Altaf Hussein (Guardian).

Protests over the killing broke out on Sunday as Karachi voters headed back to the polls in an election re-run (ET).  Voting in Karachi was suspended early on May 11 after reports of violent intimidation, and while there was an army presence at the constituency's polling places, Shahid's killing had an immediate impact on voter turnout.  In stark contrast to the 60-percent nationwide turnout in last Saturday's election, election officials believe only about 10 percent of the 86,316 registered voters in Karachi voted on Sunday (BBC, NYT).  

Gen. Ashfaq Kayani, the head of Pakistan's powerful army, visited prime minister-elect Nawaz Sharif on Saturday to show support for stronger democracy and greater stability (Post).  The meeting, described as informal and cordial, lasted for more than three hours and was a remarkable first in a country with a long history of military coups. Former president Gen. Pervez Musharraf was granted bail on Sunday in the Benazir Bhutto murder case and the Supreme Court adjourned its hearing in the treason case against him until Wednesday (Dawn, ET, Reuters).  Musharraf will have to pay two bonds worth one million rupees each, and while the bail does not grant his automatic release, some believe it "certainly paves the way for his exit" (AJ). 

Unidentified gunmen opened fire on a group of health workers administering polio vaccinations in the Bajaur tribal district on Monday, killing a paramilitary soldier who was escorting the team (NYT). Once again, no group claimed responsibility for the attack, but the Pakistani Taliban have declared the vaccination program "un-Islamic" and have carried out attacks on polio workers in the past.

Declan Walsh, the former New York Times bureau chief in Islamabad who was expelled by Pakistan's Interior Ministry on May 10, published a must-read article this weekend on Pakistan's decaying railway as a symbol of the country's decline and a symptom of its deep-seated problems (NYT).

President Barack Obama will reportedly give a speech at the National Defense University this Thursday on U.S. counterterrorism strategy, including the legality of the CIA drone program, which has come under increasing fire this year (AP).

New heights

Samina Baig, a 21-year-old mountaineer from the Shimsal valley of Hunza, became the first Pakistani woman to scale Mount Everest on Sunday (Dawn).  To the surprise of many, she joined twin sisters, also 21 years old, from India to make the climb to the summit, which she completed at 7:30 am on May 19. 

-- Jennifer Rowland and Bailey Cahall 

Normal 0 false false false EN-US JA X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;}

Event Notice: Jihad and Politics in North Africa. MONDAY, May 20. 12:00-1:30PM (NAF).

Friday explosions rock Malakand

Two bombs exploded near different mosques in the Bazdara area of Malakand in northwest Pakistan after prayers on Friday, killing 10 and injuring at least 20 others, though the number of casualties is expected to rise (Dawn, ET). Emergency and rescue teams are at the scene and investigations into the incident are underway. Elsewhere, the driver of a NATO supply truck was shot and killed by gunmen on Thursday as he drove through the Jamrud area of Khyber, one of seven districts in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Dawn). There was no immediate claim of responsibility for either attack. 

The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has rejected Imran Khan's request to recount votes in Lahore's NA-122 constituency (ET). On Thursday, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) chairman gave the ECP three days to accept his parties demand to recount votes in six different constituencies. No word was given about the other recount requests.  The ECP also rejected the Muttahida Qaumi Movement's request to re-poll the entire NA-250 constituency of Karachi (ET).  

Police on Friday arrested Wazir Gul, the head of an inter-provincial gang of kidnappers suspected of capturing Ali Haider Gilani, though there is still no sign of former prime minster Yousaf Raza Gilani's son (Dawn, ET).  On Thursday, security personnel rescued one captive and arrested four abductors, including Gul's brother, Mullah. The search for Gilani continues in Nowshera, where Thursday's arrests occurred, and Charsadda, where Gul was arrested.

Deadliest month

The death toll from yesterday's suicide bombing in Kabul now stands confirmed at 15, with an additional 42 wounded (Dawn, Guardian, LAT, Pajhwok).  Two NATO soldiers (whose nationalities remain unknown), four American contractors, and nine Afghan civilians, including two children on their way to school, were killed when a suicide bomber rammed a car laden with explosives into a military convoy Thursday morning. With this attack, May has become the deadliest month for coalition forces in Afghanistan; 18 service members have been killed in the last 17 days (Post).

Hezb-i-Islami, the militant group responsible for yesterday's suicide bombing, said Thursday's attack marked the start of a stepped-up campaign against foreign troops in Afghanistan and promised more such assaults (NYT). While Haroon Zarghoun, a group spokesman, said U.S. military advisors were the specific targets in this attack, another spokesman, Zubair Sediqqi, stated they would also target Afghans working with foreigners (Guardian, LAT). A group once allied with the United States and considered to be more moderate than the Taliban, Hezb-i-Islami is formally split into two different factions - one that is embedded in the Afghan government and includes the ministers of agriculture, education, and economy, and one that reports to leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar in Pakistan (Post).  

An Afghan woman whose husband was killed in the March 2012 massacre of 17 civilians that was allegedly carried out by U.S. Staff Sgt. Robert Bales broke with tribal traditions to tell journalists from the Associated Press her account of the grisly murder (AP). Masooma, who like many Afghans only goes by one name, described how a U.S. soldier in military uniform dragged her husband out of their bedroom and then shot him before returning to the room, where he punched her 7-year-old son in the head repeatedly, shook her two-year-old daughter by her pigtails, and put the barrel of his pistol in the mouth of her crying infant. The Army is seeking the death penalty in Bales' court-martial.

Two insurgent groups in northern Balkh and Faryab provinces have joined the Afghan peace process, according to the National Security Directorate, Afghanistan's intelligence agency (Pajhwok). The 45 fighters turned in their weapons on Friday and asked about work opportunities in their areas.  They join the more than 6,000 other militants who have reportedly joined the peace process since 2010, 4,500 of whom have been provided with work opportunities.

Speedy recovery

After fracturing three vertebrae, cracking a rib, and cutting his scalp during a 15-foot fall from a forklift ten days ago, PTI leader Imran Khan will likely walk out of the hospital in the next 10 to 12 days, according to PTI Vice President Asad Umar (Dawn). While Umar said Khan might participate in protests against election rigging after his release, it seems fairly certain he will be doing so from ground-level.

-- Jennifer Rowland and Bailey Cahall 

The Shelf

Since the brutal attack in Boston a few weeks ago, the word terrorism, without being preceded by the word "cyber," unfortunately returned to our lexicon.  For those who have spent the better part of the past decade obsessed by the al Qaeda terrorism threat, there was much in Boston that looked very familiar.

Two men who have spent an even longer time watching the evolution of the al Qaeda threat, Abdel Bari Atwan, the editor in chief of the London-based newspaper, Al-Quds al-Arabi, and Phil Mudd, a former CIA analyst, Deputy Director of the agency's Counterterrorist Center, and Deputy Director of the National Security Branch at the FBI, have both written important and well-argued books that have a direct relevance to the al Qaeda inspired attack in Boston, the ongoing evolution of the al Qaeda threat and the U.S. intelligence community's current and future capacity to understand the ever-changing nature of that threat.

Abdel Bari Atwan's book, After Bin Laden - Al Qaeda the Next Generation, as its title connotes, seeks to explain the characteristics of "Al Qaeda and Associated Movements," or AQAM as he likes to call them, in the wake of bin Laden's death. 

Not surprisingly, Mr. Atwan makes a compelling case that while the death of Osama bin Laden and the decimation of al Qaeda Core's top leadership has hurt the central organization that was based in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the movement and ideology, with its worldwide presence via regional associated movements, is as much of a menace to the West as ever and undiminished in its goal of a global caliphate.

Mr. Atwan spends considerable time discussing the poorly named "Arab Spring," the successive revolutions which occurred across the Arab world and the relationship that these events have with indigenous al Qaeda-associated movements that have their own deep roots in some of the very states that saw their governments topple, sectarian conflicts break into the open, and civil wars erupt.

While many of us in the West hoped that the revolutions in the Arab states would herald better governance and the opportunity for homegrown secularists with their own domestic legitimacy to rise, Mr. Atwan saw a different future - one where Islamist parties would dominate the ballot box and armed Islamists or AQAM would have a role to play as well.

Mr. Atwan takes the reader on an impressive tour of the Islamic world, with chapters and sections on almost every country and region from Arabia to Uzbekistan.  While some of the background history that he provides on each country or region is old news to regular readers of the New York Times international section, they do provide the context in each locale for Mr. Atwan to make his most provocative argument - al Qaeda-associated movements are poised for a comeback when either the Islamists or secularists fail in their efforts of good governance, regardless of whether it is in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, Iraq, Nigeria, North Africa, Sinai, or Central Asia.  While the situation in each country is distinct, in general, regional al Qaeda-type violence certainly seems unabated and potentially is on the upswing in countries like Iraq, Nigeria, Mali and Syria.

