Pakistan Drone attacks real story United States President Barack Obama, in a chat with web users on Google+ and YouTube, for the first time publicly admitted that US drone aircraft have struck Taliban and al-Qaeda targets within Pakistan. Before this, in October 2011, US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta acknowledged the CIA’s drone programme, but did not specifically indicate they were used in Pakistan. A drone is an Unmanned Aircraft system or a remotely piloted aircraft. It functions either by the remote control of a navigator of pilot autonomously, a self-directing entity. The US military is building drones of all shapes. It has been using them in Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan and is expanding their use to Yemen, Somalia and beyond.

The CIA, which is running the undeclared and unacknowledged drone war in Pakistan, insists that there have been no recent civilian causalities. Ironically, Obama also said drones had “not caused a huge number of civilian casualties” and that it was “important for everybody to understand that this thing is kept on a very tight leash.” However, according to the ‘New America Foundation’, a non-partisan think tank in Washington, said drone strikes in Pakistan over the past eight years have killed at least 1,715 civilians, and as many as 2,680 people. Last year, a British ‘Bureau of Investigative Journalism’ concluded after a long investigation that some 2,300 people killed by US drone strikes in Pakistan from 2004 to until august 2011, between 392 and 781 appear to have been civilians; 175 were children.

Drone attack in Fata may have killed a few high-profile al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders but have caused collateral damage killing women and children. On the whole drones’ attacks have been counter-productive and violated Pakistan’s sovereignty. The year 2010 was the deadliest in terms of drone attacks in Pakistan. A total of 118 attacks were launched, taking a toll of 993 lives. Since February 2011, when the CIA operative Raymond Davis was apprehended in Lahore after slaying two Pakistanis in cold blood, relations between Pakistan and the US, especially their intelligence agencies, ISI and CIA, were terribly strained. They hit rock bottom with the Abbottabad operation, which was launched to take out al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden and the November 26, 2011, Nato attack on Pakistani military checkpost at Salala, in which 24 Pakistan army personnel, including two officers, were killed.

Pakistan’s Parliament took the decision of having the US vacate the Shamsi Airbase. There was a 55-day lull in the drone attacks, but on January 11 and 12 this year, two attacks have targeted some alleged miscreants in Miran Shah and Dogga area of North Waziristan. While Parliament is in the process of reviewing its terms of engagement with the US, the Parliamentary Committee on National Security has recommended that the country should never permit drone attacks to be operated from its soil.

‘Brookings Institution’ has concluded that although accurate data on the results of drone strikes is difficult to obtain, it seemed that 10 civilians had died in the drone attacks for every militant killed that would represent a civilian to combatant casualty ratio of 10:1, which is unacceptable. According to UK based ‘Conflict Monitoring Centre’ report on drone attacks American spy agency CIA has failed to eliminate more than four al-Qaeda in its highly costly and controversial assassination by drones’ campaign inside Pakistan during the year 2011.

It is important to mention here that the drone attacks are creating wider anti-American sentiments, which is very dangerous and a stumbling block against the success in the war on terror. To counter the Taliban strategies, one has to get more close to the general masses through launching development projects, rather carrying on drone attacks.

Moreover, the drone attacks are considered as violating the sovereignty of an independent country. This gives impetus to the militants, even worldwide, especially inside the Islamic world. The use of force, like the use of drones, in such conflicts may fulfil short-term objectives that will certainly nourish seeds of hatred and animosity against US, may not worth the salt even for Americans. The US must understand that despite being friends, allies and also partners in war on terror, the US should respect the sovereignty of Pakistan, otherwise it will further erode its credibility and popularity which is already at the lowest ebb.

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