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

Pakistan suffered loss of $34bn in war on terror: Qureshi: Dawn

By Masood Haider

UNITED NATIONS, Nov 13: President Asif Ali Zardari has told US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that attacks inside Pakistan by US unmanned Predators in pursuit of militants are undermining Pakistan’s efforts in war against extremists.

Mr Zardari told Ms Rice that these drone attacks were unproductive, and they were contributing to alienation as opposed to winning people over, Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi told reporters on Wednesday evening.He was addressing a press conference after a meeting between Ms Rice and President Zardari on the sidelines of United Nations interfaith dialogue meeting.

For more on this article, please click on the following link: Pakistan suffered loss of $34bn in war on terror: Qureshi: Dawn

US House approves $ 150 million new assistance for Pakistan: APP

WASHINGTON, June 24 (APP): The U.S. House of Representatives has approved $150 million in new assistance for Pakistan to address economic needs in the next fiscal year.

The assistance is included in the war supplemental budget measure to support efforts into the year 2009, beginning from October 1, 2008.

For more on this article, please click on the following link: US House approves $ 150 million new assistance for Pakistan: APP

Pakistan vows to defend sovereignty after Karzai threat: AFP

ISLAMABAD (AFP) — Pakistan's foreign office pledged that the country would defend its territorial sovereignty, state media said Monday after Afghanistan's leader said cross-border attacks on militants were justified.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai threatened on Sunday to attack Taliban insurgents on the soil of his supposed ally in the "war on terror", saying his war-torn country had a right to do so in self-defence.

"Pakistan shall defend its territorial sovereignty," foreign office spokesman Mohammad Sadiq was quoted as saying by the government-run Associated Press of Pakistan news agency.

For more on this article, please click on the following link: Pakistan vows to defend sovereignty after Karzai threat: AFP