Mr. Atwan is at his best when explaining the tribal dynamics in such places as Yemen, where different alliances among the tribes and their long standing dissatisfaction with any central government make them a natural ally of al Qaeda-associated movements, who also seek to challenge the central government, are armed, and espouse an austere form of Islam that is not foreign to the locals.  Mr. Atwan draws similar astute insights about local dynamics when considering the prospects for growth for al Qaeda in the states of North Africa or the Islamic Maghreb.

Unlike many who follow jihadist groups, Mr. Atwan did not neglect the unstable Russian Caucasus region, including Chechnya and Dagestan -places now etched in the American consciousness.  While some may not have understood the centrality of the Caucasus in the al Qaeda narrative, Mr. Atwan captures not only its importance, but also its worldwide links to jihadists in Pakistan, the Middle East, and even Europe.

With such a broad array of al Qaeda-associated threats gathering across the globe, and a sporadic, hard to characterize, homegrown threat now having proven its capability to kill, one is likely to worry how the United States will confront this multi-faceted threat matrix.

Fortunately, we have Philip Mudd, who ate, slept, and dreamt this threat for the better part of this past decade from within various parts the U.S. counterterrorism bureaucracy, to provide a unique perspective on how the United States is organized to confront this threat.  What gives Mr. Mudd's book, Takedown - Inside the Hunt for Al Qaeda, its arc is his career trajectory within a counterterrorism bureaucracy that was constantly evolving to catch up to and ultimately try to stay ahead of a rapidly evolving al Qaeda threat.

For an outsider, Mr. Mudd provides unique insights as to what it was like on a day-to-day basis working in the CIA Counterterrorism Center and FBI National Security Branch and how those entities functioned, faults and all.  Mudd's descriptions of his encounters with senior policymakers and agency heads like Secretary of State Colin Powell, CIA Director George Tenet, Attorney General Michael Mukasey, and FBI Director Robert Mueller could easily have been found in a typical Bob Woodward book about inside Washington.  However, Mr. Mudd is a gentleman and takes the high road in his recollections.  The book is less about "takedowns" of particular terrorists and much more a story of Mr. Mudd's experiences inside the U.S. national security apparatus, embedded in explanations of the functioning of the U.S. counterterrorism community's threat bureaucracy.

Mr. Mudd's vantage point from inside the different organizations at particular points in time allows him to explain how the al Qaeda threat looked to the U.S. government at various points during the last decade.  This perspective is quite important and in many ways sets up the findings of Mr. Atwan's book about al Qaeda post-bin Laden.

Mr. Mudd served as a National Security Council staffer when the attacks of September 11, 2001 occurred, after which he returned to CIA where he found himself at the rapidly growing Counterterrorism Center.  At that time, the U.S. intelligence community was concerned primarily - and rightly - with al Qaeda Core in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and how to understand the hierarchy and network that supported it.  So, the arrests, capture, and subsequent interviews of senior al Qaeda leaders such as Abu Zubayda and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed provided the intelligence community with information that could help potentially thwart plots or provide insights on other plotters and was, as Mr. Mudd describes it, "gold" for intelligence analysts.

As progress was being made against al Qaeda Core in the Af/Pak region, the United States mobilized for the Iraq War.  Mr. Mudd describes how, suddenly, the al Qaeda-linked insurgency in Iraq that rose up in the wake of the 2003 U.S. invasion became an important focus and required an expansion of resources at the CIA's Counterterrorism Center.  Moreover, the phenomenon was not confined to Iraq after 2003 - but rather, an al Qaeda threat was spreading through South East Asia, North Africa, Turkey and Europe, as evidenced by attacks in these areas.

Although Mr. Mudd does not provide the detailed historical context or local dynamics that Mr. Atwan focuses on to explain this geographic proliferation of the al Qaeda threat, he does focus on one element that is a key common factor among all the al Qaeda associated groups regardless of where they are - ideology.  This ideology is not only anti-Western, but also requires the overthrow of Middle Eastern regimes, and thus "attacks are meant to spark a revolution, not an end in themselves." 

Furthermore, Mr. Mudd explains that it was during this time period (2003-2006) that the U.S counterterrorism community felt an acute sense of "surprise and unknowing" given the geographic sprawl that characterized al Qaeda attacks during this time. As time wore on, though, the intelligence community began to dedicate analysts not solely to al Qaeda Core but rather to these geographically disperse regions that now seemingly housed al Qaeda problems.  Interestingly, what Mr. Mudd describes happening at the national level was also happening at the NYPD Intelligence Division, and we too had to both widen the aperture of our analytic lens and devote more resources to a broader and more diverse al Qaeda threat during those years.

Once Mr. Mudd moved to the FBI, on loan from the CIA, he gained insight into the threat that was increasingly manifesting itself in the West and ultimately struck in Boston - the homegrown threat, comprised of "loose clusters of youths, typically kids who were angry and thought other members of their communities weren't serious about opposing what they saw as a U.S. or Western crusade in Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere."  These men had little if any operational links to al Qaeda, but rather were inspired to act by the group's ideology.  

As the reader finishes both books, the authors veer off into very different directions.  Mr. Mudd makes no predictions as to what the threat will look like in future years, but gives the impression that the terrorism threat management bureaucracy in the United States had become more streamlined and regularized, or "far more well-oiled and less jumpy, than in the first years," suggestive of a higher level of functionality and capacity to thwart future al Qaeda plots.

Mr. Atwan, however, paints a picture that unfortunately does not bode well and in some ways challenges the assertions that the U.S. intelligence community has adequately evolved enough to face the diffuse, de-centralized al Qaeda threat that we face today.  In Mr. Atwan's world, various al Qaeda-type groups coordinate and collaborate across huge swaths of the earth and take advantage of the chaos and instability of the post-Arab Spring Middle East.  New post-revolutionary governments, whether Islamist or secular, may face protestors and al Qaeda-type terrorists who work together, if they falter or fail to deliver the changes that were promised. 

Mr. Mudd is clearly right in that the U.S. intelligence community now has the bandwidth and regional expertise to adequately focus on a diverse and dispersed al Qaeda threat.  However, the ability to better understand the threat and the ability to roll it back are different processes (intelligence analysis vs. counterterrorism policy execution).  Unfortunately, greater and deeper insights do not assure American counterterrorism success, especially when Mr. Atwan makes a compelling case that we face a future of many ‘al Qaedas' who have metastasized in hard to get at places, are unlikely to be completely defeated on the battlefield, nor collapse because of infighting, nor be successfully rendered impotent via U.S.-led decapitation strategies.  Thus, despite the U.S. intelligence community's increase in terms of both breadth and depth of expertise, the longest war will probably go on longer, and we may have to be content with an American strategy that can keep the regional al Qaeda franchise threats in check, but cannot eradicate them. 

Mitchell D. Silber is the Executive Managing Director of K2 Intelligence and was the Director of Intelligence Analysis for the New York Police Department from 2007 to 2012.  

Normal 0 false false false EN-US JA X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Cambria","serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;}

Normal 0 false false false EN-US JA X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;}

New Post: Andrew Wilder and Colin Cookman, "The Return of Nawaz Sharif: Assessing Pakistan's 2013 Election" (NAF).

Deadly week continues

Two NATO service members, four NATO contractors, and at least 10 Afghan civilians were killed on Thursday when a suicide bomber drove an explosives-laden car into a two-vehicle convoy in the Shah Shahid district of Kabul (Dawn, NYT, Pajhwok, Post).  NATO officials had no immediate comment on the nationalities of those killed, but Afghan police officials said they removed the bodies of four Americans from one of the vehicles.  Unlike previous attacks that have gone unclaimed, insurgent group Hezb-i-Islami has claimed responsibility for this attack. 

The violence on Thursday continued in the Sarobi district of Paktika Province where one Afghan civilian was killed and seven others were wounded in a suicide bombing at a local market (Pajhwok).

Stepping up their own "spring offensive," Afghan and foreign forces launched a joint clearing operation in the Hesarak district of Nangarhar province on Wednesday, killing 17 insurgents and wounding several others (Pajhwok). The operation is ongoing in the Daud Kala, Rashid Kala, and Jabarkhel districts, and a provincial police spokesman hinted the offensive would continue for a few days.  U.S. forces also claimed on Thursday that 24 militants had been killed in 24 hours in similar actions around the country.     

