What's new

US Drone Strikes In Pakistan

"It is significantly more expensive to sustain each soldier in Afghanistan than in Iraq because of Afghanistan's landlocked location and primitive road network."[/B]

the yanks are very smart. they have allowed india to build the afghan road network. why do it yourself when someone is ready to do it for you.
 
Let's refresh your contention-

"I think during this winter there will be drastic change in US war strategy in afghanistan...American are now feeling the heat of boiling water and shall try to jump out at any cost."

It seems clear from the above that you're suggesting that the United States will do everything possible to evacuate Afghanistan. There's no indication whatsoever that leaving Afghanistan this spring is part of the new administration's plans. There's, in fact, no indication that we'll be leaving for the foreseeable future.

Our financial ability to sustain operations in Afghanistan is not in jeopardy, regardless of Mr. Crowe's suggestions about the implied inefficiencies that may be associated with Afghanistan's geography and infrastructure.

Just for the record, here's the comments of a recent Congressional Research Office paper which might be of some interest to you-

"Under these CBO [Congressional Budget Office] projections, funding for Iraq, Afghanistan and the GWOT could total about $1.3 trillion or about $1.7 trillion for FY2001-FY2018. This report will be updated as warranted."

The Cost of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Other Global War on Terror Operations Since 9/11- Congressional Research Office Oct. 15, 2008 (Update)

Those numbers stem from 9/11 through 2018. OTOH, our GDP (PPP) for 2007 alone is $13.85 trillion (C.I.A. World Factbook).

Again, while the war certainly hasn't been cheap, I believe that you're projecting your desires without reasonable cause for hope. We'll be firmly in Afghanistan for some time to come, I suspect.
 
Predator strikes have Pakistan’s approval: Washington PostBy Khalid Hasan

WASHINGTON: For the second time in the last few days, the Washington Post has stated that there is a secret deal between Pakistan and the United States whereby Predator strikes in Pakistan’s tribal territories are to continue, while Islamabad’s public stance remains one of denial and protest at the strikes.
According to the report published on Sunday, “The officials described the deal as one in which the US government refuses to publicly acknowledge the attacks while Pakistan's government continues to complain noisily about the politically sensitive strikes.”
The report said that the US and Pakistan reached a ‘tacit agreement’ in September on a “don't-ask-don't-tell policy that allows unmanned Predator aircraft to attack suspected terrorist targets in rugged western Pakistan”.
However, there appears to be an understanding in place that US troops will not physically carry out operations in Pakistani territory akin to the September 3 attack, which caused uproar across the country.
What is interesting about the said arrangement between Washington and Islamabad is that the government has claimed the contrary in parliament and continues to make public protests whenever a Predator strike takes place. This, according to one observer, amounts to the government having misstated facts to parliament, which has issued a declaration condemning Predator strikes. According to the report, President Zardari said in an interview to the newspaper that he receives ‘no prior notice’ of the air strikes and that he disapproves of them. But he said he gives the Americans ‘the benefit of the doubt’ that their intention is to target the Afghan side of the ill-defined, mountainous border of Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), even if that is not where the missiles land. He said the US ‘point of view’ is that the attacks are “good for everybody. Our point of view is that it is not good for our position of winning the hearts and minds of people”.
The Post quoted a senior Pakistani official as saying that the US-Pakistani understanding over the air strikes is ‘the smart middle way for the moment’. He said unlike the Pervez Musharraf government, the present one ‘is delivering but not taking the credit’.
The report continued, “Along with the stepped-up Predator attacks, Bush administration strategy includes showering Pakistan's new leaders with close, personal attention. In September, and senior military and intelligence officials have exchanged near-constant visits over the past few months.”
Zardari also told the newspaper, "We think we need a new dialogue, and we're hoping that the new government will understand that Pakistan has done more than they recognise" and is a victim of the same insurgency the United States is fighting. Current and former US counterterrorism officials said improved intelligence has been an important factor in the increased tempo and precision of the Predator strikes.


http://www.defence.pk/forums/war-te...an-s-approval-washington-post.html#post222963
 
yeah again i hear ya same shamble economy of US:)Yes All Allah's plan there should be no doubt about that. As i said do not argue with me when it comes to God's plan. Fix US economy and come back talk to me forgot about other's ur already advocating US so stick to it.
 
