Re: Obama confirms drone strikes in pakistan
The CIA’s Secret War in Pakistan - English
Re: Drone attacks adding to insurgency: PM
There’s this news NATO, Afghan and Pakistan military officials to meet today and then Drone attack: 9 suspected militants killed in North Waziristan.
It seems as if the Americans are using drones on purpose now, either to show that Pakistan military is with them in the strikes, or to create anger of Pakistanis towards their own army.
Re: Drone attacks adding to insurgency: PM
meanwhile, Pakistan military officials were unavailable for comments.
Re: Drone attacks adding to insurgency: PM
when ever our news channels report the casualties of drone victims they call them “x” number of militants killed, how ever this is the latest statement of Wajid Shams ul Hassan (ambassador of Pak to UK). If the drones have really killed innocents which now our prime minister and ambassador have realized after 4 years, who’s stopping them for taking punitive actions against them? Its only a couple of months back when the Americans vacated Shamsi, so who are they fooling now?http://www.dawn.com/2012/02/08/no-choice-but-to-support-iran-if-israel-attacks-wajid.html
In an interview to a British newspaper The Sun published Wednesday, **Hasan expressed his concerns over the United States’ “Drone Wars” that have taken the lives of hundreds of innocent civilians in Pakistan.
****“We know the damage — destroyed schools, communities, hospitals. They are civilians — children, women, families. Our losses are enormous,” the newspaper quoted him as saying.
****“I think time is running out until the Pakistan government can take a stand. They will have to at some stage take punitive actions to stop them. They have got means to take such actions to defend their own frontier and territories,” Hasan further added.
**Hasan urged British Prime Minister David Cameron to convince the US that the drone attacks were counter-productive, making the American “the most hated people in the minds of the people in Pakistan.”
Re: Drone attacks adding to insurgency: PM
Alhamdulillah, finally Contacts with Nato and Isaf resume and life has returned to normal (Drone strike kills four in N Waziristan: Officials).
By the way whats happened to the much touted parliamentary committee which was supposed to put forward proposals to chalk out our foreign policy towards the Americans?
Re: Drone attacks adding to insurgency: PM
These people really don't konw when and where to keep their trap shut. I think these old guards are still living in the days of the fantasy land of PTV in the nineties, where any bs was allowed as govt controlled the flow of news.
Re: Drone attacks adding to insurgency: PM
Drones breed militancy, says Hina Khar
**US drones hitting targets on Pakistani territory are illegal, said Foreign Minister Hina Khar. 
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**Attacks by US drones on Pakistani territory are illegal and cannot be tolerated, Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar told a Russian media outlet. **
:snooty:She also said the alleged involvement of Pakistani spy agencies with the Taliban is not even worthy of comment.
In a recent development, a US drone strike killed three suspected militants in the Pakistani northwest tribal region, AP news agency reported on Thursday.According to the minister, the US attacks promote extremist moods in the region.
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“Drones are not only completely illegal and unlawful and have no authorization to be used within the domains of international law but even more importantly, they are counter-productive to the objective of getting this region rid of militancy, and terrorism and extremism,” Hina Rabbani Khar said.
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“Because if one strike leads to getting you target number one or target number three today, you are creating five more targets or 10 more targets in the militancy that it breeds, in the fodder that it gives to the militants to attract more people to join their ranks.”
“We are today in Pakistan suffering from the consequences of what many other powers of the world decided to do in that region to rid itself of the challenge that appeared in 1979, which was the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan,” she added.
Allegations that the Pakistani security forces maintain close contact with Taliban and even sponsor them are old and do not even “worth a comment,” Hina Rabbani Khar said.“I think every intelligence agency in the world maintains ties with one group or the other and all of them at some level,” she said.
“These ties are now pretty much out at the open because people are openly talking about talking to these people. This is something which is not even worth a comment.”—Dunya News Monitoring
Re: Drone attacks adding to insurgency: PM
They are accepting bids for supplying chalks to the committee 
Re: Obama confirms drone strikes in pakistan
Pakistani ambassador to US told the American Vice President on March 9 that the Americans will no longer be allowed to use drones to attack FATA and the reply was given yesterday, 15 killed in dual drone attacks.