On the offensive, part two

Not to be outdone by the recent goodwill gestures of their Afghan counterparts, the Pakistani Taliban said in a statement Wednesday that they would stop attacks, provided the incoming government takes their offer for dialogue seriously (ET). A similar offer was made to the previous government, but was rescinded when the group did not receive a "positive" response.  Prime minister-elect Nawaz Sharif has said the offer would be considered seriously, though it is unclear what "serious" steps he would take or what would be acceptable to the Taliban.

Meanwhile, Imran Khan has filed a formal complaint with the Election Commission of Pakistan, demanding that they investigate his party's claims of vote-rigging in the elections for 25 parliamentary seats, primarily in districts of Lahore and Karachi (NYT). If the alleged electoral fraud is not addressed within three days, Khan warned that he and his supporters would stage countrywide protests.

Acting on a tip, police conducted an operation in Nowshera on Thursday to recover Ali Haider Gilani, the son of former prime minister Yousaf Raza Gilani, who was kidnapped on May 9 while heading to a political rally in Multan.  Security personnel recovered a captive and arrested four abductors, though Gilani is still missing (Dawn, ET).  The police search for him is ongoing.

The Pakistani military drove the Taliban out of the northwestern Swat Valley in a successful 2009 operation, but a series of recent attacks, combined with the impending drawdown of U.S. troops just across the border, have Pakistani authorities nervous that the region once known as the Switzerland of Pakistan is poised to fall again into militant control (WSJ). Their worry is somewhat paradoxical given the longtime U.S. accusation that the insurgency continues to rage in Afghanistan in part because of Pakistani support for the Afghan Taliban. But Pakistan is concerned that anti-state militants in the tribal regions will gain support from emboldened militants in neighboring Afghanistan.

Seedlings

Pakistani feature film Lamha (Seedlings in English) won the Best Feature Film Award at the DC South Asian Film Festival on Wednesday (Dawn).  The only Pakistani film to be aired at the festival, Lamha revolves around loss, forgiveness, and redemption as a young couple struggles to reconnect after the death of their only child.

-- Jennifer Rowland and Bailey Cahall 

Pakistan Elections 2013 p.MsoNormal { margin-bottom: 0.6em; }

Pakistanis went to the polls on May 11th to participate in landmark national and provincial elections. Violent attacks by the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) insurgency disproportionately targeted vocal opponents of the TTP prior to the vote, and clashes between rival candidates continued on election day itself. But despite the threats and disputed results in some constituencies - particularly the country's largest city of Karachi - this appears to have been the freest and fairest election in Pakistan since the country's first democratic national election in 1970. Its legitimacy was enhanced by being one of the most widely contested elections in Pakistan's history, with all major national and regional political parties taking part in what appears to have been a genuinely competitive contest.

During the campaign period, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) chairman Imran Khan in particular seized media headlines and public attention with calls for change and efforts to mobilize the country's large youth vote. But given the PTI's disappointing electoral performance relative to expectations, credit for the high levels of participation - currently projected by the Election Commission at around 60% nationwide, considerably more than the 44% reported in 2008 - must also be shared more broadly. Beyond the party campaigns, a diverse and vibrant array of media coverage and social media participation, a caretaker government and Election Commission administration of the polls that were broadly accepted as neutral, and public commitments by the military establishment not to intervene all appear to have contributed to voters' determination to take part in the elections - despite Taliban threats and calls for a boycott.

Table 1: Preliminary Pakistan National Assembly 2013 Election Results

Party

Total Nationwide

Punjab

Sindh

Balochistan

KPK

FATA

Islamabad

PML(N)

124

116

1

1

4

1

1

PPP

31

2

29

0

0

0

0

PTI

27

8

0

0

17

1

1

MQM

18

0

18

0

0

0

0

JUI(F)

10

0

0

3

6

1

0

Independents

28

16

2

4

1

6

0

Other Parties

21

4

6

4

7

0

0

Pending Final Results

10

1

4

2

0

2

0

Postponed or Cancelled

3

1

1

0

0

1

0

TOTAL

272

148

61

14

35

12

2

Source: Election Commission of Pakistan, Party Position (National Assembly), as of Wednesday, May 15, available at http://www.ecp.gov.pk/overallpartyposition05152013412.pdf

Note: Results are for 272 directly contested national assembly seats, and do not include 60 seats for women and 10 for minorities that are allocated proportionally to parties based on election performance. Candidates are allowed to contest multiple seats, requiring special elections in the event that they win in more than one constituency, meaning final results will be subject to further change.

Although the final results have yet to be certified, Table 1 illustrates that the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) led by former two-time prime minister Nawaz Sharif, has emerged as the clear victor. The party was able to nearly double the number of National Assembly seats it won from 68 in 2008 to at least 124 in 2013. Most pre-poll analysis predicted that the PML-N would emerge as the single largest party, but the general expectation was that the elections would produce a hung parliament requiring Nawaz Sharif to cobble together a weak coalition government. The PML-N's decisive victory, however, will enable it to reach out to potential coalition partners from a position of strength, increasing its freedom of action to use its newfound political capital. Whether this tremendous advantage will be seized or squandered remains to be seen, but expectations are already being raised - possibly unrealistically so - that Nawaz Sharif will now be in a position to tackle a range of issues from Pakistan's acute energy shortages to helping normalize relations with India.

While Imran Khan's PTI supporters may be the most disappointed voters after coming in second place across most of Punjab, the biggest loser in 2013 was the Pakistan Peoples' Party (PPP), which had led Pakistan's coalition government from 2008-2013. Whereas the PML-N nearly doubled its seat numbers, the PPP was reduced from 89 seats in 2008 to 31 in 2013. While the scale of the PPP's defeat surprised many, the fact that it lost seats reflects a consistent feature in Pakistani electoral politics, which is the disadvantage of incumbency. No political party has won back-to-back elections in Pakistan since the PPP's victory in 1977 in an election widely acknowledged to have been massively rigged. The shortage of resources available to meet patronage demands often leaves the majority of voters unhappy with incumbents, who are then punished the next time elections are held.

This tendency was further exacerbated by the deep discontent of most voters with the direction in which Pakistan was heading (91% according to a recent Pew poll), and the perception that the PPP-led government from 2008-2013 was corrupt and inefficient, doing little to tackle some of the major issues confronting Pakistan, such as the country's serious energy crisis. The most disturbing aspect of the PPP's dismal performance is that it has now essentially been reduced to a party of rural Sindh, whereas historically it has been the only national party able to consistently win seats in all four provinces. It remains to be seen whether this devastating defeat, especially in the largest province of Punjab where it won only one seat, will serve as a wake-up call and force a substantial shakeup within the party, or whether it will continue its downward spiral into yet another ethnically defined party.

Another impact of the 2013 election result is that the role of the Pakistani presidency is likely to diminish further after the PML-N assumes office. Although the 18th Amendment to Pakistan's constitution in April 2010 formally transferred many powers of office that had accrued to the president under General Pervez Musharraf's tenure to the prime minister, President Asif Ali Zardari's leadership of the PPP allowed him to retain effective control over its activities in parliament - though a verdict from the Lahore High Court forced him to relinquish his party title prior to the start of the campaign season. Zardari's term in office expires later this fall, and he now appears unlikely to secure reelection by the electoral college comprised of the national and provincial assemblies and the upper senate house. For the first time since Nawaz Sharif's ouster in a 1999 military coup, civilian power in the Pakistani political system will be re-centering in the office of the prime minister rather than a powerful president.

This represents a shift from the past five years, which had seen a general diffusion of power within the country. The PPP tenure was marked by significant compromises on power-sharing with the opposition and between the central and provincial governments. But the difficulties of managing a fractious coalition and fending off challenges to the government's authority from the judiciary and Pakistan's powerful security services ultimately consumed much of the PPP leadership's attentions. The result was a slow consensus-based policymaking process that, while necessarily more inclusive of the interests of the country's diverse centers of powers, stalled out before resolving many of the critical concerns facing Pakistan - particularly on economic reforms needed to address chronic energy shortages, fiscal deficits and tax revenue collection shortfalls, and Pakistan's integration through trade with its neighbors.

