Pakistan: U.S. drone kills 8 suspected militants

Sr. Airman Nicholas Hart helps guides an RQ-4 Global Hawk Block-20 into its hangar at Beale Air Force Base in Yuba County, Calif., June 30, 2008. / AP Photo

(AP) ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - A drone strike in Pakistan's tribal areas killed eight suspected militants early Monday, Pakistani officials said, as the U.S. pushes ahead with the controversial drone program despite Pakistani demands to stop.

The strike was the seventh in less than two weeks and highlights the importance that Washington places on the drone program as a way to combat al-Qaida and Taliban fighters who use Pakistan as a base for attacks against American and NATO forces in Afghanistan.

In the most recent attack, three Pakistani intelligence officials say four missiles were fired at a suspected militant hideout in a village near the town of Mir Ali in North Waziristan early Monday morning.

North Waziristan is one of the tribal areas along the border with Afghanistan that has become a hub of militant activity.

The attack followed closely on the heels of another drone strike Sunday that killed 10 suspected militants. Two Pakistani intelligence officials say in that attack, four missiles were fired at targets in the village of Mana Raghzai in South Waziristan near the border with Afghanistan.

At the time of the attack, suspected militants were gathered to offer condolences to the brother of a militant commander killed during another drone strike Saturday.

The brother was one of those who died in the Sunday morning strike.

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

The American drone campaign, which has accelerated under President Barack Obama, has become a source of deep frustration and tension between the U.S. and Pakistan.

Secretly, many Pakistani military commanders are believed to support the drone campaign. But among the Pakistani public, where the U.S. is viewed with mistrust, the drone strikes are considered an affront to the nation's sovereignty.

The Pakistani government and parliament have repeatedly asked the U.S. to stop the strikes.

The ongoing attacks are also complicating efforts for the U.S. and Pakistan to come to an agreement over reopening the supply routes to NATO and American forces in Afghanistan. American airstrikes inadvertently killed 24 Pakistani soldiers in November, prompting Islamabad to block U.S. and NATO supply lines running through its territory.

Pakistan has demanded an apology over the raid and an end to drone strikes as a precursor to reopening the supply lines. But the U.S. has shown no intention of ending the attacks.

Also Sunday, gunmen killed four Shiite minority Muslims, a police officer and a bystander in a busy market of southwestern Pakistani city of Quetta, said police officer Abdul Wahid. He said police were investigating who could be behind the attack, but that it had a sectarian motive.

In the 1980s and 1990s, Pakistan became the scene of a proxy war between mostly Shiite Iran and Sunni Saudi Arabia, with both sides funneling money to sectarian groups that regularly targeted each other.

The level of sectarian violence has declined somewhat since then, but attacks continue. In recent years, Sunni attacks on Shiites have been far more common.

[TimeToEvolve]

This reminds me of the failed and tragic Vietnam War. All people killed are suspected militants or terrorists. Who is going to refute that?

And the giant corporations who love war for profit (heck, it's not their lives being flushed), keep planting fake propaganda stories to continue their sick and twisted madness for money.

[murkymook]

Obama is a war criminal.

[TimeToEvolve]

The corporations pretty much own and run the military for profits, let's face it. They expect the President to be a puppet so they just keep on scaring Americans and planting stories like this one.

[Bush-cheney-R-Terrorists]

The Pakistanis,from the beginning have been trying to have it both ways with the US. They act as if they are our allies, yet in order to pacify their internal Islamic fanatics, they have to wink at them and say, don't worry, we're just taking their money and doing as little as possible. Shielding Osama Bin Laden for all those years was the final straw for the US. I would like the US to annex the Northwest Territories as a permanent US base at the "invitation" of the Pak's to do so. We should have made Afghanistan the 51st state years ago, but that's a different rant.

[facelessdrone2005]

More dead terrorists at a cost of ZERO American lives. C'mon GOP, tell us again how Obama is such a failure.

[AmjadRajaatCBS]

""These killings are, in reality, summary executions and widely regarded as potential war crimes by international lawyers - including the UN's special rapporteur on extrajudicial killings, Philip Alston. The CIA's now retired counsel, John Rizzo, who authorised drone attacks, himself talked about having been involved in ''murder''.
A decade ago, the US criticised Israel for such ''extrajudicial killings'' but now claims self-defence in the war against al-Qaeda. But these are attacks routinely carried out on the basis of false intelligence, in countries such as Pakistan where no war has been declared and without the consent of the elected government.""

[yankeeskypirate12]

I agree that drones are not nice or sporting--But they are effective, and they leave a much smaller cultural footprint than conventional forces on the ground.

Mr. Bin Laden declared war on the United States and its citizens, and acted on that declaration on American soil. His followers are therefore combatants, and the use of lethal force- drone, or knife, is justified.

Pakistan is barbaric because it seems to lack the ability to empathize with or acknowledge any feelings other than its own tribal hatreds of others. Americans do not send their children to school to learn to hate Pakistanis and kill them "wherever they may be found." We do not stone women to death. And Pakistanis seem to have no feelings of sorrow whatsoever for the terror attacks of September, 2001. Indeed, Pakistani authorities harbored Mr. Bin Laden next to their own military academy...so, may the drone attacks continue against the Al Qaeda combatants there.

A better policy scenario for the United States would be for it to align itself openly with India, which is not barbaric and has a democracy, even though their caste system leaves much to be desired...