WASHINGTON - P**akistan on Tuesday told the United States it will no longer permits drones using its airspace to attack militants and collect intelligence on Qaeda and other groups. Pakistan Ambassador to Washington Sherry Rehman met Vice President Joe Biden’s National Security Adviser Antony Blinken on March 9 and conveyed the decision. She told him that Pakistan’s political parties had agreed that the drone flights over Pakistan must end, the Bloomberg news service said, citing unnamed US officials.
“Pakistan’s sovereignty over its airspace and the civilian casualties that have resulted from drone strikes are emotional issues in Pakistan, where public opinion heavily favours terminating drone missions,” the report cited Pakistani officials as saying. “The US will try to reach a point with Pakistani leaders,” two US officials said. “The only chance for a compromise,” Pakistani officials said, “may be if the US agrees to share intelligence and coordinate strikes first, a strategy Pakistan has long advocated.”
**The US has resisted giving information to Pakistan in advance because of fears that some in Pakistan’s security forces might warn the targets of impending strikes, the report said.
The drone programme, which President Barack Obama acknowledged publicly for the first time in January, has been part of US counter-terrorism strategy in Pakistan since 2004, officials and counter-terrorism experts say. The administration authorized 53 drone attacks in 2009 and 117 in 2010, compared with 35 in 2008 under former president George W Bush, according to Bill Roggio, a US military analyst whose website, the Long War Journal, maintains a database of the campaign.
“The drone programme is critical, because it provides better real-time surveillance and reconnaissance than satellite imagery does,” Seth Jones, a senior political scientist in Washington for the Santa Monica, California-based RAND Corporation research institute, told the news service.
“If it is used selectively, it can help both the countries by taking out key leadership of Qaeda and other groups such as TTP, which poses a greater threat to Pakistan than it does to the US,” Jones, a former representative of the US Special Operations Command at the Pentagon, was quoted as saying.
Singer, the director of the 21st Century Defense Initiative at The Brookings Institution in Washington, said “For several years, Pakistan has openly said, ‘How dare you violate our sovereignty,’ but it turned out the CIA was flying from Pakistani bases with Pakistan’s permission.”
“This time, it is possible as ‘they really mean it’ after a series of high-profile disputes have damaged relations,” he added.
US officials were being dispatched to meet with Sherry Rehman on Tuesday to discuss the dispute over drone missions and other sticking points in an alliance frayed by numerous controversies. Those have included the US raid to kill Osama bin Laden without first informing the Pakistani government and the killing of two Pakistanis by a CIA contractor.
While drone attacks have continued this year, their frequency has waned. As of March 10, the US had conducted eight attacks, an average of one every nine days, compared with one strike ever six days in 2011, according to Roggio.
The security relationship has been virtually frozen since Nov 26, when US helicopters from Afghanistan fired on border posts, killing 24 Pakistani soldiers. In protest, Pakistan closed its border to the supply of US forces in Afghanistan and suspended much military and intelligence cooperation.
The border attack spurred Pakistan’s political parties to form a parliamentary committee to review the US relationship. A decision on whether to permit drone missions is one of the most anticipated elements of the review, which has not been made public.
Pakistani officials said the committee would present its recommendations to a closed session of parliament as early as March 19, and the lawmakers would have an opportunity to debate and amend the recommendations. Pakistan’s leaders are expected to share the review with the US by the end of this month, Bloomberg, citing officials on both sides, said.
If the US were to continue flying drone missions without Pakistani permission, some Pakistani military officials suggested last year that Pakistan would be within its rights to shoot them down, the report added.
Re: Obama confirms drone strikes in pakistan
No govt involvement in US drone strikes: Raza Rabbani | The Nation
Senator Raza Rabbani Wednesday said that drone attacks are not being carried out with the consultation of government. Talking to a local TV, Pakistan Peoples Party’s Raza Rabbani directly blamed Musharraf government responsible for drone attacks. Presently Balochistan’s problem is getting serious. It is the time to have meaningful meetings with Baloch leadership. The agencies working in the Balochistan must cooperate with provincial government. Senator Rabbani said that after 18th Amendment 85 percent of resources and rights were transferred to provinces.