Table 1: Preliminary Pakistan Provincial Assembly 2013 Election Results

Party

Punjab Assembly

Sindh Assembly

Balochistan Assembly

KPK Assembly

PML(N)

213

4

9

12

PPP

6

63

0

2

PTI

19

1

0

35

MQM

0

37

0

0

JUI(F)

0

0

6

13

Independents

41

5

8

13

Other Parties

12

10

27

22

Pending Final Results

0

9

0

2

Postponed or Cancelled

6

1

1

0

TOTAL

297

130

51

99

Source: Election Commission of Pakistan, Party Position (Provincial Assemblies), as of Wednesday, May 15, available at http://www.ecp.gov.pk/overallpartypositionPA05152013412.pdf

Although the largest parties managed to achieve small footholds in the other provinces, the overall election result has reinforced the regionalization and localization of political party organizations in Pakistan. Despite its wins, the PML-N made few gains outside of Punjab itself. The PPP retained its hold over the Sindh assembly, but lost its position elsewhere in the country. Although it failed to make major hoped-for gains in Punjab, the PTI secured approximately a third of the seats in the Khyber-Paktunkhwa provincial assembly, echoing the decisive ouster in 2008 of the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal coalition of religious parties by the Awami National Party, which has now itself failed to gain reelection to any more than a handful of provincial assembly seats. Balochistan, which faces an active separatist insurgency and saw the lowest levels of participation, experienced the most fragmented electoral outcomes, with ethnic nationalist parties, religious parties, and independents dividing the provincial assembly and delegation to parliament.

The PPP retains a plurality in the upper senate house, and administrative devolution processes mandated by the 18th and 19th amendments to the Pakistani constitution have strengthened the autonomy and responsibilities of provincial governments, as well as locking in larger shares of national tax revenues for the provinces. The PML-N supported many of these reforms during its time in opposition, benefiting through its management of the Punjab government. It is possible the PPP and PTI opposition parties' control over provincial governments will ensure their stake in the system and provide for a negotiated balance of power with the PML-N at the center. But given the history of conflict in Pakistan over issues of federalism and provincial autonomy, relations between the new Punjab-based government in the center and the rest of the country have the potential to be a significant source of political tension going forward.

Beyond questions of divided center-provincial relations, the new PML-N government must also balance its relations with Pakistan's unelected centers of power - namely the military and the increasingly assertive judiciary. Speculation is already mounting as to whether Nawaz Sharif, who when previously in office confronted and was overthrown in a military coup by General Musharraf, will again try to increase the role of civilian authorities in security and foreign policymaking - traditionally the domain of Pakistan's military. Both the military and the judiciary are facing transitions of their own later this year, as Chief of Army Staff General Ashaq Kayani and Supreme Court Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry approach the end of their respective terms. These two institutions have effectively self-selecting control over their membership and leadership appointments, and are likely to continue to check parliament's freedom of action, potentially setting up deeper institutional clashes if a Sharif government chooses a course of more direct confrontation than its predecessor.

The new PML-N government takes office with many major challenges to resolve, including the ailing economy, tense relations with its neighbors to the east and west, and the continuing threat of domestic militancy. The PML-N, which played a patient waiting game in opposition throughout the PPP's tenure, can now credibly claim a mandate for action on many of these issues. But even with a stronger base of support in its home province of Punjab and in the national parliament, it will still face limits to its ability to push through new policies. Nonetheless, the transition from the PPP-led government at the end of its full term in office to a popularly elected successor is an important institutionalization of the democratic process as a means of resolving political disputes, and a hopeful sign for Pakistan's future political stability.

Andrew Wilder is the Director of Afghanistan and Pakistan Programs at the United States Institute of Peace, where Colin Cookman is a researcher. The views reflected here are their own.

Normal 0 false false false EN-US JA X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;}

The Rack: Mohsin Hamid, "Pakistan: Why Drones Don't Help" (NYRB).

On the offensive

Three U.S. soldiers were killed in the Zhare district of Kandahar on Tuesday when a roadside bomb ripped through their convoy (NYT, RFE/RL). Considered one of the most violent districts in Afghanistan, Zhare has seen an increased Taliban presence as the American force there has been cut over the past year.  The attack was the second successful assault on coalition forces in as many days. As the United States and its NATO allies hand over responsibility for security operations to the Afghans, the U.S. and Afghan Special Forces contingents are taking on increasing amounts of combat (NYT). U.S. Special Operations forces are expected to make up almost one-third of the American troop presence in Afghanistan by next February, while the specially trained Afghan commandos will be heavily relied upon to fill the gap left by outgoing NATO troops.

Violence continued on Wednesday in Nangarhar province with back-to-back explosions that killed one police officer and wounded 10 civilians (Dawn, Pajhwok).  The first bomb went off close to the Sherzai Stadium, and near the provincial governor's compound, in Jalalabad and the second was detonated shortly after police reached the scene. As with the other attacks this week, there has been no immediate claim of responsibility.

The four remaining Turkish engineers held hostage by the Afghan Taliban were released on Tuesday in a "goodwill gesture toward Turkey" and as an "Islamic and humanitarian gesture of respect" (Pajhwok, Reuters, RFE/RL).  Zabihullah Mujahid, a Taliban spokesman, said he hoped the release of the eight Turkish captives would help bring the two Islamic nations even closer. Still no word was given about the fates of the Afghan interpreter or the two pilots who were also captured when their helicopter made an emergency landing in April.

In addition to freeing the eight Turkish hostages, the Afghan Taliban released a statement earlier this week asking members "not to create any kind of trouble" for health workers participating in the country's polio eradication program (CBC).  Though they said they would not tolerate foreigners participating in the eradication program, the group recognized the science behind the vaccine and the need for preventative medicine (Tel, CBC).  Since the Taliban has previously blocked eradication program, Afghan observers say it is clear the move is as much for political reasons as it is for humanitarian ones.   

Coming together

Nawaz Sharif, Pakistan's president-elect, visited opposition leader Imran Khan in the hospital on Tuesday, saying they had "made peace" and would "work together to get the country out of a quagmire of problems" (NYT).  While Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) party gained control of the regional government in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province, most independent candidates appeared to be aligning with Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), strengthening his party's position in both the National and Punjab Assemblies (Dawn, ET).

The PTI claims it has identified "significant rigging instances" in as many as 20 Punjabi constituencies and will be lodging complaints with the Election Commission of Pakistan and the Supreme Court (Dawn).  Some have suggested this is a case of the party's followers being "sore losers," but others are taking the allegations seriously (ET).  On Wednesday, seven men allegedly involved in rigging polling stations in the Darakhshan section of Karachi were arrested and the election in that area, which was postponed on Saturday due to widespread complaints of irregularities, has been rescheduled for May 19 (Dawn).

Speaking at the New America Foundation on Tuesday, Ben Emmerson, the U.N. special rapporteur on counterterrorism and human rights, stated that U.S. claims it is in a global armed conflict with al-Qaeda and can kill its members wherever it finds them are not widely accepted among its European allies (NAF, WT).  Making his first public comments in Washington since launching an investigation into the U.S. drone program in January, Emmerson called for more transparency from the Obama administration, not only to ease public concerns about the targeted killing campaign but also to combat exaggerated claims against it.

Courage under fire

The Oklahoma City National Memorial and Museums on Monday honored Malala Yousafzai, the 15-year-old who was shot by the Pakistani Taliban last year for supporting women's education, and awarded her the annual Reflection of Hope Award (OKC). Accepted by her father, Ziauddin, the award is given in honor of the 168 people who died in the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building.

-- Jennifer Rowland and Bailey Cahall 

state-building 101

As of this year, Afghanistan has experienced ten years of stabilization intervention, but what is there to show for it? Marked by massive expenditure with little to no accountability, and often marred by waste, stabilization in Afghanistan started out with arguably honorable aims. However, as troops prepare to leave in 2014, what legacy will be left behind?

Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs) began with perhaps the best of intentions: to fill the vacuum of law and order left by the fall of the Taliban and undertake reconstruction, badly needed in a country devastated by three decades of conflict. The security situation was perceived to be relatively benign, with the major threats being criminals and warlords seeking to reassert power.

PRTs did some positive work, often acting as the only authority in a security vacuum, and were appreciated, at least early on, by Afghans. They were no substitute, however, for the effective governance and security required. PRTs' predominantly military staff received little to no training, lacked the technical skills required to carry out development work and focused more on short term quick impact projects instead of the long term state-and-peace-building work that was so badly needed.  Rather than seeking to build Afghan capacity - a central component of their mandate - they often worked around the government. The PRTs also created winners and losers, supporting local strongmen or funneling money through often corrupt construction companies.  

Despite early U.S. government acknowledgement of these problems, PRTs expanded rapidly, led by a multitude of different nations that were often unable to effectively coordinate amongst each another.  In 2008, the US Congress described the situation as one with "no clear definition of the PRT mission, no concept of operations or doctrine, no standard operating procedures."

As insecurity spread, the dual security and reconstruction roles of PRTs became increasingly schizophrenic. One incident in Ghazni province in 2004 saw PRT officials offering to build a well for villagers just weeks after they had fired rockets into the very same village killing nine children.  Unsurprisingly, residents were hardly consoled and Afghan goodwill for the PRTs was quickly eroded.

