As Pakistan on Friday said it was discussing ‘various proposals’ with the United States to resolve the thorny issue of drone attacks on Pakistani territory, a US drone struck again in a border area between the North and South Waziristan agencies, killing at least 18 suspected militants.
Officials in Miranshah, headquarters of North Waziristan Agency, said the US drone fired several missiles on a compound established in three abandoned homes in Tunda Dara area of Shawal. As a result, almost all portions of the compound were destroyed. So far, officials confirmed the killing of at least 18 suspected militants and injuries to several others. However, officials feared an increase in the number of casualties as condition of several of the injured was stated to be in danger.
Friday’s drone attack was considered the worst in recent weeks. In a period of less than a week, five US drone strikes have been reported in Waziristan that have killed more than 40 suspected militants. Addressing his weekly press briefing in Islamabad, Foreign Office Spokesman Moazzam Khan dubbed the CIA drone campaign as complete violation of international law and sovereignty of the country. Khan said, “We regard these strikes as illegal and unproductive.” He said, “These attacks also violate our sovereignty, territorial integrity and are in contravention of international laws.”
He said, “Pakistan is working with the US leadership on the drone issue. We are working on various proposals and hope to come up to a mutually acceptable solution.” However, Khan refused to divulge the nature of proposals and did not share those details with the media. Only a day earlier, a senior American diplomat was summoned to Foreign Office to lodge a strong protest against the drone attacks. He was also given a demarche in this regard. A Pakistani diplomat seeking anonymity said that Pakistan was trying to impress upon US for the replacement of drone strikes with Pakistani F-16 fighter planes equipped with smart weapons, adding that those jets were being used successfully in Orakzai Agency against the militants’ hideouts in the ongoing operations.
He said that another proposal that the US had come up with was to slash the list of targets for drone strikes and carry out such attacks only on high value targets of al Qaeda and Taliban in the tribal areas. However, he hastened to add that Pakistan instead was more for a halt to drone strikes and opting for the F-16s’ option. To a question at his briefing, the Foreign Office spokesman said that the Pak-US strategic dialogue would take place during the current year and work was underway for the purpose. Answering another query, Khan said that Pakistan was a responsible nuclear state and Indian allegations regarding nuclear attacks or threats given to it by Islamabad for that purpose were baseless. He also ruled out any link of Pakistan with the violence in Indian state of Assam while resenting the statement of Indian Home Secretary in this regard. He said that Indian allegations of hate messages being spread by Pakistan were baseless and it should provide evidences if it had any in that regard.
On relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan, Khan said that both the neighboring states would solve all the issues including terrorism and security through bilateral talks. He said that the two states would not allow anyone to use their territory against each other for terrorist acts.
Drone preys on 18 more as Pakistan’s protests fall on deaf ears
