CIA could face prosecution due to U.S. drone raids in Pakistan: Digital Journal

Officers for the Central Intelligence Agency may face legal action from Pakistani authorities because of attacks by United States unmanned aerial vehicles.
Islamabad, Pakistan - Due to the U.S. government’s refusal to offer legal grounds for the CIA’s drone raids in Pakistan, many CIA officers may face prosecution for war crimes, according to AFP. Since the U.S. President was elected more than one year ago, military drone bombings have increased in both Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Many important officials in the international community are impatient with Washington ignoring the denouncement of the CIA’s bombing raids in Pakistan, Afghanistan and other parts of the world, reports Press TV.
U.S. State Department lawyers and members of other government agencies worry that the Obama administration has not stated a rationale for the drone strikes but Kenneth Anderson, a law professor at American University, told a congressional panel on Tuesday that drone attacks are legal under international law.

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How the CIA Uses Pakistan as a Launch Pad for Drones: Spiegel.de

By Hasnain Kazim in Islamabad

Pakistan may be the epicenter of the CIA's drone war against the Taliban, but there is massive resistance to the campaign from the Pakistani population. The US is forcing Islamabad to perform a difficult balancing act.

As so often, the sky is a radiant blue over Mir Ali, a small Pakistani town in the province of North Waziristan near the border with Afghanistan. Alerted by a buzzing sound, a few people come out of their houses. Spotting a small aircraft a few hundred meters away, they panic, and those who can flee into the next village. The craft is a Predator drone, an unmanned plane launched from a secret airbase in Pakistan and controlled remotely by the CIA in Virginia back in the US. "We panic because we live in constant fear of being hit by a rocket," says Haji Gul, one of the inhabitants of Mir Ali.

Almost every day now, Pakistani television shows footage of houses destroyed and villages devastated by drone attacks. One such attack in mid-January killed three people in Mir Ali, all of them allegedly members of an extremist militia.

However the rockets fired by these remote-controlled mini-planes do not only kill terrorists. Drone strikes have an indirect -- and sometimes also direct -- impact on everyone who lives in the affected regions along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. Some of the locals are worried, others are angry. They fear for their lives now that the CIA's drone war is taking on ever greater dimensions and using Pakistan as a launch pad.

For it is here, in hidden airfields in Pakistan, that the drones are primed and launched. And it is mainly here that they carry out attacks, especially in North and South Waziristan, two regions that border Afghanistan and which are a stronghold of an unknown number of militant groups.

Controversial Campaign

Despite its success against the Pakistani Taliban, the use of drones by the Americans remains controversial in Pakistan. According to a Gallup poll, only 9 percent of Pakistanis are in favor of them. Two-thirds reject them outright.

There are several reasons for this. People living along the border with Afghanistan, for example, regularly complain that the rockets also kill civilians who have nothing to do with the insurgents. What's more, the Pakistani government feels the US has put it in a tight spot. Islamabad doesn't like foreign military activity on its territory -- at least officially. It claims America's actions constitute a violation of Pakistani sovereignty.

In a November 2009 interview with SPIEGEL, Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani went so far as to describe the drone attacks as "counterproductive." "The political and the military leadership have been very successful in isolating the militants from the local tribes. But once there is a drone attack in their home region, they get united again," he said. "This is a dangerous trend, and it is my concern and the concern of the army. It is also counterproductive in the sense that it is creating a lot of anti-American sentiment all over the country."

For more on this article, please click on the following link: How the CIA Uses Pakistan as a Launch Pad for Drones: Spiegel.de

US 'biggest' threat, say Pakistanis: Al Jazeera

By Owen Fay

A survey commissioned by Al Jazeera in Pakistan has revealed a widespread disenchantment with the United States for interfering with what most people consider internal Pakistani affairs.

The polling was conducted by Gallup Pakistan - a separate organisation affiliated with the US-based Gallup Inc - and more than 2,600 people took part.

Interviews were conducted across the political spectrum, and represented men and women of every economic and ethnic background.

The resentment was made clear when residents were asked if they support or oppose Pakistan's own military offensive against Taliban targets.

Keeping with recent trends a growing number of people, now 41 per cent, support the campaign.

About 24 per cent of people remain opposed, but an additional 22 per cent of Pakistanis remain neutral on the question.

Taliban dialogue

That number changes quite significantly when people were asked if they would support government-sanctioned dialogue with Taliban fighters if it were a viable option.

The same 41 per cent said they would still support the military offensive. But the number of those supporting dialogue leaps up to 43 per cent.

So clearly, Pakistanis are, right now, fairly evenly split on how to deal with the Taliban threat.

However, when asked if they support or oppose the US military's drone attacks against what Washington claims are Taliban and al-Qaeda targets, only nine per cent of respondents reacted favourably.

A massive 67 per cent say they oppose US military operations on Pakistani soil.

"This is a fact that the hatred against the US is growing very quickly, mainly because of these drone attacks," Makhdoom Babar, the editor-in-chief of Pakistan's The Daily Mail newspaper, said.

