Pak. official admits 80% drone victims are terrorists

[average american]

Source : The Hindu




Pakistan's Foreign Secretary Jalil Abbas Jilani on Friday admitted that 80 per cent of the estimated 3,000 people killed in the country in drone attacks were terrorists. This runs contrary to the mainstream narrative that puts the number of innocents killed at a higher percentage.

In a briefing to the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, Mr. Jilani reiterated Pakistan's position that drone attacks are not only counter-productive but also a violation of sovereignty and international law. But he maintained that the country cannot afford to shoot them down. "We cannot bear the fallout of shooting down drones," he said, stressing the need for a comprehensive policy to expel the foreign fighters having base in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas.

Strike

Mr. Jilani's admission came on a day when the drones visited the Bobar Ghar area along the border of North and South Waziristan. Two missiles were fired on a compound of the Tehreek-e-Taliban and, according to reports from the tribal areas, eight terrorists were killed in these strikes. Officials claimed the dead included two foreign fighters of the al-Qaeda, Abu Majid Al-Iraqi and Shiekh Waqas Al-Yamoni.

Drone attacks are termed a major irritant in relations between Pakistan and the U.S. though there are strong indications that the unmanned Predators target terrorist hideouts in the tribal areas with the tacit support of the Pakistani civil and military leadership. However, both sides steer clear of providing details.

Though Pakistan has earlier protested the attacks, this has stopped of late with Foreign Office officials stating that the matter was being discussed with the U.S. but outside the public domain.

http://www.thehindu.com/news/intern...one-victims-are-terrorists/article4397586.ece

 

[Bhadra]

US method of conducting irregular or symetric warfare !

Then why blame the terrorists adopting those techniques ?

Or is it an answer to that ?

 

[average american]

QUESTION ANSWER YES OR NO

Ilyas Kashmiri, also referred to as Maulana Ilyas Kashmiri[1] and Muhammad Ilyas Kashmiri[2] (10 February 1964[3] – 3 June 2011[4][5]), was a senior al-Qaeda member and leader of the Harkat-ul-Jihad al-Islami (HUJI)[6] He was also connected with the Soviet-Afghan war, the Kashmir conflict and attacks against India, Pakistan and the United States.[7] In August 2010, the US and the United Nations designated him a terrorist.[8][9] NBC News reported that United States officials had mentioned him as a possible successor to Osama bin Laden as head of al-Qaeda.[10]

He has been associated with a number of attacks, including the 2008 Mumbai attacks, the assassination of Benazir Bhutto and the killing of Ameer Faisal Alavi.[7][19] Syed Saleem Shahzad wrote that Kashmiri proposed the Mumbai attacks to al-Qaeda leaders as a way to create a war that would bring operations against al-Qaeda to a halt. The plan was approved and given to former LeT commander Major Haroon Ashik.

Ilyas Kashmiri - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

He was killed in a drone strike in Pakistan,,,, Either Pakistan could not arrest him or would not arrest him. Do you support the USA using a drone to kill him even though drone strikes result in 20 percent civilian casualities.. YES OR NO. ???????

 

[arnabmit]

Oh Yes! Definitely!!!

QUESTION ANSWER YES OR NO

YES OR NO. ???????

 

[W.G.Ewald]

How long before groups like al-Qaeda acquire the ability to operate their own drones?

 

[average american]

How long before groups like al-Qaeda acquire the ability to operate their own drones?

Hezbollah claims it sent drone over Israel, but expert calls it 'rinky-dink' - CNN.com already done,, anyone could build a drone and load it with explosives now days.


I could buy one at walmart and do that. AR.Drone | Walmart.com.br - YouTube

 

[W.G.Ewald]

Hezbollah claims it sent drone over Israel, but expert calls it 'rinky-dink' - CNN.com already done,, anyone could build a drone and load it with explosives now days.


I could buy one at walmart and do that. AR.Drone | Walmart.com.br - YouTube

There was a US citizen arrested for targeting a site with an RC aircraft. What I suggest is that terrorists will before long have UAVs with capability of Predator drones. Certainly their funding would allow it.

