Before 2008 Mumbai Attacks, American Plotter Met With Pakistan’s ISI Officials; Hundreds More U.S. Troops Deploy To Precarious Helmand Province; Indian Soldier Survives Being Buried In Snow For 6 Days
Pakistan
Before 2008 Mumbai attacks, American plotter met with Pakistan’s ISI officials
David Headley, an American-Pakistani man convicted of plotting the 2008 attacks in Mumbai, India that killed 163 people admitted on Monday to meeting with two representatives of Pakistan’s spy agency, ISI (NYT, RFE/RL). Headley, a member of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), a militant group that enjoys relatively close ties to the government, named “Major Iqbal” and “Major Ali” as the two ISI men with whom he met. Headley reportedly also spent time training with LeT’s founder, Hafiz Saeed, and Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, a commander of the group and, along with Saeed, an alleged mastermind of the Mumbai attack. India has long sought to prove the connection between the Pakistani government and LeT, hoping the public confrontation will force them to detain Lakhvi, who has been free on bail in Pakistan since 2014.
Pakistani Investigation shows no link between JeM and Indian Pathankot Air Base attack
A Pakistani investigative team reported that no link exists between Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) – a group that did not claim responsibility for the attack, but commended its occurrence – and the attack on India’s Pathankot Air Base in January (Reuters). The leader of JeM, Maulana Masood Azhar, and his partners were interviewed, but no evidence was found. A security official linked to the investigators said, “We searched their homes, seminaries, hideouts and also examined their call records for past three months and found nothing dubious.” Security officials said that Azhar is still in custody, and did not comment on plans to release him.
Pakistani International Airlines resumes domestic flights
On Tuesday, Pakistani International Airlines (PIA) resumed its domestic flights (ET). International flights began on Sunday, after six days of a PIA employees strike. The tense situation continues, as the Pakistan Air Lines Pilots Association (PALPA) did not back the decision made by the PIA’s Joint Action Committee – the employees’ representative body – and Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif ruled out negotiations with employees until they returned to work.
–Albert Ford
Afghanistan
Bonus Read: “Straight Talk on Afghan Peace Talks,” by Marvin G. Weinbaum (FP)
Hundreds more U.S. troops deploy to precarious Helmand province
By the end of February, the United States will deploy a battalion-strength force to Helmand province in southeastern Afghanistan, where the Taliban continue to gain strength (Guardian, Reuters). According to the Guardian, the move reflects troops already stationed in Afghanistan relocating to Helmand, and not a result of additional forces beyond the 9,800 in the country. The new troops – added to the support the Afghan army’s 215th Corps – are a continuance of the U.S. military’s current “train, advise, assist” mission, per U.S. Afghanistan command spokesman Col. Michael Lawhorn, and they will “not participate in combat operations.” The Taliban control all but three districts in Helmand province, and have recently closed in on taking Sangin, another key district in Helmand.
Islamic State smuggles timber from Afghanistan into Pakistan
Islamic State (IS) members have imported tree-cutting machines to the Achin, Naziyan, and Dehbala districts of Afghanistan’s western Nangarhar province to cut down trees, load them on trucks, and send them to Pakistan (VOA). A local resident in the northeastern Kunar province, Mohammad Rafique, said some of the timber goes to the Pakistani cities of Peshawar, Quetta, Lahore, and Karachi. Malak Asfar, a tribal elder in Achin, located in Nangarhar, told VOA, “The government has done nothing in this regard.” Tree cutting and timber harvesting, which is illegal, is a significant issue, as forests cover just 2 percent of the country, according to Afghanistan’s environmental protection agency.
Taliban on perimeter of Kunduz City
The acting governor of Kunduz province in northern Afghanistan said on Tuesday, his last day in office, that Taliban militants are one to five kilometers away from the center of Kunduz City – a place the Taliban briefly took over in September 2015 (Pajhwok). “I suggested repeatedly an all-out offensive in areas on the outskirts of Kunduz City, but no one paid any attention to my calls,” the governor said.
–Albert Ford
India
Indian soldier survives being buried in snow for 6 days
An Indian soldier who was buried under eight feet of snow in an avalanche last week in the Indian administered Kashmir region was found alive on Monday evening after six days (Guardian, BBC, Reuters). The avalanche hit the northern end of Siachen glacier last Wednesday, the highest point along the heavily militarized line of control between India and Pakistan, and 10 soldiers were buried in snow as a result. The sole surviving soldier, Naik Hanamanthappa Kopad, has been airlifted to Delhi and is in critical condition. The army says it has recovered the bodies of all nine other soldiers buried in the avalanche.
India outpaced China in the last quarter of 2015
Official figures released by the Indian government show that Indian economic growth, clocked in at 7.5 percent was faster than China’s 6.9 percent in the period October to December 2015 (BBC, NYT/AP). This is the first time since 1999 that India has outpaced China, though both nations have been registering extremely close growth rates over the past decade. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government projected that growth for the fiscal year ending March 2016 is forecast to accelerate to 7.6 percent. Last year the Indian government revised its GDP measurement methodology by revising the base year, which puts the country’s growth rate much closer to China’s. India measures its economy over a fiscal rather than a calendar year.
Nepal
Former Nepali Prime Minister dies at 78
One of Nepal’s leading political figures, former Prime Minister Sushil Koirala died on Tuesday in Kathmandu, at the age of 78 (Reuters). Koirala, a moderate voice in Nepali politics, stepped down from the prime minister’s office in October last year. He was head of the centrist Nepali Congress party, the largest opposition group in parliament, and was instrumental in preparing Nepal’s first republican constitution that brought about the abolition of the 239-year-old monarchy. Nepal has been in turmoil since the new constitution was adopted last September as the ethnic Madhesi community has been protesting against the new constitution, saying it did not afford adequate political rights for minorities.
–Shuja Malik
Edited by Peter Bergen
AAMIR QURESHI/AFP/Getty Images
