Pakistan tells US to leave 'drone' attack base

SADAKHUSH

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You should leave the base so that Aiman Al Zawahiri, Ilyas Kashmiri (no firm proof yet of his death), Haqqani and the likes can roam around freely in Pak.
Where do you think Al Zawahiri is now a days? Ilyas Kashmiri might still be alive and living under direct protection of ISI somewhere in Peshawar along with Al Zawahiri. They will be kept away from the denseley populated area in order to avoid attention of CIA operatives in the Pakistan cities. I guesstimate is they are living on a farm with high ranking military officers of the rank of Colonel and a Brigadier. Again I might be wrong. The time will tell if my hunch is correct. The other point they will be moved around in the darkness of the night from time to time.
It is because they(ISI, PAK ARMY, PAK GOVT) do not want to be caught red handed. But sooner or later everything will fall apart.
 
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SADAKHUSH

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its a pressure tactics ,they want more financial and millitary help from us, and want to save their face from their country men,mainly mullahs and jehadis.
This is not going to work. They have to go through President Obama. He may not show but I am pretty sure he is fuming mad inside specially after the OBL compound attack. He means business. I do not know how far he will go to accomplish the final goal of capturing the Nuclear Arsenal. Russia is inching towards USA's goal as well since it(Rouge Elements in Pakistan) can pose a threat to them as well due to ethnic problems in their country as well. As far as China troubled province is concerned that will be controlled by Pak army since China is the only country out there to support them. It would be intresting to see the outcome of any misstep by Al-queda or Taaliban elements in China from Pakistani soil. In the past Chinies authorities have expressed concern over the same issue. The Pak army is keeping tight control over the elements to avoid embarrassing situation and most likely complete isolation by the world community. Even the Saudi Arabia has started to distance itself from Pakistan and started to court India with doubling of petroleum export and seeking India's assistance to deal with AL-Queda.
Would like to hear feed back on my post. Thank you
 
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I am really suprised Pakistan was able to pull this off, looks like USA is losing interest in Afghanistan.
 
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Drone strikes being launched from Afghanistan

Drone strikes being launched from Afghanistan


Karachi—The CIA suspended its use of an air base in Pakistan as a launch site for drones three months ago, a US newspaper quoted American and Pakistani officials as saying.

Although drones striking inside Pakistan are now flying from Afghanistan, US personnel and drones remain at the air base in Balochistan, the officials told Washington Post, adding that security at the base for the officials and the drones was being provided by the Pakistani military.

The officials said that the drone launches were stopped in April 2011, weeks before the Abbottabad operation and after a dispute over CIA contractor Raymond Davis.

US drone strikes in the past three months have been launched from near Jalalabad in Afghanistan, officials told Washington Post.

The US has been using drone attacks to target al Qaeda-linked militants over the past few years in Pakistan's tribal areas, a source of concern for the Pakistani government, which says civilian casualties stoke public anger and bolster support for militancy.
 
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PressTV - 'US changes law to kill in Pakistan'

'US changes law to kill in Pakistan'



The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is reportedly using airbases in Afghanistan to launch deadly drone attacks on Pakistan despite Islamabad's warnings against continued unauthorized US air raids on its soil.


The US is pressing ahead with its unsanctioned drone bombing of Pakistan by using an Afghan airbase, as CIA claims the aerial operation originally launched from a Pakistani airbase have stopped over the past three months, according to a Saturday report by The Washington Post.

The report states that the US stopped drone strikes from the Shamsi airbase in Balochistan in April after a diplomatic row over a CIA operative, Raymond Davis, who killed two Pakistani nationals in Lahore on January 27.

The newspaper added that since then the CIA has carried out its drone attacks on the Pakistani soil from an airbase in Afghanistan.

Ties between Islamabad and Washington have become tense over the attacks, which Pakistan considers as a violation of its sovereignty.

Press TV interviewed Rick Rozoff, Manager of Stop NATO Organization in Chicago.

Press TV: These drones, do we know where they are getting their information on what targets to attack?