 

[average american]

General Atomics MQ-9 Reaper costs 36 million and the system to control if hundreds of millions, do you think I should worry.

 

[W.G.Ewald]

Coming Soon: The Drone Arms Race

Eventually, the United States will face a military adversary or terrorist group armed with drones, military analysts say. But what the short-run hazard experts foresee is not an attack on the United States, which faces no enemies with significant combat drone capabilities, but the political and legal challenges posed when another country follows the American example. The Bush administration, and even more aggressively the Obama administration, embraced an extraordinary principle: that the United States can send this robotic weapon over borders to kill perceived enemies, even American citizens, who are viewed as a threat. ..American defense analysts count more than 50 countries that have built or bought unmanned aerial vehicles, or U.A.V.'s, and the number is rising every month. Most are designed for surveillance, but as the United States has found, adding missiles or bombs is hardly a technical challenge. ..Last December, a surveillance drone crashed in an El Paso neighborhood; it had been launched, it turned out, by the Mexican police across the border. Even Hezbollah, the Lebanese militant group, has deployed drones, an Iranian design capable of carrying munitions and diving into a target, says P. W. Singer of the Brookings Institution, whose 2009 book "Wired for War" is a primer on robotic combat. ..Late last month, a 26-year-old man from a Boston suburb was arrested and charged with plotting to load a remotely controlled aircraft with plastic explosives and crash it into the Pentagon or United States Capitol. His supposed co-conspirators were actually undercover F.B.I. agents, and it was unclear that his scheme could have done much damage. But it was an unnerving harbinger, says John Villasenor, professor of electrical engineering at the University of California, Los Angeles. He notes that the Army had just announced a $5 million contract for a backpack-size drone called a Switchblade that can carry an explosive payload into a target; such a weapon will not long be beyond the capabilities of a terrorist network.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/09/s...-the-drone-arms-race.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

 

[thakur_ritesh]

That's not how most people in Pakistan think. When Osama was killed, the question wasn't how come Osama was hiding in Pakistan, it was how come the Americans sneaked in through all the defences. no, doubt valid question, but before that one does question how come the most waned terrorist was hiding in Pakistan, and then follows the question on sneaking in.

Problem is with the security narrative in Pakistan, do the Pakistanis even see these people being killed as terrorists? If not, and which is what the case is, no matter who says what, difficult to put through the argument that majority killed are terrorists.

------------

Not the first time a senior Pakistani has said that - Maj Gen Ghayur Mehmood: Most of those killed in drone attacks were terrorists

MIRAMSHAH: In a rather rare move, the Pakistan military for the first time gave the official version of US drone attacks in the tribal region and said that most of those killed were hardcore Al Qaeda and Taliban terrorists and a fairly large number of them were of foreign origin.

General Officer Commanding 7-Division Maj-Gen Ghayur Mehmood said in a briefing here: "Myths and rumours about US predator strikes and the casualty figures are many, but it's a reality that many of those being killed in these strikes are hardcore elements, a sizeable number of them foreigners.

"Yes there are a few civilian casualties in such precision strikes, but a majority of those eliminated are terrorists, including foreign terrorist elements."

The Military's 7-Dvision's official paper on the attacks till Monday said that between 2007 and 2011 about 164 predator strikes had been carried out and over 964 terrorists had been killed.

Of those killed, 793 were locals and 171 foreigners, including Arabs, Uzbeks, Tajiks, Chechens, Filipinos and Moroccans.

In 2007, one missile strike left one militant dead while the year 2010 was the deadliest when the attacks had left more than 423 terrorists dead.

In 2008, 23 drone strikes killed 152 militants, 12 of them were foreigners or affiliated with Al Qaeda.

In 2009, around 20 predator strikes were carried out, killing 179 militants, including 20 foreigners, and in the following year 423 militants, including 133 foreigners, were killed in 103 strikes.

In attacks till March 7 this year, 39 militants, including five foreigners, were killed.

Maj-Gen Ghayur, who is in-charge of troops in North Waziristan, admitted that the drone attacks had negative fallout, scaring the local population and causing their migration to other places.

Gen Ghayur said the drone attacks also had social and political repercussions and law-enforcement agencies often felt the heat.