"Maybe the intelligence channels, the military channels consider it productive, but for the general public it is controversial ... the drone attacks are causing collateral damage," he told Al Jazeera

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Made in Pakistan: Newsline

By Shahzeb Shaikha

It would come as a surprise to most Pakistanis that the country has an indigenous Unmanned Aerial Vehicle [UAV] industry. In fact, there are three private entities – East West Infiniti [EWI], Integrated Dynamics [ID] and Surveillance and Target Unmanned Aircraft [Satuma] – involved in the manufacturing of UAVs in Pakistan. In addition, three government enterprises, the Pakistan Aeronautical Complex [PAC], the Air Weapons Complex [AWC], and the National Development Complex [NDC] also produce UAVs.

The Pakistan government has repeatedly requested the US to send them drone technology, a request which, according to defense analyst Ayesha Siddiqa, has been persistently denied because “we always leak technology.” But what if Pakistan develops its own drones with a missile delivery system matching the American Predator?

At this point, the question of ‘what if’ doesn’t exist because Pakistan already possesses the capability to develop its own unmanned vehicles. But there is a big difference between producing unarmed UAVs, which Pakistan currently does, and the armed Predator drones which the US has been using in FATA.

Can Pakistan come up with a UAV carrying weapons?

Dr Hammad Bin Khaleeq, Satuma’s director in charge of mechanical design and manufacturing, Dr Haroon Javed Qureshi of EWI, and Raja Sabri Khan, CEO of Integrated Dynamics, all concur.

“It is possible,” Khaleeq tells Newsline. “It is not something beyond our capability. We only need to have support – financial support as well as time. These things don’t develop overnight.” He maintains that there have been huge amounts of investment from the government for the purpose of developing drones but state entities have failed to deliver the desired product. “Acquiring and integrating a weapon in drones is advanced and difficult. But it’s not out of our reach. If the government wants, the efforts can be put in.”

Qureshi confidently explains that if the drone project is headed solely by private enterprises, “I can assure you that my company, or, for that matter, Raja Sabri Khan’s Integrated Dynamics, or Satuma, can perhaps do it in three years. One has to keep in mind that all three companies have been in this particular business for 15 years and are well aware of the ground realities.”

However, Khan is sceptical about the three-year estimate. “I worked for Suparco from 1987 to 1997, before I started my own company. Right now, the only constraint in Pakistan developing a predator type drone is money,” Khan says. He also maintains that state enterprises lack will and passion, and agrees with Qureshi’s stance on the government backing commercial firms to develop such technology. Khan reveals that a minimum investment of $50 million would be required to initiate a drone project along the lines of the Predator, but it could take as long as eight years.

According to the three private enterprises the drone technology in Pakistan is nowhere near the American Predator. The Predator carries a Hellfire missile that Pakistan does not have. Instead, Pakistan has the Baktarshikan and the Tow anti-tank missile, which can strike as far as 3,000 yards. The maximum payload weight of the Tow missile is 100lb. The main difference between the Predator and Pakistani-manufactured drones is the wing load capability and the engine size. The Predator can carry far more payload weight [450lb] and can fly more than 20 hours, covering a distance of 3,700km. The missile capability depends on how much load the wing can carry. The current technology in Pakistan limits the companies in terms of how much load per square foot they can put on the wing.

“There is a thought process along these lines in Pakistan, but, as far as real work is concerned, nothing is being done. Several of the UAV programmes that are now being carried out will have the capability of carrying at least 150lb.” Khan goes on to emphasise that his company is not providing Americans with the drones being used in FATA, a common misconception.

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Drone Attacks Are Violation Of Pakistan’s Sovereignty: FO: Online News

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan condemning the drone attacks on its territory has termed them counterproductive and violation of country’s sovereignty.

Foreign Office spokesman in response to a question said, "drone attacks on our territory are a violation of Pakistan’s sovereignty and definitely counter-productive. It is important that US Administration factors this in its operational policy.

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US senator under fire over drone facility in Pakistan remarks: Daily Times

LAHORE: Republican members of the House Intelligence Committee have asked the Obama administration to conduct an inquiry into comments by Senator Dianne Feinstein that appeared to confirm the existence of a secret US facility inside Pakistan used to carry out drone attacks in the Tribal Areas. Amid growing concern inside Pakistan over the strikes, Newsweek reported that the unusual request by the Republicans sought a ‘damage assessment’ into the remarks by Feinstein, the new chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

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Google Earth reveals secret history of US base in Pakistan: Times Online

The US was secretly flying unmanned drones from the Shamsi airbase in Pakistan's southwestern province of Baluchistan as early as 2006, according to an image of the base from Google Earth.

The image — that is no longer on the site but which was obtained by The News, Pakistan's English language daily newspaper — shows what appear to be three Predator drones outside a hangar at the end of the runway. The Times also obtained a copy of the image, whose co-ordinates confirm that it is the Shamsi airfield, also known as Bandari, about 200 miles southwest of the Pakistani city of Quetta.

