US launches Waziristan UAV strike with tacit Pakistani approval
Farhan Bokhari JDW Correspondent - Islamabad
The United States appears to be stepping up its use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to attack Taliban targets in Pakistan's frontier regions bordering Afghanistan, following a UAV strike on 16 March in which 14 people were killed in southern Waziristan.
One Western defence official familiar with the details of the drone attack said that at least half of the people killed were of Arab origin and possibly linked to Al-Qaeda. The exact identities of the victims are not yet known.
A senior Pakistani government official told Jane's that the increased use of UAVs has been made possible by closer intelligence sharing between Pakistan and the US over the past four months, suggesting that the Pakistani government has given tacit approval for the US to launch UAV strikes within Pakistan's borders.
A missile, believed by the Pakistani media to have been fired by a UAV, killed 13 people in the tribal region in late February. Abu Laith al-Libi, a top lieutenant of Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, was killed in a similar strike on 28 January.
The drone attacks have coincided with a mounting number of suicide attacks by militants led by Baitullah Mehsud: a Pakistani tribal hardliner loyal to Al-Qaeda and the Taliban.
Mehsud has used a number of secret locations in the Waziristan region to train and equip young militant volunteers to attack targets in Pakistan, in retaliation for the country's support for the US-led 'war on terror'. The killing of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto in December was attributed to Mehsud's followers by the Pakistani government.
On 18 March Pakistani security officials warned that three suicide bombers dispatched by Mehsud had travelled from Waziristan to the Punjab and were waiting to strike specific targets. It was unclear if the suicide bombers had been sent in retaliation for the 16 March attack.