Instead of evacuating US is planning on increasing the troop levels in Afghanistan. New administration considers Afghanistan number one priority. There should be no doubt that even tougher times are ahead.
 
Not unlikley..

This has happened in the past . Govts have a diff face for their domestic audience & another for those whom they owe their existence to.
 
Just from an international legal prospective, assuming the Pakistani government has not given tacit permission for the UAV strikes, I do not see how they are legal, given that there has been no determination by a relevant international body that authorizes such action in Pakistan.

Without Pakistani approval, tacit or otherwise, these strikes are nothing but naked aggression and a violation of Pakistani sovereignty - but then we already know the US loves unilateralism and double standards in its foreign policy anyway.
 
Last edited:
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) — A suspected U.S. missile strike hit a village deep inside Pakistani territory Wednesday, officials said, killing six alleged militants and indicating American willingness to pursue insurgents beyond the lawless tribal regions.

The strike was the latest in a surge of cross-border attacks in Pakistan's militant-plagued northwest in the last three months. The attacks have killed scores of suspected al-Qaida and Taliban militants, but have enraged the country's civilian leadership.

The attack was the first to hit an area outside the semiautonomous tribal belt that directly borders Afghanistan, something which could trigger extra anger among Pakistanis.

Hours after the strike, a large Islamist political party warned it would block two major supply routes for U.S and NATO forces in Afghanistan that run through Pakistan unless the attacks ended.

"If these missiles attacks continue, then we will ask the people to create hurdles in the way of supplies for NATO," Qazi Hussain Ahmed, chief of Jamaat-e-Islami, told reporters.

The party has shown it can easily mobilize thousands of supporters at short notice. The supply lines have never been blocked by protests but militants and criminals often attack trucks traveling with them.

Javed Marwat, a local government official, told The Associated Press that two missiles destroyed a house in Indi Khel village in Bannu district. Two Pakistani intelligence officials said their agents reported that militants from Central Asia were among the six killed.

The U.S., which says Taliban and al-Qaida militants use pockets of northwest Pakistan to plan attacks on foreign troops in Afghanistan, has been blamed in about 20 cross-border missile strikes since August. The U.S. rarely confirms or denies the strikes, which are believed to be carried out mainly by the CIA.

The missiles are apparently fired from unmanned planes launched in Afghanistan, where some 32,000 U.S. troops are fighting the Taliban and other militants.

Pakistan has protested the strikes as violations of its sovereignty and international law but the attacks continue, leading analysts to speculate that the two nations may have a secret deal.

Until Wednesday, all the attacks since August were in North and South Waziristan, two tribal regions where the government has ceded much of its limited control to militants. U.S. officials say they want to help Pakistan regain sovereignty over such areas.

The Bannu district, which falls under the control of the regional government, begins roughly 18 miles away from the border with Afghanistan.

Two other intelligence officials, both based in Bannu, said militants had begun moving farther away from the border, including to their district and other settled areas, in an apparent bid to avoid the missile strikes.

All the intelligence officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to news media.

Pakistani officials says they are rarely warned of such attacks, and have demanded the U.S. share intelligence so that Pakistan can go after targets on its own.

Even as the U.S. strikes have picked up, American officers in Afghanistan have stressed improved day-to-day Pakistani cooperation in squeezing militants nested along both sides of the lengthy, porous border.

U.S. military officials said troops in Afghanistan coordinated with Pakistan on Sunday in shelling insurgents inside Pakistan who were launching rockets at the foreign troops. Pakistan's official statement on the matter referred only to militant activity in Afghanistan.

In the past month, NATO and Pakistan also have cooperated in so-called Operation Lion Heart — a series of complementary operations that involve Pakistani army and paramilitary troops, and NATO on the Afghan side, said Col. John Spiszer, U.S. commander in northeast Afghanistan.