But the amount of money available for military-led development continued to increase.  In 2009, the US Army published the Commanders' Guide to Money as a Weapons System, which defined aid as "a nonlethal weapon" to be utilised to "win the hearts and minds of the indigenous population to facilitate defeating the insurgents." Aid devoted to these objectives rapidly increased: annual funding for the Commander's Emergency Response Program (CERP), the primary U.S. PRT funding stream, rose from $200m in 2007 to $1bn in 2010.

No centralised, comprehensive records appear to have been kept on the PRTs, either within the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) or the Afghan government, and rarely even within PRTs. When auditors found CERP project files incomplete or non-existent in 2009, CERP project managers told US auditors that their focus "was on obligating funds for projects rather than monitoring their implementation." Unsurprisingly there has been no comprehensive monitoring and evaluation of CERP-funded programmes; the most thorough examination is a 2011 SIGAR audit of CERP programming in the insecure eastern province of Laghman. It's a harrowing read.  Of the $53m CERP funds allocated to the PRT between 2008 and 2011, 92% (or $49.2m) was dedicated to projects found by SIGAR to be "at risk or have questionable outcomes." Funds were not managed in accordance with standard operating procedures, which were finally established in 2009, and none of the 69 projects had sufficient documentation to track outcomes. Again and again, the audit found the Afghan government unable to take over PRT projects.

PRTs were not the only instrument of stabilization. Between 2003 and 2012, USAID obligated $1.1bn in stabilization funding to for-profit contractors but such projects fared no better. One example is USAID's ‘flagship counterinsurgency program' the Local Government and Community Development Programme (LGCD). The budget and timelines for the $400m, five-year project mushroomed despite questionable early evaluation findings and the fact that over half of LGCD's expenditures were on staff costs and security.  USAID officials were unable to visit several sites because it was too dangerous. As for its impact, the USAID Inspector-General reported ‘the project's overall success seemed highly questionable.'

Part of the problem is that the goals of stabilization in Afghanistan were never comprehensively, consistently or clearly articulated.  Stabilization works on the assumption that conflicts are fuelled by grievances about poverty or neglect, and that development projects that improve governance, opportunities and services can ‘stabilize' conflict situations. But evidence is lacking or discouraging.  A 2011 Tufts university study found while there was some evidence some stabilization interventions can work in the short term, there is little evidence of long term security gains and much more indicating a tendency to create local conflict and ‘perverse incentives' to maintain insecurity.

In an world where aid agencies are required to prove their ‘value for money' and aid-receiving governments are pressured to become fully transparent, the lack of systematic, government-led push for accountability for the multi-billion dollar investments is hypocritical and irresponsible - and speaks to an ideological unwillingness to address the problems and pitfalls of stabilization approaches.

The lack of interest in documenting the impact of the stabilization efforts - both what works and what doesn't - does not bode well for the rest of the world. As global focus turns to other complex emergencies in Mali, Yemen and Somalia, stabilization is increasingly the approach of choice. Without recognizing systematic problems, stabilization interventions are unlikely to improve and begin to fulfill their lofty goals. After the troop drawdown in Afghanistan next year, perhaps we'll have a better idea of the true legacy of stabilization. But for now, the future looks worryingly unstable.

Ashley Jackson is a Research Fellow in the Humanitarian Policy Group at the Overseas Development Institute. Before joining ODI she worked for several years in Afghanistan with the United Nations and Oxfam.

Normal 0 false false false EN-US JA X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;}

Event notice: Drone Wars: Counterterrorism and Human Rights, with the UN Special Rapporteur for Counterterrorism and Human Rights, Ben Emmerson. TODAY, 12:15-1:45PM (NAF). 

Full steam ahead

On Monday, as election results continued to come in with positive results for the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, Prime Minister-elect Nawaz Sharif moved quickly to form a new government, and named Ishaq Dar as his finance minister (NYT). With the country's economy high on the party's agenda, Dar, who served in the post twice before, is considered the most experienced man for the job.  An expert in finance, audits, and accounts, he would be a critical player in a country suffering a sharp economic decline.

As Pakistan's other political parties ceded their defeat, Sharif also reached out to his Indian counterpart Manmohan Singh, inviting him to his swearing-in ceremony and renewing optimism in a thaw in relations between the two nuclear-armed neighbors (BBC). Though many analysts are skeptical -- thinking a potential thaw depends more on the countries' security and intelligence apparatuses -- others are "guardedly optimistic" that the time is right for greater cooperation on shared economic and security issues (NYT, NYT).   

Sharif also expressed interest in maintaining good relations with the United States, though he indicated that the CIA drone program would need to be discussed and Pakistan's concerns properly understood (Dawn). U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan Richard Olson called on Sharif in Raiwind to congratulate him on his victory (News).

Explosions rock Helmand

Three coalition soldiers from the central Asian nation of Georgia died on Monday when a truck bomb exploded outside the entrance of their outpost in the Musa Qala district of Helmand (Post). With 1,600 troops in Afghanistan, Georgia has the largest non-NATO contingent in the country and the deaths brought the total number of Georgian soldiers killed in Afghanistan to 22. 

Elsewhere in Helmand, six civilians were killed and nearly a dozen were injured when two bombs exploded in separate incidents.  The first explosion occurred when a motorbike bomb was detonated outside a livestock market in Safa, killing 3 and wounding at least 10 (Dawn, Pajhwok).  A second bomb exploded in the Sistani area of Marja when a vehicle struck a roadside bomb, killing 3 and wounding one. Afghan officials blamed the Taliban for the explosions but there have been no immediate claims of responsibility.  

The top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Joseph Dunford, has said in an interview with the New York Times that there was absolutely no American or NATO involvement in airstrikes early last month in eastern Afghanistan that killed 17 women and children (NYT). "It's been investigated ad nauseam," he said, while the Afghan government has declared equally as adamantly that the deaths were caused by NATO airstrikes, and that a secretive Afghan paramilitary force linked to the CIA showed reckless disregard for civilian life when it called in the airstrikes during a fierce firefight with the Taliban that day.

As U.S. troops begin to withdraw from Afghanistan, many Afghans who have supported the coalition forces as translators, mechanics, cleaners, and drivers are suddenly finding themselves without jobs (LAT).  In addition to losing an income than was often greater than that of typical semiskilled Afghan jobs, many of these former employees fear retaliation from the Taliban. Though the U.S. does offer a Special Immigrant Visa program for Afghans who provided "faithful and valuable service to the U.S. government," such visas are limited to 1,500 a year. 

Caught red-handed?

Activists for the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) were not only accused of stuffing ballot boxes in various parts of Sindh Province, but were also allegedly filmed in the act (The Lede). The anonymous blogger who tweets satirical messages about events in Pakistan from the account ‘Majorly Profound' wondered on Saturday, "If a candidate can't even successfully run a small rigging, how do you expect them to run a country?"

-- Jennifer Rowland and Bailey Cahall  

Afghanistan post-2014 72 544x376

Afghanistan stands at a crossroads. The reputation of our political leadership is under suspicion. Tens of millions of dollars are said to have been received illegally from intelligence agencies of both friends and foes. People are losing faith in the state and the prospects of democracy. The year 2014 looms large in everyone's mind, as does the Taliban's possible reemergence as a real power.

With the April 2014 presidential elections approaching, people around the world are wondering where exactly Afghanistan is headed. Has the threat of al-Qaeda really been eradicated as President Barack Obama recently announced? Is the war in Afghanistan really over? If so, is it over for Afghans, or just the international community?

Few of the promised counterterrorism and state building efforts have been delivered. In all 34 provinces of Afghanistan there are still acts of war and terrorism being committed - in some places incidents occur daily, in others weekly or monthly. Even our highway system has yet to be secured. No one is free to travel anywhere without at least some fear they will encounter the Taliban. Afghans live in fear of everything from targeted killings to suicide attacks and other forms terrorism. Our sisters and daughters have to live in fear that they will be attacked while doing something as mundane and Islamic as attending school.

Meanwhile, our politics are a mess. Our relationship with the United States and their NATO allies has deteriorated to the point where President Hamid Karzai himself is now referring to Afghanistan as a graveyard of empires, and accusing the United States and its allies of supporting rather than routing the Taliban in order to destabilize Afghanistan. 

At the same time, Washington and its friends are leaking controversial details about how exactly they have been propping up President Karzai. Yes, the U.S. is now saying, the CIA is funding in unaccounted-for cash payments Karzai's inner circle.