An investigation by The Times yesterday revealed that the CIA was secretly using Shamsi to launch the Predator drones that observe and attack al-Qaeda and Taleban militants around Pakistan's border with Afghanistan.

US special forces used the airbase during the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, but the Pakistani Government said in 2006 that the Americans had left. Both sides have since denied repeatedly that Washington has used, or is using, Pakistani bases to launch drones. Pakistan has also demanded that the US cease drone attacks on its tribal area, which have increased over the last year, allegedly killing several “high-value” targets as well as many civilians.

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A Pakistani Attack On US Drones?: Daily.pk

Written by www.daily.pk
Tuesday, 10 February 2009 19:01

Here is a 7-point Parliament resolution authorizing Pakistan Air Force to shoot down CIA drones coming from Afghanistan and killing innocent Pakistani citizens. U.S. might expand its war into Pakistan. This is a time for concrete action. It’s now or never. If we have to then we must remove this government and install an interim technocrat based government until the situation in the country improves. We the people of Pakistan must demand these actions from this government and must not fall into the disguised rhetoric of our corrupt leaders.

It’s time Pakistan said farewell to the disastrous journey that we embarked upon right after 9/11. We must at all cost liberate ourselves from the yoke of Yankee slavery. This is the time we seek examples of other world rulers who are taking stand against U.S. hegemony. The Pakistani parliament must get together and get the following resolutions passed from the house:

1. Pakistan must pass a bill in the parliament that must authorize Pakistan Air Force to retaliate against deadly U.S drone attacks.

2. Pakistan must ask U.S. to pack up its military bases from Pakistani soil, since there was no open agreement between Pakistan government and U.S. All agreements done between Pakistan and the U.S. under President Musharraf must be made public and cancelled. If there is a need to continue with any one of those agreements with the U.S., they must be renegotiated in a manner that ensures Pakistan’s territorial sovereignty.

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Pakistan 'mulls US drone action' : BBC

By M Ilyas Khan
BBC News, Karachi

Pakistan's PM Yousuf Raza Gilani says his government is considering "a number of options" to counter attacks by US drones inside its territory.
His statement came after Pakistan's air force chief said his force was equipped to tackle the drones militarily.
US-operated pilotless drones have launched more than 20 missile attacks in Pakistani tribal areas since August.
The government is under immense public pressure to defend its territory against such attacks.
The drone attacks are believed to have been largely on-target, hitting Taleban and al-Qaeda hideouts in the north-western Waziristan tribal region.
There have been few civilian casualties, officials say.
But Pakistani media and opposition parties term these attacks as a violation of Pakistan's sovereignty and territorial integrity.

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Pakistan can stop drone raids: air force chief: Reuters

By Zeeshan Haider

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Pakistan's air force is fully capable of stopping missile strikes by pilotless U.S. drones but it is up to the government to decide whether to do that, the air force chief said on Tuesday.

U.S. forces in Afghanistan have carried out at least 26 air strikes by unmanned aircraft on militant targets in northwest Pakistan this year, according to a Reuters tally, more than half since the start of September.

Pakistan supports the U.S.-led campaign against militancy but does not allow foreign troops or strikes inside its territory. It says the attacks violate its sovereignty and undermine efforts to deal with militancy by inflaming public anger.

The attacks put pressure on the civilian government to stand up to the United States and opposition parties have been critical of the government's failure to stop the strikes.
Air force chief Air Marshal Tanvir Mahmood Ahmed said it was up to the government to decide whether to stop such strikes through diplomatic and political means or by force.

"The air force is ready for any type of air defense," Ahmed told reporters, referring to various types of unmanned aircraft.

"First this nation, you people, our parliament, our government, has to debate how we have to engage the foreign UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles). Whether we have to engage them diplomatically and politically to resolve it or engage them militarily," he said.

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UN voices concern over US attacks: Dawn

UNITED NATIONS, Nov 21: UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has expressed concern over cross-border attacks on suspected militant targets inside Pakistan by the United States.

“The secretary-general is concerned,” his spokesperson Michele Montas said at a noon briefing when asked to clarify media reports in Pakistan quoting her as saying that the latest attack was a “bilateral issue”.

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Pakistan army flexes muscles to shoot down drone aircraft: Monsters and Critics

Islamabad - Pakistan's army on Friday carried out a training exercise in which pilotless aircraft drones were shot down by anti-craft guns and short range surface-to-air missiles, a military statement said.
The exercise was carried out as public pressure on the government in Islamabad is increasing to use force to halt air raids by US drones that target suspected militant hideouts in Pakistan's tribal region.
'The elements of army air defence demonstrated their shooting skills by targeting the drones flying at different altitudes,' said the statement.
The indigenously built man-portable surface-to-air missile Anza II, the anti-aircraft Oerlikan and an unnamed 57 mm radar-controlled gun were used in the exercises that were conducted in a semi-desert area near Muzaffargarh in central Pakistan.

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