No need to change policy: Pentagon

US Defence Department says there will be no change in drone strike policy against al Qaeda, its associates in Pakistan

The US Defence Department has made it clear that there will be no change in the policy of drone strikes against al Qaeda and its associates in Pakistan and across the world.

A senior official of the US Defence Department has said the Pentagon sees no need to change the broad congressional authorisation under which the military conducts lethal drone strikes against terrorist targets and estimated that the war with al Qaeda could continue for up to two decades, Washington Post reported.

“At this point we’re comfortable with the AUMF as it is currently structured,” Assistant Defense Secretary Michael Sheehan said of the Authorisation for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) passed by Congress in 2001.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 18^th, 2013.