Aside from the non-existent national security and troubled foreign policy, Afghanistan is also facing the possibility of an economic meltdown. Imagine what will happen to our aid-dependent and U.S.-contract-centric economy when the United States withdraws not just the bulk of its troops but its funds as well.

How is Afghanistan going to transition from an economy that has received hundreds of billions of dollars over the past decade-plus of war?  What are the tens of thousands of Afghan companies that have come up as a result of this level of funding going to do then? Not to mention the Afghans who work for the many-times-more international companies, or the 3,000 NGOs that have sprung up during this international campaign that is about to end. If we think today's Afghanistan has an unsustainably high rate of unemployment, what will tomorrow's Afghanistan look like when all this funding ceases?

In a country with thirteen million jobless, most of whom are under twenty-five years old, and a raging insurgency with its own foreign sources of funds, training camps, intelligence and strategic support base, it's hard to imagine a stable and peaceful Afghanistan.

To survive as a nation-state resembling anything like the state we envisioned in Bonn in 2001, we have two main solutions.

First, we need to have a stable transfer of power in the form of the 2014 presidential elections. If our political system is too fragile to deliver even that bare minimum, we have much to fear from the still-raging insurgency. And we cannot have a stable transfer of power if all we do is reinstate President Karzai. Presidents for life are not the beacons of the democracy we envisioned in 2001.

In terms of domestic politics and foreign policy we need very specific programs. We need a government that delivers services. We need to change our traditional culture of a master-slave governance model in which civil servants and government officers rule over our people who they see as slaves.

In our foreign policy, we need to build friendships, not just sustain enemies or provide a battlefield for outside conflicts. The global order is transforming into a multi-polar one, we need to build on our already budding friendship with important regional players in the region such as India and we need to salvage what we can from our relationship with the United States, both of which are becoming our strategic allies.

To address our security dilemmas and challenges, we need a combination of solutions framed as a grand strategy rather than only tactical military or reconciliation ones. With the reconciliation strategy the only one being considered as a means to dealing with the insurgents, the Afghan government and the international community are using a risky black and white model. Instead we need to see reconciliation as a sub-tool in a broader political strategy for the stabilization of Afghanistan. We need to recognize that insurgencies take time and need strategic patience to combat -- every insurgency, from those fought in El Salvador to Central Asia, has taught us that.  We need to oppose the Taliban not just militarily but by building public confidence through service delivery and good governance; the strengthening and effective functioning of our security establishment; support to our economic sectors; and the reconciliation and reintegration efforts already begun by NATO's counterinsurgency strategy.

And finally, we need to build our economy. We need to follow models of leadership such as General Park's of South Korea, or South Africa after apartheid. And to begin this process the first thing we need to do is get rid of politicians who see their office as the best job Afghanistan has to offer.

2013 is the year that Afghans will make a decision. Either we put ourselves on the path to a prosperous and ideal Afghanistan or we will be back on the path of war and isolation, a country sourced for strategic threats to international security.

Mohammad Arif Rahmani is a member of Central Audit and Rule of Law Committee of Lower House of Afghanistan's parliament.

Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";}

Normal 0 false false false EN-US JA X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;}

The (Virtual) Shelf: "Bird of Chaman, Flower of Khyber" by Matthieu Aikins, a new ebook from Foreign Policy (FP). 

Pakistan rocks the vote

Though votes are still being counted, two-time prime minister Nawaz Sharif appears poised to claim the post for an unprecedented third time (BBC, Post). Projections indicate that Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz will claim at least 130 seats in the National Assembly, bringing it close to a simple majority in the 272-seat assembly, and it is believed alliances with smaller parties and independent candidates will put it over the top. Imran Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf and outgoing President Asif Ali Zardari's Pakistan People's Party won about 30 seats each.

Allegations of vote rigging, however, particularly in Karachi, will severely delay the final vote-count. Officials in Karachi said armed supporters of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement and the Pakistan People's Party had forcibly taken over some polling stations in the southern port city (NYT).

After a campaign season that saw over a hundred people killed or injured in election-related violence, at least 38 people died on Saturday-Election Day-in attacks in Karachi and Quetta, as well as several in Balochistan (NYT). Two bombs targeting Awami National Party (ANP) candidate Amanullah Mehsud exploded in Karachi, though Mehsud was unhurt (UPI).  And in separate incidents in Balochistan, gunmen opened fire near a polling station in Soorab, killing two soldiers from the Frontier Corps and wounding four, while in Chaman, four people were killed and 10 wounded in a shootout between supporters of rival local candidates (ET). 

Violence continued in Quetta on Sunday where eight people died when a suicide bomber drove an explosives-laden car into the convoy of Inspector General Police Mushtaq Sukhera, who escaped the attack (Dawn, AFP). 

Despite threats of violence, Pakistanis turned out in droves on Saturday to vote in the national election.  According to the Election Commission of Pakistan, 60% of the country 86 million voters chose the "ballot as an alternative to the bullet," the highest turnout since 1970 (Dawn, Post). Female voters were also eager to vote and activist group "Aware Girls" fielded the first citizen election observer team consisting of women aged 12 to 27.  Based in Peshawar, the "girls" monitored female-only polling stations to track campaign law violations and efforts to intimidate voters or tamper with ballots (USA Today, Post).

Ten killed, four freed

As the "fighting season" in Afghanistan picks up, 10 civilians, mostly women and children, were killed and a dozen wounded when their vehicle struck a roadside bomb in the Arghistan district of Kandahar on Monday (AP, Pajhwok). A popular tactic for insurgents, there has been no immediate claim of responsibility for the bomb.

Afghan officials are seeking the arrest of Zakaria Kandahari, a man they say is an American Special Forces soldier who tortured and killed civilians in Wardak Province (NYT). American officials say U.S. forces are being blamed for the actions of a rogue Afghan unit, while Afghan authorities say they have evidence of significant American involvement.

Meanwhile, Deputy Secretary of State William Burns met with Afghan Foreign Minister Zalmai Rassoul in Kabul on Saturday to try to negotiate the details of the U.S.-Afghan strategic partnership agreement signed by Presidents Barack Obama and Hamid Karzai last May (NYT). The agreement is a framework for American commitments to Afghanistan over the next ten years, and details that remain unknown include the amount of money the United States will give to the Afghan security forces each year, as well as the specific demands made on the Afghan government to fight corruption and protect human rights.

Four Turkish engineers captured last month in Logar province by the Afghan Taliban were released on Sunday in a "gesture of goodwill towards fellow Muslims" (RFE/RL, Reuters). A total of eight Turks were captured, along with an Afghan translator and two pilots, when their helicopter had to make a hard landing in bad weather and the Afghan Taliban says it will soon release the remaining four hostages as well. However, no mention was made of the translator or the pilots, who are from Russia and Kyrgyzstan.  

Afghan Finance Minister Omar Zakhelwal appeared before Afghanistan's lower house of parliament, the Wolesi Jirga, on Monday to reveal the names of legislators he previously accused of making illegal demands on the government (Pajhwok). Zakhelwal identified at least five members of parliament who he said had been involved in the smuggling of alcohol, fuel, and flour, and sought the illegal acquisition of land and license plates. 

All the news that's fit to print?

While much of the world heralded Saturday's landmark election in Pakistan, there were signs the country's security and intelligence establishment remains strong.  Claiming Declan Walsh, the New York Times bureau chief in Pakistan, conducted "undesirable activities," the government revoked his visa and expelled him (NYT, WSJ).  While further explanation has not been forthcoming, it is a sobering reminder that the country still has a way to go in becoming a full democracy, supportive of a critical press.

-- Jennifer Rowland and Bailey Cahall 

Pakistan Elections 2013 Normal 0 false false false EN-US JA X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;}

Normal 0 false false false EN-US JA X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;}

Recent election violence in Pakistan has been called unprecedented. But Pakistan's 2008 elections were bloodier. The electoral death toll in this election has crossed 100, but in 2008, over 150 were killed and 400 injured. 

If Pakistan's experience is like that of other countries around the world, then Saturday, Election Day, will be violent. But when perpetrated by political actors -- candidates, parties, party workers, and supporters -- that violence can be taken as a sign that electoral administration is getting stronger and that democracy is maturing. 

While the Pakistani and international press have expressed alarm at the vehemence of electoral violence perpetrated by the Pakistani Taliban and other extremist groups, Islamist parties have never won more than about five percent of the vote in any of Pakistan's elections. This election will be no different.

The apparent increase in the extremists' use of violence in this historic election is a sign, not of their strength, but of their increasing irrelevance in a society that is moving forward with regular, competitive elections between mainstream parties. 

