Pakistan:
One India News: Pakistan’s Interior Minister Rehman Malik has offered a million dollar bounty on the leader of Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan who claimed responsibility for the attack on 14-year-old Malala Yousufzai. “Malik announced USD 1 million as bounty for the leader of Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan who claimed that TTP was responsible for her shooting.
‘On his head, which is more than, you know, (inaudible) of Pakistani, 100 million apiece, because we want to definitely get him and all our line forces, intelligence agencies are hunting all those who were involved.’ he said.”
The Australian: Four Shi’ite Muslims have been shot dead a sectarian attack in Baluchistan. “‘It was a sectarian attack. Gunmen on motorbikes opened fire on them and drove away,’” Asif Ghafoor, a senior police official, told AFP.”
The Tribune: Pakistani Interior Minister Rehman Malik said that the military and government have no plans of launching a military operation in the troubled North Waziristan region. “Famed for his backpedalling on key issues, Malik dispelled any predisposition for such an operation, saying it was wrong to suggest that a military operation for North Waziristan was being planned.
‘No preparations are under way for a military operation in the North Waziristan,’ Malik told reporters.”
Analysis: Zmarak Yousefzai: Drone attacks are supported more by the residents in Pakistan’s Tribal Areas than is often portrayed. “…residents of FATA, who are the target of drones, are less opposed to drones than the rest of Pakistanis who are not the target of drones. FATA residents are eight times more supportive of drones than are the rest of Pakistanis. Moreover, a mere 48% of FATA residents believe that drones kill innocent civilians, compared to 89% of people in the rest of Pakistan. Surveys consistently find that FATA residents fear bomb blasts by Taliban and the Pakistani military more than they do drone strikes.”
Afghanistan:
New York Times: A suicide bomber has killed two Americans and four Afghanistan intelligence colleagues in an insider attack. “The suicide attack on Saturday morning occurred when a delegation including American coalition members and several members of Afghanistan’s National Directorate of Security arrived to deliver new furniture to the intelligence office in the Maruf district, a remote area of Kandahar Province, according to local Afghan officials.
The attacker, wearing a suicide vest beneath his intelligence service uniform, detonated his bomb shortly after the delegation arrived, killing a former American military officer and an American soldier. The bombing also killed Ghulam Rasool, the deputy intelligence director for Kandahar Province, two of his bodyguards and another Afghan intelligence employee, and set in motion a revenge killing.”
India:
The Diplomat: Russia appears to be making diplomatic advances toward India on the back of concerns about Afghan terrorism after NATO forces pull out in 2014. Visiting New Delhi Sunday, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin argued that terrorism was a “big problem for Russia and India”. Russia has in turn scaled back its diplomatic approaches to Pakistan, sending Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in place of the Prime Minister to Islamabad during the first week of October.
