Nine Pakistani census takers killed near Afghan border

(May 6) Pakistani security officials claim that at least nine people have been killed and 33 wounded when they came under fire from Afghan forces. Those attacked were conducting a census near the Afghan border. Casualty accounts vary.

The attack Friday was near the Chaman border crossing into Pakistan's Balochistan province. The attack prompted security forces to ask people on the border to evacuate. The incident resulted in the Chaman border crossing being closed. Pakistani military spokesperson, Asif Ghafoor, said that firing was still going on. Chaman is one of only two main border crossings from Afghanistan to Pakistan. Ghafoor added: "Since April 30, Afghan Border Police had been creating hurdles in conduct of census in divided villages of Killi Luqman and Killi Jahangir in Chaman area, on Pakistani side of the border."

Ghurzang Afridi, an Afghan spokesperson claimed that the Pakistani census team had been working on the Afghan side of the border. Pakistan is in the second phase of its first door-to-door census in 19 years. There are more than 100,000 enumerators plus double that number of troops taking part in the census.. There has been political debate as to how the census may change electoral constituencies. The 2,500 kilometer-long border between Afghanistan and Pakistan is largely unpoliced and passes through much mountainous terrain.

Pakistan has recently tried to put fences and border posts along the border in an attempt to curtail the movement of Taliban fighters into Pakistan. However Afghans have resisted the move and dispute the location of the border. Earlier, in February Pakistan closed off all border crossings with Pakistan after more than 100 were killed in a wave of attacks. AL Jazeera reported:"Pakistan's decision to close two border crossings with Afghanistan following a wave of deadly attacks has forced cross-border trade to grind to a halt.Pakistan closed the Torkham and Chaman borders after Thursday's suicide attack at a sufi shrine in the southern Sindh province which killed at least 88 people.The attack at the Lal Shahbaz Qalandar shrine in Sehwan was the worst attack on Pakistan soil since 2014 and the latest in a wave of violence last week that claimed more than 100 lives.The closing caused chaos at the border as many trucks loaded with perishable goods were stopped.There were frequent clashed between the Pakistani Taliban and Pakistani military forces in several districts. In March 20, Nawaz Sharif; Pakistani PM ordered the crossing to be reopened. Since the census began in March, some teams have been attacked by Pakistani Taliban fighters.

Residents in the area where the attack took place said that Pakistani and Afghan forces used both light and heavy weapons in an exchange of fire. Akhgar Mohammad a doctor at the state-run hospital in CHaman said “So far, we have received nine bodies. These civilians were killed as a result of the Afghan shelling.” He reported at least 42 wounded on the Pakistani side alone including women and children. Some of the wounded he said were in critical condition.

Pakistani PM Nawaz Sharif in a statement called the Afghan firing "unfortunate" and he urged Afghanistan to end cross-border attacks that threatened the peace between the two countries. Nafeez Zakaria Pakistani foreign minister claimed that the census workers were on the Pakistani side when attacked, General Abdul Raziq, police chief in Kandahar province said that the census was being used to conceal crossing of militants from Pakistan to Afghanistan. He claimed that 4 Afghan policemen and 2 civilians were killed and 37 wounded by fire from Pakistan forces. Raziq claimed: “Pakistani forces were trying to infiltrate Afghan territory but Afghan forces stopped them; that’s when the fight started,”

No final agreement after key meeting between rival Libyan officials

(May 3) There was no official statement after Khalifa Haftar, commander of the Libyan National Army associated with the eastern-based House of Representatives (HoR) government met with Faiez Serraj head of the Presidential Council (PC) of the rival GNA.

According to Reuters: " Rival Libyan camps issued separate statements on Wednesday promising to calm tensions in southern Libya and fight terrorism, but offering no shared way forward for a political deal to unify the North African country." There are also conflicting reports about what was agreed to according to pro-Haftar sources some of which are described in a recent Digital Journal article. Reuters says that Seraj's statement does not mention the plans reported by pro-Haftar media to restructure the GNA government as well as hold elections next year. The two sides apparently tried but failed to agree on a joint statement. Reuters claims :

Conflicting accounts of initial agreements and leaks of documents neither side signed have in the past confused international mediation and negotiations to end the conflict in Libya, which fell into factional fighting in the years after a 2011 civil war ousted Muammar Gaddafi.I agree completely.

The statement from Serraj's office said that the meeting was held in order "to achieve a peaceful settlement for the Libyan crisis' and called for a "an expanded dialogue to establish national consensus". It also stressed the need to "uphold the goals of the February revolution" against Gaddafi. The statement spoke of the need to build up an army under civilian control, to combat terrorism, defuse the escalation of violence in the south and "taking all measures that guarantee the peaceful hand-over of power". A statement carried by pro-Haftar media focused on protecting the army and spoke of the "need to address the proliferation of armed formations." It also mentioned that amendments to the Libya Political Agreement had been discussed but did not give details. As discussed in my earlier article, various sources both on twitter and media reports gave conflicting details about amendments. So far it is not clear what if anything was agreed to and it is also clear neither Serraj nor Haftar signed any agreement. Much of what is happening may be just hopeful positive spin based on the fact that the two actually were able to meet. The Haftar forces used the occasion for a propaganda blitz that appears to have been largely successful.

There have been many tweets on the issue. As usual the UN envoy Martin Kobler spins the event positively in a tweet:"welcome & encouraged by President Sarraj-Field Marshal Haftar meeting in #UAE. Key step toward #LPA implementation, w/ continued @UN support" It is not clear exactly how the meeting has facilitated that. The meeting has not even resulted in a ceasefire in the south where clashes between forces loyal to Haftar and the GNA are still ongoing. A tweet reports: "That's right, artillery shelling around Tamanhint, clashes near Derna & rumors about *a new LNA OP* in Al Sabri / Souq al Hout, Benghazi." Operation Dignity will continue both in the south and elsewhere.

Perhaps this is the start of a positive process or it may be that Haftar is simply going through the motions of pretending to negotiate an agreement while continuing his Operation Dignity operations on the ground. According to Mattia Toaldo, a fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, the meeting shows that Haftar wants to be part of the political process and wishes to run as a candidate for president in elections next year in March as required by the Libyan Political Agreement. Perhaps after more meetings scheduled next week we will have a clearer idea of what is going on.