October 21, 2009

New US Drone Strike Complicates Pakistan Battle

12 Reported Slain in Blast

by Jason Ditz, October 21, 2009

An apparent US drone strike along the border between Pakistan’s North and South Waziristan Agencies has left at least 12 dead, including several children. A “Taliban leader” named Abu Musa al-Misri was reported slain in the strike, but rebels were quick to note that he was also reported slain in two other recent US drone strikes in the same area.

Pakistani intelligence sources confirmed it was a drone strike, though some other sources speculated that it may have been a surface to surface missile fired from inside Afghanistan or an explosion mistakenly set off by the Taliban themselves.

Complicating matters is that the missiles reportedly struck the territory of Hafiz Gul Bahadur, a militant leader which has just recently signed a neutrality agreement with the Pakistani government.

With the war in South Waziristan having a very real impact on life across Pakistan, the Pakistani military has been very keen to maintain pacts with some of the militants, if for no other reason than to prevent having to fight an unwinnable battle against nearly the entire population of the region.

But Pakistan’s war effort has focused on militants fighting inside Pakistan, and have made deals chiefly with groups fighting inside Afghanistan. The US is obviously keen to see Pakistan take on the later, but with them having trouble enough taking over small villages on South Waziristan’s periphery, the drone strikes risk worsening Pakistan’s instability.

Source

1 comment:

  1. there is a clear misconception amoung the journalist who live out of pakistan and do not take analysis from private journalist in pk that pk army is fighting against its own people,which is absolutely false.

    the US wants the muslims countries to see pk army as a slave to the nato and the pro-us gov in pk, but i dont know why analyst forget so quickly that pakistan army has always been on the collision course with nato and our pro-us gov in pk.

    the fighting in FATA is against the fake CIA RAW MOSSAD funded terrorist who call them self taliban or TTP, they r fake & absolutely fake i dont know how many
    times ive mentioned this before.

    brother analyst from muslim coumtries r still not picking up this fact.

    there r some very important pk sites worth following: www.rupeenews.com
    www.ahmedquraishi.com
    which will keep every 1 updated.

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