ISLAMABAD – Thursday’s deadly drone strike in North Waziristan in which 44 people were killed, occurring only a day after Raymond Davis’ release, has once again highlighted the simmering tensions between Islamabad and Washington on the contentious issue despite the ‘tacit understanding’ between the crucial anti-terrorism allies on American spy planes’ repeated attacks.
The United States government, led by the Central Intelligence Agency’s Special Activities Division, has made a series of attacks on targets in the tribal regions since 2004 using unmanned aerial vehicles. With a surge in drone strikes in successive years, the statements by Pakistani officials against the deadly assaults started to appear, which cited the killings of hundreds of innocent civilians but at the same time the US officials and even some Pakistani authorities time and again mentioned a clandestine agreement between Islamabad and Washington.
The strong statement of Chief of the Army Staff General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani took many by surprise as it was for the first time that he spoke on these attacks. But they also believed in the unnamed officials from both sides who would talk time and again about the secret pact on drone assaults. Another alarming thing was that General Kayani’s statement appeared in the wake of Davis’ release and again when there were also questions being raised about army and ISI’s role, along with that of the PPP and PML-N governments, on the CIA contractor’s release.
Some attributed it to fact that the American’s freedom doesn’t imply that any deal has been made or there was no more any conflicting issue between the two countries. “Pakistani leadership, including the military commanders, are deeply perturbed over stepped up drone strikes and especially the deadliest one on Thursday as they feel it will be taken as a renewed arrangement between the two states with the US reducing presence of CIA operatives and in return Pakistan showing its willingness to tolerate the drone strikes with increased intensity in the tribal areas,” said a diplomat on Friday requesting anonymity.
