| | |  Americas & Beyond | September 2008 
Scores Killed by Pilotless US Aircraft
 Pir Zubair Shah & Jane Perlez - The New York Times
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| | This US military photo shows a "Manhunter Unmanned Aircraft." Lethally equipped remotely piloted US aircraft are being used in Iraq and Afghanistan. | | |
Editor's Note: The New York Times report below states that the damage and civilian deaths were the result of, "A missile strike from a remotely piloted United States reconnaissance aircraft ..." Reconnaissance aircraft do not carry missiles. That contradiction is not addressed by The Times. - ma/TO
Islamabad, Pakistan - A missile strike from a remotely piloted United States reconnaissance aircraft killed 6 to 12 people in a group of houses in southern Afghanistan, very close to the border with Pakistan, Pakistani residents of the area said Friday.
The strike came after the United States carried out a commando raid by Special Operations forces in South Waziristan in Pakistan on the border with Afghanistan on Wednesday.
It was the first of what American military officials said could be more raids to attack Taliban insurgents in Pakistan's tribal region. After the raid on Wednesday, Pakistan lodged a "strong protest" with the American government and said it reserved the right of retaliation.
The spokesman for the Pakistani Army, Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas, said the missile strike Friday did not take place on Pakistani territory. "There was no airstrike in Pakistan, or near Miran Shah or in North Waziristan," General Abbas said. Miran Shah is the capital of North Waziristan, a tribal region in Pakistan that borders Afghanistan.
Residents in Miran Shah also said the missile strike on Friday morning hit a target inside Afghanistan, and not inside Pakistan. They said the attack struck two residential compounds in the village of Al Must, less than a mile from the Pakistani border.
According to reports from Al Must reaching Miran Shah, 6 to 12 people, including men of Arab descent, were killed, said Ahsan Dawar, a journalist in Miran Shah. Among the dead were two women and three children, Mr. Dawar said.
He said three missiles hit the two compounds, which he said belong to two residents of Al Must, Hakeem Khan and Arsala Khan. It is common for families in these areas to rent part of their compound to foreigners, especially Arabs who are involved in planning attacks against NATO forces in Afghanistan, residents said.
Mr. Dawar said that on Thursday, a pilotless American aircraft struck a large house in another village, Chaar Kehl, about 16 miles west of Miran Shah. In that attack, about 5 p.m. Thursday, seven Arab men were killed, he said.
Al Must is on the Afghan side of the border region called Gurwak, which is considered the demarcation line between Pakistan and Afghanistan and is locally known as Ground Zero, Mr. Dawar said.
Another local resident, Mahmood Khan, said that pilotless aircraft were seen over Al Must at 9 a.m. Friday.
The strikes on Friday appeared to indicate that the United States was forging ahead with a tougher strategy to curb the escalating numbers of Taliban fighters crossing from Pakistan to attack American and NATO soldiers fighting in Afghanistan.
Maj. Gen. Jeffrey J. Schloesser, the commander of American forces in eastern Afghanistan, told reporters at the Pentagon by teleconference on Friday that attacks against allied forces in Afghanistan had increased by 20 to 30 percent in the first eight months of this year, compared with the same period last year.
"The people that they're killing, first and foremost, are innocent civilians, and then Afghan national security forces, predominantly police, Afghan National Army less so, and then the coalition forces even less after that," General Schloesser said.
"They're going to continue to drive a wedge between our international partners by deliberately causing civilian casualties, as well as attempting to weaken international resolve by targeting our alliance partner nations, their forces here," he said.
The general said attacks on symbols of government authority were up 40 percent over last year, a trend he expected to continue.
Top American military commanders have warned Pakistan that they would start attacking Taliban havens in Pakistan's tribal areas if the increased Taliban infiltration into Afghanistan did not stop.
The Pakistani foreign minister, Shah Mahmood Qureshi, told Parliament on Thursday that the American commando raid into South Waziristan on Wednesday violated national sovereignty and failed to attack militants.
No "high value target or known terrorist was among the dead," he said. "Only innocent civilians, including women and children, have been targeted."
Although the foreign minister used strong language, there was a growing belief that Pakistan was sharing more intelligence with the United States that allowed for more accurate targeting of Arab and other foreign militants who live among civilians in South and North Waziristan.
The Pakistani government summoned the American ambassador, Anne W. Patterson, to the foreign office on Thursday and formally complained about the commando raid on Wednesday.
The raid by the Special Operations forces, which killed at least 20 people in the Angoor Adda area of South Waziristan on Friday, was broadly criticized in the Pakistani press. "A go-it-alone strategy by the U.S. inside Pakistan will spell nothing but trouble for everyone," said an editorial in the Friday edition of Dawn, an English-language newspaper.
Reuters reported on Friday that health officials were seeing an outbreak of cholera in refugees in northwest Pakistan. An estimated 300,000 people have fled the fighting in the area, the International Committee of the Red Cross said.
Pascal Cuttat, an agency official, said Friday at a news briefing: "The most immediate need remains access to clean water and sanitation. No food, health care or shelter is going to be of any good if people get water-borne diseases," Reuters reported.
Three Judges Reinstated
Pakistan's Supreme Court has reinstated three judges ousted by former President Pervez Musharraf.
The judges - Tassadiq Hussain Jillani, Shakirullah Jan and Syed Jamshed Ali - were sworn back in at a ceremony on Friday.
Mr. Musharraf's purge of the court last year deepened his unpopularity and helped his political foes win in February elections. Mr. Musharraf resigned the presidency under pressure last month.
Political divisions remained over the fact that an ousted Supreme Court justice, Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, had not been reinstated. |
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