Judge John Bates of the US District Court for the District of Columbia ruled March 31 that three detainees being held at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan can proceed with habeas corpus challenges to their detention. The court's order rejects three of four motions brought by the US government to dismiss the habeas petitions of four foreign nationals, including one Afghan national, captured outside of Afghanistan and brought to Bagram, where they are currently held. The court's decision focused on whether the detainees, Fadi al-Maqaleh, Amin al-Bakri, Redha al-Najar, and Afghan national Haji Wazir, could invoke the Constitution's Suspension Clause. (Jurist, April 2)

Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai has signed a law that women's advocates at the UN say "legalizes" rape. The new Shia Family Law negates the need for sexual consent between married couples, tacitly approves child marriage, and restricts a woman's right to leave the home, according to UN documents. "It is one of the worst bills passed by the parliament this century," said Shinkai Karokhail, a woman MP who campaigned against the legislation. "It is totally against women's rights. This law makes women more vulnerable."

This time it is none other than neocon whiz kid and former undersecretary of defense Douglas J. Feith, along with Justin Polin, a sidekick from the Hudson Institute, who favorably invoke the Sufis in a New York Times op-ed about Pakistan March 30. How frustrating that the attack on sufism by Pakistan's neo-Taliban receives practically no coverage in the international media—until war propagandists seize on it for their own cynical purposes...

In side-by-side front page stories, under the single headline "New Afghan Strategies for the US and Its Foes," the New York Times March 27 tells us "Obama to Add Even More Soldiers to Fight Militants," while "Taliban's Two Branches Agree to Put Focus on an Offensive"—that is the Afghan and Pakistani wings of the movement. While not explicitly invoking the phrase "Af-Pak" now being widely used in military-intelligence circles, the stories make clear that strategists view the two countries as merging into a single theater of war.

At least 11 people were killed in a suicide bomb attack at a restaurant in northwest Pakistan March 26. About two dozen people opposed to Baitullah Mehsud, the Pakistani Taliban leader, were in the restaurant in the Jandola district of South Waziristan. Authorities said those killed were loyal to Turkistan Bittani, a pro-government tribal leader.

US-led coalition forces and Afghan troops killed five suspected members of a "terrorist network" in a raid in northern Afghanistan's Kunduz province March 22, the coalition said. But the mayor of Imam Sahib district, Abdul Manan, said it was his house that was raided and those killed were not militants.

Seven sharia courts opened this week in Pakistan's northwest Swat Valley as part of a peace agreement signed between tribal leaders and the government last month. Authorities said two qazis, or judges trained in Islamic law, reviewed some 30 minor cases in Mingora, the largest city in Swat.

Two Hellfire missiles fired by suspected US Predator drones reportedly killed four militants in Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) March 15. Unnamed intelligence officials said two Pakistanis and two Arabs were killed in the strikes on a house in Sain Tanga village, near Jani Khel in Bannu Frontier Region, North Waziristan Agency. Sources said the house belonged to a local tribesman identified variously as Haji Awais or Taj Ali Khan. Al-Qaeda number-two man Ayman al-Zawahiri is also believed to be in the area. (NYT, DPA, AlJazeera, March 16)