"What we have done is worked very hard to refocus our ... intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance assets to do everything we can to identify transiting across the border," he told a Pentagon news conference in Washington via teleconference from Afghanistan on Tuesday.

Commanders hope pressure on both sides of the border will eventually mean militants will be "running out of options on places to go," Spiszer said.

U.S. officials have praised Pakistani military offensives against militants in its border region, including an operation in the Bajur tribal area that the army says has killed some 1,500 alleged insurgents.

Besides questions of sovereignty, Pakistani officials say the U.S. missile strikes are counterproductive because they often kill civilians and deepen anti-American and anti-government sentiment along the border.

But Gen. David Petraeus, the head of U.S. Central Command, has defended the missile strikes, saying at least three top extremist leaders, whom he did not identify, have been killed in recent months in the attacks.

Also Wednesday, gunmen shot and killed a retired Pakistani army general who had led military operations against insurgents in the tribal regions. The attack occurred on the outskirts of the capital, Islamabad.

Ameer Faisal Alvi was in his vehicle when the assailants opened fire, killing him and his driver before fleeing, police official Mohammed Tariq said. The motive was unknown, he said.

Associated Press writers Riaz Khan in Peshawar and Ishtiaq Mahsud in Dera Ismail Khan contributed to this report.

The Associated Press: Suspected US missile strike kills 6 in Pakistan
 
ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Pakistan summoned U.S. ambassador Anne Patterson on Thursday to receive a formal protest over missile strikes launched by pilotless drone aircraft against militant targets on Pakistani soil, a Pakistani foreign ministry official said.

The protest came a day after a suspected U.S. missile strike killed five militants, possibly including an Arab al Qaeda operative.

Wednesday's attack on Bannu district was unusual in that it took place deeper in Pakistani territory in an area outside the semi-autonomous tribal lands bordering Afghanistan where most other attacks have focused.

"The American ambassador has been called to the Foreign Office to lodge a protest over the missile attack in Bannu," a Foreign Ministry official told Reuters.

(Reporting by Augustine Anthony; Writing by Simon Cameron-Moore; Editing by Jeremy Laurence)
 
ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Pakistan's army chief called for a halt to missile attacks on Pakistani territory by pilotless drone aircraft operated by Western forces in Afghanistan.

General Ashfaq Kayani delivered the message during an address to NATO's military committee in Brussels on Wednesday, just hours after a suspected U.S. missile strike killed five militants, possibly including an Arab al Qaeda operative.

A statement issued by the Pakistani military said Kayani had urged a halt to the use of unmanned "combat aerial vehicles within Pakistani territory".

Pakistan says the attacks violate its sovereignty, make it harder to justify the alliance with the United States in a country rife with anti-American sentiment, and undermine efforts to win public support for the fight against militancy.

Kayani also met with NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, and held individual meetings with Admiral Michael Mullen, U.S. chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, and a French defence chief.

The restatement of opposition to the air strikes followed hard on the heels of a denial by the foreign ministry that Pakistan had a secret agreement with Washington to publicly protest the attacks, while privately acquiescing.

Missile-armed drones are primarily used by U.S. forces in the region. The United States seldom confirms drone attacks. Pakistan does not have any combat drones.

Wednesday's attack on Bannu district, bordering North Waziristan, was unusual in that it took place deeper in Pakistani territory in an area outside the semi-autonomous tribal lands bordering Afghanistan.

U.S. strikes have focused on North and South Waziristan where at least 20 missile attacks and a cross-border commando raid have killed scores of people since September.

The Arab killed in the attack on a house in the Janikhel tribal area of Bannu district in North West Frontier Province was identified by a Pakistani intelligence official as Abdullah Azam al-Saudi.

The official, based in in neighbouring Dera Ismail Khan district, described al-Saudi as a coordinator between al Qaeda and the Taliban in Pakistan.

The official requested anonymity, because of the sensitivity of the subject, and there was no other corroboration of al-Saudi's death.