As William McCants has argued in reference to the rise in militant violence in the Middle East, when moderate Islamists and other opposition parties begin to compete successfully in increasingly democratic elections, attacks by extremists who could not take power through political participation escalate. It is thus more important than ever for voters and parties to participate peacefully and for citizens, international observers, and other electoral stakeholders to resist the temptation to conclude that election violence implies that Pakistan, or any country, for that matter, is not suited or ready for democracy.    

Data on violent incidents collected during Pakistan's 2008 elections show that the dynamics here are consistent with those in many other parts of the world. Electoral violence is correlated strongly with two things: uncertainty and reform. The more uncertainty there is in an election -- whether because of the entrance of new candidates or shifting strength of parties -- the higher the risk of violence. And the more reform -- electoral reforms or strengthening institutions that conduct oversight -- the greater the incentives for competitors to add violence to their tactics as their support bases become less reliable and fraud gets more difficult.  

Many transitions to democracy since 1945 have been accompanied by an increase in political violence. This phenomenon, however, is not unique to Africa, Pakistan, or even new democracies. French political scientist Patrick Quantin, for example, compares African election violence with tumultuous elections in 19th-century France in order to illustrate how messy the consolidation of democracy can be.

Similarly, Rapoport and Weinberg document episodes of election violence that erupted during phases of electoral reform and political liberalization in ancient Greece, Eastern Europe, Western Europe, Latin America, and the United States. Case study evidence suggests that at least 198 countries or territories and more than 22 U.S. states have experienced at least one episode of election violence at some point in their electoral histories. As a 2001 U.S. Agency for International Development report notes, "some violence is likely in nearly all elections. 

Contested, competitive elections have been associated with violence or the threat of violence in polities as diverse as the United States (Colfax County, Louisiana, 1873; Wilmington, North Carolina, 1898; Florida, 1920; U.S. Presidential elections in 1860 and 1876), Costa Rica (1945), Algeria (1991/92), Colombia (1875), and Côte d'Ivoire (2011), to name a few. All occurred not during founding elections, but later in the process, as electoral administration improved, multiple parties were allowed to compete on a more even playing field, new electoral coalitions formed, voter sophistication and participation increased, and other factors made incumbents less certain of winning.             

These patterns at first seem counterintuitive, but are plainly logical. Violence is on the menu of options that parties and candidates have to win elections. But there is a natural disincentive to deploy violence. It is easy to detect, makes the perpetrators look bad, and can result in sanctions. So what are the preferred alternatives? Fraud, intimidation, negative campaigning, slander, fear creation -- the quieter the means of coercion, the better.            

But reforms disrupt the usual pathways and make fraud more difficult. So throughout history and across countries, reform tends to be correlated with violence.       

Take, for example, Kentucky. Prior to the introduction of the secret ballot in Louisville in 1888, the Democratic political machine would pay clerks to mark blank ballots and buy votes from white and African-American voters alike.

In his research on the effects of electoral reform on political violence, historian Tracy Campbell finds that ballot secrecy undercut these strategies and forced the machine to resort to more flagrant means to manipulate the outcome-threatening jobs, using police to suppress turnout in the African American neighborhoods that tended to vote Republican, and moving polling stations after long lines formed. Seventeen years later, when the new Fusionist party, which had multi-ethnic support, entered the scene and threatened its dominance, the machine intensified its use of police violence and intimidation. Those attending Fusionist rallies were "whacked with sticks," Fusionist candidates and voters were thrown out of polling stations, ballot boxes were taken at gunpoint by armed thugs, and those seeking to document the tactics with cameras were driven "off the streets."

When the Democrats won, the Fusionists challenged the results with the evidence they had amassed, and Kentucky's high court ruled in 1907 that extensive fraud and violence had disenfranchised 6,296 voters and overturned the result because it had been "designed in fraud, backed up by vilification and abuse." While Kentucky and other states would still witness both fraud and intimidation, the decision was the first of its kind and would not have been possible had the rise in violence not drawn attention to the problem and bolstered the voices of those calling for reform.              

But this example is only one among many, indicating that electoral violence is intrinsic to the process of democratization.

Violence is a symptom and a sign of a strengthened electoral system.  At the same time, it creates the outrage necessary for further reform. Violence and reform feed into each other cyclically.  

Increased instances of violence in modern elections is not a sign that these countries cannot cope with democratization. Instead, it is because international norms and pressure have condensed the process of democratization for contemporary nascent democracies -- versus in the 1800s when the process could be more incremental -- that we see more electoral violence across the world today.  

Thanks to a growing body of research on election violence in a variety of contexts, including data from Pakistan's 2008 elections, the dynamics of violence driven by parties, candidates, and their supporters are well understood. What remains for Pakistan to figure out is what the intensification of militant violence directed at the political process means for the future.

For candidates, violence is a means of winning within the democratic system. For militants, electoral violence is a strategy meant to re-engineer that system or seek its very demise because it is a form of government in which they cannot compete and win based on the merits of their policy ideas and vision for society.

Megan Reif is an assistant professor of political science and international studies at the University of Colorado, Denver. Her work on election violence is based on case study analysis and data collected in Pakistan during the 2008 elections, as well as data from Algeria, Egypt, Ghana, Sri Lanka, and the United States (Newark, NJ) during the same period. Nadia Naviwala is Country Representative in Pakistan for the United States Institute of Peace.

The authors are grateful to Mathieu Mérino and the election violence prevention training team at the European Centre for Electoral Support (ECES) for drawing their attention to the work done on this subject by Quantin. 

Pakistan Elections 2013 Normal 0 false false false EN-US JA AR-SA /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;}

Never in Pakistan's checkered electoral history has a parliamentary term been completed and a smooth transition taken place in the capital, as well as the four provinces.

The 2013 elections are being held against a backdrop of dismal GDP growth (3.7 percent) and electricity rationing that lasts up to 18 hours a day. Owing to multiple policy and procedural failures, the country suffered a sharp decline in Foreign Direct Investment, from $8.5 billion in 2008 to a meager $500 million in 2012. Moreover its own currency, the rupee, has steeply devalued against the dollar over the last five years as well.  In open market on Friday, one U.S. dollar was sold for 99.7 rupees while the ratio was one to 63.1 after the 2008 elections.

Despite enormous shortcomings at various levels, on Saturday, the Pakistani nation will choose from 104 political parties and will vote to elect 342 members to its National Assembly and 728 members to its four provincial legislatures.

The landmark 2013 election accompanies many firsts, eight of which are listed below, and busts several myths associated with Pakistan's image abroad.

1.  Electoral Roll

The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) and the National Database Registration Authority (NADRA) have developed an elaborate computerized electoral roll, with each citizen's name listed with his or her 10 fingerprints and photograph (exceptions are made for women who cover their faces). Unlike manual lists, the computerized listing of voters not only eliminates multiple entries but has also been published to invite public scrutiny, correction, and transparency. Any of the 86.1 million voters can find out his polling station or booth by sending his Computerized National Identity Card (CNIC) number in a text message to 8300. Moreover, no citizen will be authorized to cast his vote without producing a CNIC (which is nearly impossible to copy with its 20 hidden security features). The returning officer and his staff will then be able to verify the identity of the voter, providing yet another measure to counter electoral fraud.

2.  Eligibility of the Candidates

To examine the candidates currently campaigning, the ECP created an Integrated Scrutiny System comprised of the National Accountability Bureau, the National Database Registration Authority, the Federal Bureau of Revenue, and the State Bank of Pakistan whereby criminal, financial, and tax histories could be considered simultaneously. In a country of 3.6 million tax defaulters, the system has applied global standards for informed decision-making and deterred many chronic criminals from taking the risk of exposing themselves before the system. It also disqualified about 20,000 candidates from running due to their questionable histories. Though the scrutiny process has been completed, the aspirants' nomination papers are available online for media and public oversight. For example, key hardline cleric Maulana Fazalur Rahman had to pay outstanding taxes for the past three years to be eligible to run, according to the FBR. Similarly, several mainstream political stalwarts had to pay their defaulted loans to avert obvious disqualification. While much work remains to be done in this realm, the measure has built confidence in the newly adopted scrutiny system for both the public and external observers.

3.  Autonomy of Election Commission

Thanks to legislation called the 18th amendment, the ECP has become more autonomous in determining its budget, administrative management, and legal and procedural decision-making. In a rare development, instead of being a handpicked figure, the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) is a widely-respected veteran of the Supreme Court, appointed with consensus amongst political parties. The CEC does not enjoy veto power over four other election commissioners, who are also retired justices of higher courts, allowing for a majority rule on any disputes. Exercising its authority, the ECP overruled objections by President Asif Ali Zardari (who also heads the Pakistan People's Party [PPP]) on the candidates' nomination forms. The PPP felt the ECP was asking too many details about the candidates but the commission argued it had a constitutional mandate to amend the forms as they saw fit. The new election body will draw additional strength from the country's Supreme Court.