Rozoff: Do we know how they are obtaining information and how they are targeting people for unmanned aerial vehicle attacks? I have got an idea of how the operation works. Your lead into our conversation, of course, mentioned over a thousand people have been killed in the tribal areas in northwest Pakistan last year, you know the total figures since the US drone war in Pakistan, starting in 2004, are at least 2,500 people. I mean this is a large scale killing of course.

The so called pilots to direct the drone attack are based in the United States, and that information is provided via video communication from the theater, from Afghanistan, Pakistan, back to the States where the strikes are ordered. I mean that's the general mechanism used for the strikes.

I don't know if it has been noted but I think it is worth paying attention to the fact that the new Defense Secretary of the Unites States, Leon Panetta, has come to that post, coming from being the Director of Central Intelligence Agency, which in fact is in charge of the predator drone attacks inside Pakistan, and even though there has been a decrease in those attacks under the former chief military commander of US and NATO forces, International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan, Stanley McChrystal, were intensified under his successor David Petraeus, who is now taking over the directorship of the Central Intelligence Agency.

So, you have a CIA director who really ramped up the drone attack taking over the Pentagon, and you have a military commander who officiated over or collaborated with the drone attacks taking over the CIA which runs them. So, all indications are that you're going to see a dramatic escalation of deadly drone attacks inside Pakistan.

Press TV: How is it the US is expanding in Afghanistan, when the Afghan people and President Hamid Karzai has specifically said they want the US soldiers out as soon as possible.

Rozoff: They want ISAF out ASAP, they are correct to say that. You know, a matter of fact, a couple of weeks ago Afghan President Hamid Karzai stated that the foreign troops in his country, which are an enormous amount, they are up to 150,000 US NATO and partnership troops in the country, that's the largest amount of troops ever stationed on Afghan soil incidentally. It's substantially larger than the Soviet troop presence at its highest, and it is also the largest number of troops and largest number of countries ever stationed in one warzone, over 50 countries all together with 48 officials that NATO calls troop contributing nations, and other numbers in addition to that. You alluded to airbases like those of Bagram, I would also recall that at Shindand in the western part of Afghanistan.

So, one of the major objective that the United States and NATO have had in invading and occupying Afghanistan, for what will soon be 10 years, is to come in the possession of an upgrade in the Soviet assisted air bases in Afghanistan, and use them to police the entire region, which means northward to Central Asia and eastward to the Indian sub-continent and of course west to Iran and the Persian Gulf.

So, frankly I cannot tell you from where the predator drones take off for their deadly mission inside Pakistan, you know the Bagram airbases have been expanded to a monumental size in recent years, and it is a clear indication, that notwithstanding Afghan President Karzai's demand that foreign troops leave the country, the US and NATO have no intention of doing that.

Press TV: These drones are considered illegal acts of war by the UN Council for Human Rights and also considered targeted killings, how is it that the Unites States gets away with these inhumane acts?

Rozoff: That's a very good question. I would say it is simply the moral default of the world that permits them to get away. You know with very loosely phrased UN resolution permitted the United States and NATO to move into Afghanistan 10 years ago in the first place, comparable to UN resolution in many ways, 1970 and 1973, recently which is allowed for what is now a 105 day war against Libya with no end in sight.

The fact is that the major legal adviser to the US State Department, Harold [Hongju] Koh, uses exactly the term that you have just used, targeted killings in Pakistan. You know Dawn News, one of the major English language news sources in Pakistan, estimated some 18 months ago that not only last year there were over 1,000 killed, but a year prior to that, of 700 people killed in Pakistan, five of them were so called al-Qaeda operatives or forces, so there was a 140 to 1 ratio of civilians killed for every targeted terrorist, and Harold Koh in State Department uses the term targeted killing, not targeted assignation, which in fact it is, because of a law passed in the 1970s in the United States based on the CIA operation, prior to that which makes it a violation of the law to conducted targeted assassinations, so they simply changed the name.

Now, if you are somebody in Pakistan whose entire family isn't wiped out in a hellfire missile attack, it's a small consolation to be told that it wasn't a targeted assassination, it was a targeted killing. And in fact in my opinion this is a gross violation of international and certainly humanitarian law.

REZ/AKM
 

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