Taliban fighters cordoned off the area around the destroyed house, but photographers took pictures of young boys holding pieces of the missile that destroyed it.

Frustrated by fighters from Pakistan fuelling the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan and fearful of al Qaeda regrouping, U.S. forces have intensified missile attacks by pilotless drones.

Pakistani security forces are battling Islamist fighters in other parts of northwest Pakistan, notably Bajaur, a region at the other end of the tribal belt from Waziristan, and Swat valley.

Though independent casualty estimates are unavailable, the number of people killed in the fighting runs well over a thousand in the last four months alone.

Western forces in Afghanistan have put pressure on the border with Bajaur in an operation dubbed "Lionheart", to help Pakistani forces squeeze the life out of the Islamist fighters' resistance.

Elsewhere along the border, the Pakistani military has been cooperating with NATO counterparts by helping direct artillery fire against militants harrassing NATO camps from positions inside Pakistan.

link:Pakistani general calls for halt to missile strikes | Reuters
 
U.S. Sharing Predator Video with Afghanistan, Pakistan

By Nathan Hodge November 19, 2008

In a presentation last night in Washington, the top U.S. general in Afghanistan let slip an interesting detail: The United States is sharing top-secret video feeds from Predator drones with the Afghan and Pakistani militaries.

Describing "tripartite" co-operation between Pakistan, Afghanistan and the International Security Assistance Force, Gen. David McKiernan said:

We exchange frequencies, we exchange intelligence, we have a Predator feed going down to the one border coordination center at Torkham Gate that's looked at by the Pak military, Afghan military and ISAF. So we're coordinating at various levels.

That's a rather intriguing detail. As Noah noted yesterday, the United States has become involved in a rather touchy diplomatic situation over the stepped-up robotic assaults against Pakistani-based militants who are staging cross-border attacks in Afghanistan. McKiernan recently stepped into the fray, telling Pakistan's Dawn newspaper: "these drones do not come under my command."

The Washington Post described the situation as "a don't-ask-don't-tell policy" for UAV strikes; part of the reason may be that strikes inside Pakistan are carried out by CIA drones. In public, the Pakistani government has been quite critical of the U.S. airstrikes. But McKiernan's comments suggest that there may be more collaboration on both sides of the border than Pakistani officials are ready to admit.

http://www.blog.wired.com
 
November 19, 2008

Pakistan - A Disinformation Campaign?

by Rowan Wolf.

OpEdNews » OpEdNews.Com Progressive, Tough Liberal News and Opinion

The U.S. has been fighting a war inside of Pakistan. These actions, which have resulted in the death and injury of civilian populations have drawn the ire of the people of Pakistan, and condemnation (and attacks) from the government of Pakistan. The perception was that this was Bush unilaterally engaging in invading yet another country. However, then the news leaked that Bush approved the raids.

The word is that in July of 2008 George Bush "secretly" approved special forces to carry out assaults inside of Pakistan without the knowledge or approval of the Pakistani government. According to the NY Times report which broke the story:

The classified orders signal a watershed for the Bush administration after nearly seven years of trying to work with Pakistan to combat the Taliban and Al Qaeda, and after months of high-level stalemate about how to challenge the militants' increasingly secure base in Pakistan's tribal areas.

American officials say that they will notify Pakistan when they conduct limited ground attacks like the Special Operations raid last Wednesday in a Pakistani village near the Afghanistan border, but that they will not ask for its permission.

Almost in passing, the article also notes that:

The Central Intelligence Agency has for several years fired missiles at militants inside Pakistan from remotely piloted Predator aircraft. But the new orders for the military's Special Operations forces relax firm restrictions on conducting raids on the soil of an important ally without its permission.

So is it the CIA that is currently flying the drones on their bombing missions inside Pakistan? Isn't that a "military" function? Yes, it is, and it is part of the secret army within the CIA. This CIA assault force known as the Special Operations Group. Douglas Waller of Time wrote an excellent expose in February 2003 titled "The CIA's Secret Army."

But back to our "story."

