I wonder who is Mushrraf working for Pakistan or the US? This kind of actions are treasonous to say the least & the man deserves sever punishment for it.
http://nation.com.pk/daily/mar-2008/25/index13.php
Musharraf approved US attacks in Pakistan
SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
WASHINGTON - President Pervez Musharraf’s government has given “tacit” approval to the US attacks by pilotless planes on Al-Qaeda targets along Pakistan’s border area with Afghanistan and the strikes have been stepped up, Newsweek reported in its latest issue.
Another reason for the rise in CIA-operated Predator strikes, the magazine, citing a current U.S. official, said was that Washington fears that any newly formed civilian government in Pakistan will be more hostile to U.S. operations there than the Musharraf’s regime.
“Time to act, in other words, may be running out,” the officiated said.
Since January, missiles reportedly fired from CIA operated Predator drones have hit at least three suspected hideouts of Islamic militants, including a strike on March 16 in Toog village in South Waziristan that left 20 dead.
Quoting US officials and Pakistani sources, the magazine said the recent wave of Predator attacks are at least partly the result of understandings the US officials reached with President Musharraf and other top Pakistanis, giving Washington virtually unrestricted authority to hit targets in the border areas.
The surge, it said, began after visits to Pakistan at the beginning of the year by senior US officials, including intelligence czar Mike McConnell, CIA director Gen. Michael Hayden and Adm. William Fallon, who recently resigned as commander of the US forces in the region.
Some news reports had said at the time that President Pervez Musharraf had “rebuffed” US proposals to step up combat operations inside Pakistan.
Bruce Riedel, a retired CIA expert on the region, said that a new wave of terrorism inside Pakistan there were 62 suicide attacks last year, after just six in 2006 has forced President Musharraf and the new military chief Ashfaq Kayani to acknowledge that the extremists threatening Americans now also pose a growing threat to Pakistan’s internal security.
Agencies add: Presidential spokesman Maj-Gen (retd) Rashid Qureshi on Monday strongly rejected the news of US magazine in which it was claimed that President Pervez Musharraf had allowed US forces to launch operation in tribal areas of the country.
“The report is baseless and unfounded. No such type of approval was given to US forces”, he said this while talking to private TV channel.
The US had been informed several times that the only the Pakistan forces had right to launch operations in the tribal areas of the country against Al-Qaeda, he said.
North Atlantic Treaty Organisation and US forces are free to launch attack outside the Pakistan soil, Maj Rashid pointed out.
To a question, he said, Foreign Office had lodged strong protest before US against missile strike in Pakistan recently.
Neither the US forces were operating in Pakistan nor Pakistan would allow forces of any other country to take any type of action in its soil, he maintained.