4.  Three-Party Contest

Instead of being a traditional two-party contest between the right-wing Pakistan Muslim League (PML) and the secular, liberal-leaning PPP, the 2013 election witnesses a third powerful political contender as well. Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaaf (PTI), along with its two older competitors, is reaching out to the people without forming serious alliances. Unlike the past, the powerful military has been overtly and covertly neutral. In a recent address to military men, Army chief General Ashraf Pervez Kiyani not only dispelled rumors of election postponement, but also unequivocally declared that a campaign against terror is Pakistan's war.

5.  Transgenders for Public Representatives

In today's Pakistan, transgender individuals are not only eligible to vote but they can also campaign for a parliamentary or provincial assembly slot. In conjunction with last year's court ruling, a separate section allowing a voter to define oneself as something other than male or female was added to the CNIC. As a result, over 1,000 citizens have openly identified themselves as transgender. They are all registered voters and a few are even contesting assembly seats, though there is little chance of victory.

6.  Voter Turnout

In 2013, the electorate is significantly more aware of the power of the vote and turnout is expected to be exceptionally high. Though both secular and right-wing Islamist parties have been attacked on the campaign trail, none have decided to boycott the May 11 election. And while terrorist attacks have claimed the lives of 135 political workers and leaders, no high-profile leader has been killed and elections were postponed in only one constituency after an attack claimed the life of one of the candidates there.

7.  Youth on Political Agenda

With Pakistan's electoral rolls showing 47.9 percent of eligible voters under the age of 35, youth interests are high on the political agendas of all mainstream parties. Due to widespread use of cellular phones and greater Internet density, Pakistan's youth have really become politicized and are motivated to cast their ballots. They see political engagement as an opportunity to fight corrupt leaders and extremist trends in society. The PTI alone claims 35 percent of its candidates are below the age of 35, an unprecedented phenomenon in traditional electoral politics. On the whole, computerized electoral rolls include 36 million new voters for the 2013 election.

8.  Anti-American vote

With the exception of fervor against U.S. drone attacks in Pakistan's tribal regions, the election campaigns revolved around ensuring security, education, health, and employment. The religious right failed to create a coalition similar to the United Front for Action seen in 2002, which will likely weaken their showing in the elections. Their usual 10-percent voting block will not only be shared by the right-wing religious parties, but also by mainstream giants like the PML and the PTI. Both parties are unprecedentedly threatening the stronghold of pro-Taliban mullahs and at least eight alleged hardliners are campaigning on the PML platform to exploit greater prospects of winning.

Naveed Ahmad is an investigative journalist and academic focusing on democratization, diplomacy, and security. Besides publishing globally, he is invited to news channels as an analyst. Mr. Ahmad is the co-founder and director of Silent Heroes, Invisible Bridges, a United Nations Alliance of Civilizations award-winning, multi-lingual, free-to-use feature service focusing on human stories of cross-cultural, cross-religious integration and peaceful co-existence. He tweets at @naveed360 and @endprejudice.

Pakistan Elections 2013 Normal 0 false false false EN-US JA X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman";}

With just hours left before voters begin casting their votes for Pakistan's next leaders, political posters are plastered across markets, convoys of motorcycles and cars flying party flags clog major thoroughfares, and raspy-voiced candidates make their final appeals to throngs of people.

Election fever runs high everywhere, it seems, but in Rabwah.

The city nestled alongside the Chenab River in Punjab is home to an estimated 40,000 potential voters, but the vast majority of them will not be voting in the upcoming election due to their faith. Rabwah is a haven for Ahmedis, who make up over 95 percent of its population. While Ahmedis consider themselves Muslims, the Pakistani government has officially declared them otherwise.

The groups' adherence to Mirza Ghulam Ahmed, a man they see as a prophet, is heretical to most Muslims, who hold that the Prophet Muhammad was the last messenger of God. This difference of beliefs has made Ahmedis the subject of scorn in Pakistan, where they could be subject to death for practicing their faith since doing so would mean engaging in the illegal act of "posing as a Muslim."

While they aren't officially barred from voting, Ahmedis must sign a statement renouncing their faith in order to cast a ballot.

"I'm 37 years old and I've never voted in my life," says Amir Mehmood, a lifelong resident of Rabwah.

Mehmood says that he follows politics closely, but having to deny his beliefs to vote is more of a sacrifice than he is willing to bear.

"If the state thinks that I'm not a Muslim, that's fine. I can't change the state. But how can I say that I'm a non-Muslim just because the state tells me to? I consider myself to be a Muslim."

A 1974 amendment to the Pakistani Constitution explicitly declared Ahmedis to be non-Muslims, and a few years later separate faith-based electorates were created that forced Ahmedis to vote as non-Muslims. Instead of doing so, most Ahmedis refused to cast a ballot-and have maintained their non-participation in the country's politics ever since.

While President Pervez Musharraf unified the electorate in 2002, he soon bowed to religious extremists by inserting one glaring exception to the rule: Ahmedis would have a distinct voter list. All those who tick the box "Muslim" in the religious affiliation column of their election ballot must sign a statement certifying that they are not Ahmedi.

Due to this requirement, the upcoming election will be the eighth one in which Ahmedis refuse to take part. But Saleemuddin, a spokesperson for the Ahmedi community who uses only his first name, says this does not amount to a boycott.

"We don't approve of the word ‘boycott.' We're not boycotting. We've been so clearly discriminated against that we've been essentially prevented from casting votes in these elections." 

Saleemuddin says by phone from Rabwah, "Like anywhere in the world, voting rights should be based on citizenship. In fact, they are in Pakistan too, but one executive order has brought in religion and kept my community from voting."

He says every government has continued to propagate a second-class status for Ahmedis because of the power that religious extremists and powerful clerics exercise over the country's political arena. While this election will mark the first time one democratically-elected government will pass the mantle to another, for Saleemuddin, this milestone is undermined by the state's unwillingness to let Ahmedis vote in a free and fair manner. 

And few candidates are willing to address the issue of religious freedom.

Hasan Askari Rizvi, an independent political analyst told the Pakistani newspaper Dawn, "The elections will hardly bring any respite to religious minorities because the societal groups and parties that target them do not get their votes."

According to Rizvi, politicians don't have much to gain from courting the votes of religious groups like Ahmedis, Christians, or Hindus. "These votes which are small and scattered cannot generate enough political clout to pressure political parties effectively."

This amounts to a sort of catch-22 for Ahmedis since politicians do not feel politically bound to respond to their plight, something they cannot address without allies in the government. Saleemuddin says he had some hope that the cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan might herald in a new era of religious freedom but Khan overtly declared his accord for the status quo saying in a video statement, "I have read the Qur'an very closely and I know that those who do not recognize Muhammad as the last prophet are not Muslims."

"Imran Khan has claimed that he's going to create a ‘New Pakistan,' but before he's even had the chance to do so, he's declared that Ahmedis will be stuck in the same ‘Old Pakistan' that we've known for too long," Saleemuddin laments.

Many Ahmedis feel that Khan's statements shamed his party's name-Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf or the "Justice Party" -but Bilal Haider, an Ahmedi living in Karachi, says Khan is no different than other politicians.

"All of these parties have written into their agendas that they want equal rights but none of them actually [do away with discriminatory laws] once they get into power," he says.

While there are an estimated four million Ahmedis in the country, most politicians think appealing for their vote will do more harm than good since bias against the sect is widespread-and it isn't limited to election season or political rights, says Haider.

"Each and every Ahmedi family is now connected to someone who was martyred. It's not only about silent discrimination, it's about literal attacks."

One of Haider's uncles, along with his wife's father, was killed in May 2010 in synchronized attacks on two Ahmedi mosques in Lahore, which resulted in the deaths of over 80 worshippers.

Haider is hopeful that when he has children, they'll be born into a more tolerant Pakistan.

But for Saleemuddin, the current situation is vexing enough. "My daughter watches TV and sees all of the political advertisements and news of the election," he says. "She asks me which candidate our family supports. She's only in 6th grade and it's really hard to explain to her why we're not voting. ‘Our town is so big,' she says, ‘So how come there isn't a single political poster or party banner here?'"

He says it's difficult to tell her that no politician is willing to change the laws so that his community in Rabwah can cast ballots without having to cast aside their faith.

Beenish Ahmed is a freelance multimedia journalist based in Islamabad, Pakistan. She is reporting on education there through a grant from the Pulitzer Center on Crises Reporting.