The claim (included in the NY Times' article) was that officials inside Pakistan had tacitly agreed to the attacks inside their borders. There was no word of exactly what "officials" made that agreement. However, IF it such tacit approval happened, then it was likely the ISI (Pakistan's intelligence service) given the involvement of the CIA.

As outrage from the government of Pakistan has mounted over the attacks on its people and sovereignty, the claim of tacit approval of the U.S. cross border raids were thrown in yet again - this time by the Washington Post on November 16, 2008 ("Pakistan and U.S. Have Tacit Deal On Airstrikes). The nifty little floating of this story is not just the "tacit approval," but that Pakistan could pitch a fit over the incursions.

The officials described the deal as one in which the U.S. government refuses to publicly acknowledge the attacks while Pakistan's government continues to complain noisily about the politically sensitive strikes.

What a convenient "explanation" of Pakistan's appropriate anger at the U.S. incursions. Of course, Pakistan vehemently denies any such agreement.

What is information and disinformation?

Well some things seem to be real. First that President Bush approved the use of "special forces" to operate within Afghanistan. Those "special forces" could be military or CIA - or both. Second, that the attacks inside Pakistan have really happened : by ground which purportedly stopped in September 2008, and then drone bombing runs conducted thereafter. Third, civilians have been killed and injured and homes and villages destroyed. Fourth, the people of Pakistan are outraged, turning to the Taliban - even if we can't know (given the counter claims) whether the government of Pakistan is or not. Fifth, that the attacks undermine the authority of the new Pakistani administration.

There are a variety of reports that Pakistan's ISI was behind the bombing of the Indian embassy in Kabul on July 7, 2008 (UN Afghanistan Mission, NY Times, National Security Network). The various reports seem to indicate that Pakistan is targeting Indian missions and companies inside of Afghanistan out of concern out rising Indian influence inside Afghanistan. Further that Pakistan and the ISI are renewing alignments with Taliban, and perhaps other militant groups.

The short story is that complex situations tend to get more and more convoluted. Enemies and allies swirl in haze of conflicting interests and ongoing disputes and alliances. As always, the innocent are caught in the middle.
 
Threads merged.

Please post all US UAV Strikes into Pakistan, and related posts, here, rather than start new threads.
 
Fatman Sahib,

Moved your post from the Bajaur thread here since I thought it related better to the subject here.
 
Taliban threaten revenge over drone raids

Thursday, 20 Nov, 2008 | 05:33 PM PST |


MIRANSHAH: A Pakistani Taliban commander warned on Thursday there would be reprisals by militants across the country if the US carried out further drone attacks in the tribal territory.

Hafiz Gul Bahadur announced the decision at a Taliban council meeting in North Waziristan tribal district which borders Afghanistan, his spokesman said.
Bahadur's group has been accused by the United States of launching attacks across the border in Afghanistan but it abstains from violence in the Pakistani territory under an understanding with military authorities.

‘We will start revenge attacks across other districts if the US drone attacks do not stop after November 20,’ spokesman Ahmadullah Ahmadi said in a statement.

North Waziristan is a known hub of al Qaeda and Taliban militants and has been the main target of over 20 US unmanned Predator missile strikes in the recent months.

‘Commander Gul Bahadur has ordered his fighters to get ready for attacks to avenge martyrdom of innocent Waziristanis,’ Ahmadi said.

The warning came after six people including a major al Qaeda operative were killed in a US missile strike in Bannu district which borders North Waziristan.
Pakistan Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani Thursday condemned the US military incursions and the foreign ministry summoned Washington's ambassador to lodge a protest over violation of the country's sovereignty.

http://www.dawn.net/wps/wcm/connect...wfp/taliban+threaten+revenge+over+drone+raids
----------------------------

So now both Mullah Nazir and Haji Gul Bahdur have threatened retaliatory strikes in Pakistan over the drone attacks.

Gul Bahadur especially is a concern given how he is reportedly widely respected in the Tribal areas due to the role of his father in the Afghan Jihad.
 
Last edited:
Back
Top Bottom