Obama verifies US drone attacks in Pakistan

Obama verifies US drone attacks in Pakistan

On Monday, President of the United States Obama verified that the US drones have hit Taliban and Al Qaeda members in Pakistan. Previously, these attacks were not officially accepted.

He confirmed that most of these attacks took place in Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA).

“For the most part, they’ve been very precise precision strikes against Al Qaeda and their affiliates, and we’re very careful in terms of how it’s been applied. This is a targeted focused effort at people who are on a list of active terrorists, who are trying
to go in and harm Americans, hit American facilities, American bases, and so on,” he said.

He expressed that US attacked those areas, which were impossible to reach by the army of Pakistan.

“So, obviously, a lot of these strikes have been in the FATA, and going after Al Qaeda suspects who are up in very tough terrain along the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan,” Obama said.

“For us to be able to get them in another way would involve probably a lot more intrusive military action than the ones we’re already engaging in,” Obama added.

According to the US officials, tribal areas of Pakistan provide shelter to Taliban, who are operating against US in Afghanistan and Al Qaeda, which is scheming attacks in the West. They also stressed that Pakistani Taliban, who terrorize the Pakistani people
through habitual bombing, are also concealed in these areas.

According to AFP, 101 US missile strikes were reported in Pakistan’s self-ruling areas in 2010 while the figure went down to 64 in 2011.

As said by New America Foundation, in the past eight years, US drone attacks have killed a minimum of 1,715 people.

While responding to a question asked by AFP, Obama implied a change in the US policy regarding the done program. US drone attacks have consistently killed dozens of Taliban and Al Qaeda members since 2004.

Obama said that 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.”

Short URL: https://www.newspakistan.pk/?p=11243

Posted by Mursil Mehmood Butt on Jan 31 2012. Filed under Latest News, Pakistan. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry