Pakistani sources provided CBS News with video showing the face of Baitullah Mehsud (see below).

Nancy Pelosi has a new counterpart in Pakistan. The National Assembly’s new speaker is Dr. Fehmida Mirza. While Pakistan has had a female prime minister twice before, Mirza is Pakistan’s first female NA speaker. Her election is a step toward Asif Zardari’s consolidation of the party as Mirza’s husband is a close friend of Zardari.

Public opinion of the United States in Pakistan is shaped by a number of factors, the most important of which are Washington’s policies toward Islamabad.  Perceptions in Pakistan of how America’s Muslim minority is treated also plays a role, albeit one that is secondary.

For the benefit of our readers in Pakistan, below is a segment from a news program that attempts to capture the complexity of how Muslims are treated in the United States.  The context is somewhat contrived, and as a New Yorker I can’t judge as to how representative Texas (where the scene occurs) is, but I think in the end its depiction is fairly accurate.  A significant anti-Muslim bias exists among a minority of Americans.  While this is cause for alarm, the vociferousness with which many other Americans speak out on behalf of their fellow countrymen who happen to be Muslims is cause for admiration.

U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan Anne Patterson met with Aitzaz Ahsan today. She lobbied him to accept Pervez Musharraf’s latest offer to his opponents: abandon moves to restore Iftikhar Chaudhry to the Supreme Court and I’ll give up my power to dissolve the parliament.

In a February Senate Foreign Affairs Committee hearing, Sen. Russ Feingold asked Assistant Secretary of State John Negroponte, “Does the administration have a policy regarding the reinstatement of those [deposed] judges?”

Negroponte’s reply was characteristically murky, but intended to give the impression of being in the negative: “We have not..we have been silent on this subject…to the best of my knowledge.”

It should also be noted that in November, Lahore Consul General Bryan D. Hunt reportedly went around the city telling its elite that the Supreme Court had made some wrong decisions and needed to be stopped. And in December, Negroponte reportedly pressured Benazir Bhutto to stop speaking out in favor of restoring the judges.

Is the Bush administration neutral on the judges issue? I think not.

Pakistan’s new National Assembly convened for the first time today. Big wigs from the incoming governing alliance met before the session began. The seating arrangement was interesting and reflects what seems to be the emerging power dynamics in Pakistan.

Asif Zardari was the center of gravity. Seated to his immediate left was Nawaz Sharif, and to the right, Yousuf Raza Gilani, believed to the be likely prime ministerial nominee. Amin Fahim was present but separate, sitting adjacent to Nawaz with an end table in between them. Asfandyar Wali was also there, but not in immediate proximity to the major players. Maulana Fazlur Rahman also got a seat at the last minute.
Sharif and Zardari made their way to the galleries (they did not run in the polls) and, again, sat next to one another. They, however, are no mere spectators.

The session began with a recitation of the Qur’an. The passage read, the favorite of Muslim rulers, included the verse: “Obey God, obey the Messenger, and those in authority among you.” Who is in authority in Pakistan is, however, under question.

Prior to the oath taking, Naveed Qamar, a People’s Party MNA, asked for confirmation that the oath would be taken on the 1973 constitution sans Musharraf’s November 3rd. Chaudhry Amir Hussain, the outgoing PML-Q National Assembly speaker, replied in the affirmative.

Then, another PPP MNA eulogized the late Benazir Bhutto and asked that the body perform the dua-e maghfirah (supplication of forgiveness) for her. The outgoing National Assembly speaker Chaudhry Amir then asked Maulana Fazlur Rahman of all people to perform the prayer. The maulana’s hopes for the premiership are unrealistic, but he could have a shot at grand mufti.

Ahsan Iqbal, a PML-N MNA, gave a short speech in which he stated that the elections showed that Pakistanis rejected Musharraf’s October 12, 1999 coup.

Later in the day, Nawaz Sharif asserted his commitment the restoring the deposed judges, eliminating the National Security Council, and revoking Musharraf’s right to dissolve the National Assembly under Article 58(2)(B). He also noted that U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan Anne Patterson had expressed her “reservations” to him regarding the restoration of the judges. This contradicts recent statements by the administration that it had no position on the judges. Meanwhile, two members of Congress introduced a non-binding resolution in the House calling for the Pakistani government to:

“restore to their positions Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry and all Supreme Court and high court justices and other members of the legal profession in Pakistan who were removed from office since the imposition of emergency rule, and to respect the independence of the Pakistani judiciary.”

ARY One World, a leading Pakistani news channel, claims that the intended target of Saturday’s Islamabad bombing was the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigations operations chief in Pakistan. Meanwhile, ABC News states that the FBI’s attache at the US embassy, injured in the blast, is the top FBI agent in the country. His name differs from that provided by ARY. Reuters reports that four FBI agents were injured in the blast.

Has the Bureau’s operations in Pakistan has been compromised? There is a significant likelihood of linkage between Saturday’s attacks and Tuesday’s twin blasts in Lahore. Tuesday’s attacks targeted an FBI-trained unit of Pakistan’s Federal Investigation Authority (FIA) and a clandestine FIA safe house, said to be visited by U.S. intelligence agents, where terror suspects were interrogated. That a secret FIA installation was hit suggests that, at the very least, an inside source provided information on the targets to the terrorists. And so it’s possible the same source also gave information on the FBI personnel in Islamabad.

The FIA-FBI partnership, so it seems, has been targeted twice in one week. Therefore it is possible that it will be a target again. An FBI forensics team is currently assisting with investigations in Lahore. An unidentified Pakistani intelligence official told the German Press Agency that the FBI team also has been investigating similar attacks in Iraq; the Lahore FIA attacks are believed to bear similarities with attacks there.

What lies ahead? Will the terrorists continue to target the FIA-FBI nexus? Or will they diversify their targets, including other components of U.S.-Pakistan anti-terror cooperation, including military trainers and, even, aid workers? As we noted yesterday, Maulana Faqir Muhammad of the Pakistani Taliban criticized the U.S. plan to train the Frontier Corps, calling it “an insult to one of the world’s best trained armies.”

A blast went off this evening in Islamabad (F-6, Supermarket area) at the Luna Caprese, an Italian restaurant frequented by foreign diplomats and journalists (it serves alcohol).

The Victims
According to the director of the Poly Clinic hospital, at least one individual has been killed. She is a Turkish national who either worked a nurse in the U.S. embassy or for an NGO operating in Kashmir.

The director said the hospital has received 11 injured individuals consisting of:

• three Pakistanis (two critically injured);
• a Canadian national of Somali descent;
• a Japanese national;
• at least five Americans (the sixth could be a Brit).

Other reports have listed a total of 15 injured. Three victims were taken to Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences hospital.

Aaj Television reported that some American victims were taken away in U.S. embassy Land Cruisers to an unknown location, perhaps the embassy and seemingly not to Pakistani government hospitals. The same has been reported for at least one British victim. The spokesperson for the U.S. embassy refused to comment about this when questioned. Another report also states that medical staff from the U.S. embassy also made their way to one of the two hospitals to assist.

The news channel also posted a list of the injured. Pakistani television stations immediately note the names of the deceased and injured, irrespective of whether family members have been notified. At least two of the Americans injured are defense policy experts with a major think tank.

The Blast
Aaj Television’s Talat Hussain reports that the restaurant’s entrance had “scanners,” perhaps referring to metal detectors. The blast went off in the restaurant’s outdoor dining area. Authorities remain open to the possibility of a grenade having been thrown from an adjacent ally. At the moment, however, they seem to favor the idea that a planted device was responsible. If true, was it a timed device or remote-detonated? And when was it planted? Was the entire property, not just the indoors location of the restaurant, secure when closed? If not, it is possible a device was placed into the restaurant’s open area during off hours.

Despite today’s security breach, Islamabad was put on high alert yesterday with strict checking of cars leaving and entering the city and a newly instituted no tolerance policy for street beggars. On February 25, a suicide bomber disguised as a beggar detonated himself near the vehicle of the Pakistan Army Surgeon General Mushtaq Baig, killing him and several others.

The Motive
What was the intent of the attack? Were the terrorists simply out for Western blood? Or was there a particular stimulus or target?

There are several facts to consider.

One, Islamabad is currently replete with foreign journalists covering the formation of the next government and the new parliament’s opening sessions. Many targets around.

Two, U.S. military advisers training the Frontier Corps began arriving in Pakistan earlier this month. Over recent months, local papers have reported a growing presence of foreigners in local dress across the country–including in Quetta. Militant networks could have detected a greater presence of Westerners in the country. Moreover, they read the papers and have complete access to reports in the Pakistani papers about the military training program.  In fact, Maulana Faqir Muhammad, a Pakistani Taliban leader, criticized training program today, referring to it as “an insult to one of the world’s best trained armies.”

Three, legislation for the Reconstruction Opportunity Zones (ROZs) on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border was introduced in the Senate yesterday. While Pakistani militants don’t read Congressional Quarterly, the local press does provide timely news of relevant developments in Washington. The ROZs have been in the press for months. They are now closer to fruition. Aid agencies have already begun actively recruiting senior management staff for related projects. In late February, militants attacked the Mansehra office of a British aid agency in February, killing three.

And so it is conceivable that the militants are trying to discourage a greater presence of military advisers and aid workers in the country.

Round Two of the Fahim-Zardari talks have just ended.  Fahim spoke to the media outside Zardari’s Islamabad home.  He said there’s no division within the People’s Party, but maintained that he’s the party’s candidate for prime minister.  This contradicts a GEO News report claiming that the PPP has decided that its next prime minister will be from Punjab (most likely Ahmed Mukhtar).

Army Chief of Staff Gen. Ashfaq Kayani paid a visit to the Line of Control in Kashmir today. An Inter-Services Public Relations press release states that Kayani “highlighted the national consensus that exists on Kashmir issue” and “reaffirmed [the] commitment of Pakistan Army to the Kashmir cause, in line with [the] aspirations of Pakistani nation.”

Kayani’s trip comes after People’s Party Co-Chairman Asif Zardari’s controversial interview with CNN-IBN on March 1 in which he suggested that Pakistan and India can prioritize economic and social cooperation and defer the thorny Kashmir issue till the two countries develop greater trust.

Zardari told the Indian news channel:

“The idea is that we feel for Kashmir, the PPP (Pakistan People’s Party) has always felt for Kashmir. We have a strong Kashmir policy. We have always had one. But having said that, we don’t want to be hostage to that situation. That is a situation we can agree to disagree (on). Countries do, we have positions, you have positions. We can agree to disagree on everything. [We can] agree to disagree on (the UN resolutions)…We can wait. We can be patient till everybody grows up further. Maybe the coming generation grows up even further and then let’s interact as human beings and come to a position of love….Today, there are fixed notions. When dependency increases (and) we have matured enough (and) we’ve got trust between us, then nobody has fixed issues….As it is, it’s going to be a no-border world in the end.”

 

Zardari’s statement seemed to counter the prevailing consensus in Pakistan referred to by Kayani, namely that Pakistan should not fully normalize ties with India till the Kashmir issue is resolved. Pakistan’s security establishment and Kashmiri dissidents, with good reason, fear normalization prior to a Kashmir resolution would render the dispute irrelevant.

After a bit of an uproar, Zardari claimed his statements were mischaracterized, with the venerable PPP spokesman Farhatullah Babar coming in to do the mop work. Zardari has since described Kashmir as an “integral part” of Pakistan and the conflict as a “core dispute” with India. The statement was “hailed” by All Parties Hurriyet Conference Chairman Syed Ali Shah Gilani.

So what do Kayani’s Kashmir visit and statements there mean? At the very least, he would like to re-affirm Pakistan’s commitment to the Kashmir cause before interested parties. The timing of his visit, eleven days after Zardari’s statement, suggests that he did not want his remarks to be seen as a direct retort to Zardari. Kayani, perhaps would like to make his opinion on key national security issues known–maybe even set the discursive parameters–but also would like to avoid involvement in a tit-for-tat with politicians.

A meeting between People’s Party Co-Chairman Asif Zardari and Vice Chairman Amin Fahim ended approximately an hour ago.

Fahim left Zardari House in Islamabad without speaking to the media, but then spoke to GEO News by telephone.

Though Fahim says there are no differences between him and Zardari, it appears both parties have not come to a resolution on all standing issues between them. The talks will likely continue. Fahim, long seen as a complacent yes-man, appears to be playing hardball.

Fahim’s description of the meeting with Zardari was vague. “We ate food, chatted about the political situation, and then I returned,” he told GEO News.

His replies to the anchorwoman’s questions were terse.

Nonetheless, it’s clear that, at the very least, Fahim seeks to maintain his presence within the PPP’s senior leadership. What he’s will to accept and can obtain within those parameters is unclear.

Fahim seems to have accepted Zardari’s desire for the premiership. Fahim said that if Zardari would like to be nominated as prime minister, he, in his capacity as president of the PPP’s parliamentary wing will nominate Zardari.

In other words, Fahim would like to frame Zardari’s premiership, should it become a reality, as a product of his consent and approval–not something imposed on him.

But Fahim also rejected reports that he’ll be nominated as Senate chairman. The Senate chairman is next in line for the presidency, so should Pervez Musharraf vacate the position, Fahim would come in. But both the PPP and PML-N would like to revert the presidency to its nominal status, making it less appealing.

So the question is, what position does Fahim want? Will Fahim accept the position of National Assembly speaker? Or is he looking to be the “interim” prime minister? And if he becomes a placeholder for Zardari, will he dance in concert with Zardari or step on his toes? Fahim also knows that Zardari’s apparent quest for the premiership lies across a hurdle-ridden path. It’s not guaranteed. Zardari has to run in a by-election and it is unclear as to whether he meets the college graduation requirement for joining the National Assembly. The placeholder could become more permanent than thought.