North Waziristan: Drone strike kills 15 amid fraying Pak-US ties
A US drone strike in North Waziristan killed at least 15 persons and injured four others on Friday, putting further strain on Pak-US relations, which are already at their lowest ebb following Osama bin Laden’s killing in Abbottabad early Monday morning.
The drone attack occurred hours after a strong worded ISPR statement warned the US of dire consequences in case Pakistan’s sovereignty is violated again.
A senior security official, while requesting anonymity, said that the attack took place in the Datta Khel tehsil of North Waziristan Agency, when a US drone fired eight missiles on a building and a moving vehicle in the Dowatoui area close to the Pak-Afghan border.
“The attack killed at least 12 persons and injured five others,” the official said. He added that seven persons were killed in the moving vehicle.
Local sources, however, put the death toll at 15 and injured at four, and said that the missiles were fired at a hotel, a seminary and a moving vehicle. Another local source put the death toll at 15.
Local sources also said that four US drones fired at least eight missiles on the targets. The assault took place some 45 kilometres west of the agency headquarters Miran Shah.
It was not clear which militant group was targeted. However, Datta Khel is a stronghold of the Hafiz Gul Bahadar group, which is closely allied with the Haqqani network.
The attack comes at a time when Pak-US relations are going through a rough patch following the killing of al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden in a US Navy Seals raid on an Abbotabad compound on May 2.
An ISPR release issued after a Corps Commander meeting on Thursday asked the US to cut the number of its troops in the country and also warned against violation of the country’s sovereignty.
Defense analyst Colonel (retd) Khalid Munir was of the view that the US will not stop drone strikes inside tribal areas. Munir told The Express Tribune that there will be little reaction in the backdrop of the Abbottabad raid. He said that countering a drone was not an issue as an F-16 could easily do that, but it will invite strong reaction from the US.
“We could say to the US that enough is enough, but in that case our nation will have to face the consequences that will arise after refusal at a time when the US badly needs Pakistan’s help in its exit strategy,” Munir added.
At least 120 out of 127 drone attacks in 2010 were carried out in North Waziristan Agency, mostly in Datta Khel tehsil.
The last drone attack inside Pakistani territory was carried out on April 22 in Hassan Khel village of Spinwam tehsil in North Waziristan Agency, killing at least 25 people.
Published in The Express Tribune, May 7th, 2011.
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In societies that profess some respect for law, suspects are apprehended and brought to fair trial. I stress “suspects.”In April 2002, the head of the FBI, Robert Mueller, informed the press that after the most intensive investigation in history, the FBI could say no more than that it “believed” that the plot was hatched in Afghanistan, though implemented in the UAE and Germany. What they only believed in April 2002, they obviously didn’t know 8 months earlier, when Washington dismissed tentative offers by the Taliban (how serious, we do not know, because they were instantly dismissed) to extradite bin Laden if they were presented with evidence—which, as we soon learned, Washington didn’t have. Thus Obama was simply lying when he said, in his White House statement, that “we quickly learned that the 9/11 attacks were carried out by al Qaeda.”Still, it is accepted as fact amongst most Americans that bin Laden was behind 9/11. And it is also generally accepted that he was indeed killed, and killed for a good reason. Whereas many in the Greater Middle East accept it as fact that Americans are lied to by their government. They believe Americans are conditioned by their media to think that their government is fighting for freedom and democracy when in reality the government are mass murderers on a scale far greater than the perpetrators of 9/11. And to those in the Greater Middle East who state the above as fact, one can ask ‘how heavily have they been propagandized?’ Again, I think the truth lies somewhere in the middle. But back to my original line of thinking: Do Pakistanis believe bin Laden was killed as has been stated by the U.S.? Do people in Pakistan even believe bin Laden was behind 9/11?