About the cross-border movement of terrorists along the Pak-Afghan border, he said: "Well we have over 820 checkposts along the border to stop militant movement and there is strict vigilance, but unfrequented routes are an exception for which alternate means, including intelligence-sharing between coalition troops and the army, are in place."

--------------------------------

As the case would have been, Maj Gen Ghayur Mehmood was to be ridiculed, so will the foreign secretary in this case.

 

[average american]

Coming Soon: The Drone Arms Race



http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/09/s...-the-drone-arms-race.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

Its inevitable,,nothing can stop there from being more and more drones, The US cant stop drone attacks even on US targets in every case, but there is a good chance we can make them sorry afterwards.

 

[average american]

Dont seem to be getting answers to this question.....

Ilyas Kashmiri, also referred to as Maulana Ilyas Kashmiri[1] and Muhammad Ilyas Kashmiri[2] (10 February 1964[3] – 3 June 2011[4][5]), was a senior al-Qaeda member and leader of the Harkat-ul-Jihad al-Islami (HUJI)[6] He was also connected with the Soviet-Afghan war, the Kashmir conflict and attacks against India, Pakistan and the United States.[7] In August 2010, the US and the United Nations designated him a terrorist.[8][9] NBC News reported that United States officials had mentioned him as a possible successor to Osama bin Laden as head of al-Qaeda.[10]

He has been associated with a number of attacks, including the 2008 Mumbai attacks, the assassination of Benazir Bhutto and the killing of Ameer Faisal Alavi.[7][19] Syed Saleem Shahzad wrote that Kashmiri proposed the Mumbai attacks to al-Qaeda leaders as a way to create a war that would bring operations against al-Qaeda to a halt. The plan was approved and given to former LeT commander Major Haroon Ashik.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maulana_Ilyas_Kashmiri

He was killed in a drone strike in Pakistan,,,, Either Pakistan could not arrest him or would not arrest him. Do you support the USA using a drone to kill him even though drone strikes result in 20 percent civilian casualities.. YES OR NO. ???????

 

[W.G.Ewald]

Its inevitable,,nothing can stop there from being more and more drones, The US cant stop drone attacks even on US targets in every case, but there is a good chance we can make them sorry afterwards.

That's the argument, I think, that supports the Obama administration policy of killing them first.

 

[W.G.Ewald]

Ilyas Kashmiri - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

He was killed in a drone strike in Pakistan,,,, Either Pakistan could not arrest him or would not arrest him. Do you support the USA using a drone to kill him even though drone strikes result in 20 percent civilian casualities.. YES OR NO. ???????

Should you set up the question as a poll to get answers?

Here is another question: should the US have dropped a bomb on the Waziristan Haveli, where there were children, to kill UBL?

 

[average american]

Should you set up the question as a poll to get answers?

Here is another question: should the US have dropped a bomb on the Waziristan Haveli, where there were children, to kill UBL?

To kill Osama bin Laden I would not have a problem with nuking the entire city of Abbottabad, perhaps it would convince Pakistan and other countries we are not kidding when it comes to terrorism. I expect most americans would agree with me.

 

[W.G.Ewald]

To kill Osama bin Laden I would not have a problem with nuking the entire city of Abbottabad, perhaps it would convince Pakistan and other countries we are not kidding when it comes to terrorism. I expect most americans would agree with me.

Not this one.

 

[average american]

Not this one.

If you told most americans that Pakistan is hideing Osama bin Laden in city of Abbottabad and we dont know where and we need to nuke it to take him out, what percentage of americans do you think would say great go ahead.

 

[Zarvin]

Even if 4/5 are terrorists, the fallout. the 1/5 innocents whose 100 relatives will want revenge as per tribal pashtun custom, who will then become terrorists and the country that will have to deal with them is Pakistan, not America or anyone else.

 

[farhan_9909]

Drone strike has given more and more birth to terrorism in pakistan than anything else

 

[A chauhan]

Drone strike has given more and more birth to terrorism in pakistan than anything else

No, they were already there, killing people outside the Pakistan, but after drone strikes they are killing their own master inside Pakistan which is hurting Pakistanis.