Strike at will

American drones have been in action once again and another high-value target has been killed. Mullah Sangeen Zadran, who was a senior leader of the Haqqani network, died along with five others when a compound in Ghulam Khan, North Waziristan, was struck. This is an area close to the Afghan border and it is not the first time that militants have been caught and killed there by US drones. At least seven others were injured in the strike. Local officials speaking anonymously suggested that three al Qaeda members died, two of them Egyptian and one Jordanian. The target was hit in darkness and must have been identified on the basis of accurate intelligence. What the source of that intelligence might be we are unlikely ever to know, neither are we likely to know the level of cooperation or otherwise between American intelligence assets and Pakistan assets, but it is unlikely that the Pakistan side would have been in complete ignorance of the operation. If this is indeed the case, then it is high time there was more transparency from the Pakistani authorities regarding the extent of knowledge or cooperation that may have been extended to the Americans.



Leaving aside the question of ‘who knew what’, it is clear that the Americans are going to continue to use drones to attack targets such as Mullah Sangeen Zadran, who was high on the US ‘wanted’ list. Sovereignty has increasingly become an irrelevance in drone wars, be they here or on the Arabian Peninsula or anywhere else in the world, as the US will continue to strike at will if a target presents itself. The foreign ministry protested at this latest violation of our territorial integrity but it was shouting into the wind, and in all probability, knew that.

There are no reports of civilian casualties in this instance which is fortunate, but the fact is that once again high-value targets were present on territory that is, at least, nominally under our control even if the reality is that the writ of the state stops far short of the borders of North Waziristan. So long as men like Mullah Sangeen Zadran find safe haven here, there will be drone strikes and all protest futile and pointless — but deny them space and the drones will have to hunt elsewhere.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 9^th, 2013.

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