Pakistan Tells U.S. To Leave 'Drone' Attack Base

[AyGee]

tif you use your little brain then u can realize that drones cant work without command and control centre, and cutting off the power means they cant operate the drones, the command centre needs electricyt to run them, hence drones cant fly, if they operate drones from shamsi ba

Sir, Accute observation. You are correct, as US did not bring any generator from their one of the eleven aircraft carriers. And as Pakistani people dont like US, they wouldnt have sold a generator. They also could not procure one from blackmarket clandestinely beause ISI is monitoring all the power equipment sales in Pakistan..
Hmm, what else did I miss ?
I am now sure lack of electricity will push the US soldiers back ...

 

[AyGee]

come on man, this is pakistan, not a lawless land, what if we stop the drone feuls, what if we starve the americans, what if we kill them all and say alibans did this

Sir, by end of the sentence I could not understand if you were passing a satirical joke, or you really meaning to say that
1. Pakistan is not a lawless land
2. [Pakistan] can kill all americans claiming Taliban did it..


If it was joke, then it is really good piece of dark humor , up in the category of M*A*S*H and catch-21

 

[unicorn]

If Pakistan Denies U.S. Its Drone Bases, There’s a Backup Plan Next Door
By Spencer Ackerman

Pakistan may be kicking the CIA out of its premiere base for the drone war. Or it may not — who can tell with the Pakistanis anymore? What’s for certain is that all their griping strengthens the U.S. resolve to keep bases in neighboring Afghanistan to launch drones into Pakistan unilaterally.

In the spirit of their pique with the United States after the SEALs’ unilateral Osama bin Laden kill, the Pakistanis are loudly declaring the United States is cut off from its most prominent drone launching pad. “No U.S. flights are taking place from Shamsi any longer,” says Pakistani Defense Minister Chaudhary Ahmed Mukhtar.

He’s referring to the Shamsi air base near Quetta. Shortly after Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-California) blabbed that the Pakistanis hosted CIA drones in 2009, eagle-eyed sleuths ID’d Shamsi as an epicenter of the drone war using GoogleEarth.

But losing Shamsi is no great shakes — if it’s even happening, and not just a cynical Pakistani sop to anti-Americanism. (“News to the United States,” a U.S. counterterrorism official says to McClatchy.)

For one thing, if Mukhtar’s for real, Defense Tech’s John Rood notes that the United States is rumored to fly drones out of two other Pakistani air bases. More fundamentally, the CIA already flies drones into the Pakistani tribal areas from Jalalabad in eastern Afghanistan. And Air Force drones hovering above Afghanistan, launched from J’bad and Kandahar in the south, chase fleeing insurgents into Pakistan with regularity — they just have to give the Pakistanis a heads-up.

The harsh truth is that the Pakistanis can’t stop the drone war on their soil. But they can shift its launching points over the Afghan border. And the United States is already working on a backup plan for a long-term drone war, all without the Pakistanis’ help.


The Obama team’s new counterterrorism strategy should remove all doubt about the centrality of drones to a long-term fight against al-Qaida. That’s one of the main reasons it’s quietly negotiating with the Afghan government to keep a few residual bases jointly with Afghan troops after most U.S. forces leave.

A senior Obama aide explicitly told Danger Room last week that the intent is to host a “counterterrorism capability … a strike capability” on the bases “to ensure that there’s not that reemergence of a safe haven threat to us.”

In other words: If the Pakistanis want to let the United States use their bases, great. If not, no big deal.

Former U.S. officials stationed in Afghanistan over the past few months have speculated to Danger Room about the bases the United States is likeliest to maintain for a counterterrorism war across the border. Most frequently mentioned: the huge airfields of Bagram and Kandahar, which already host drones. (These include the RQ-170 “Beast of Kandahar” spy drone used in the bin Laden raid.) Jalalabad, already a CIA drone epicenter, is another base the United States will likely want to retain.

Pushing the drone war’s origins a little bit westward isn’t without risk. Afghan President Hamid Karzai is hardly less mercurial than his Pakistani counterparts. But the senior Obama aide tells Danger Room that Karzai isn’t stupid — an incognito U.S. military presence doesn’t just help blast terrorists with Hellfire missiles, it keeps him alive and in power, too.

The big question is whether those bases will be a dealbreaker in peace talks with the Taliban.

It’s ironic. The more the Pakistanis deny U.S. air bases to protest unilateral strikes on its territory, the more they’ll wind up with … unilateral strikes on their territory. Maybe the Pakistanis won’t be so quick to declare Shamsi a U.S. no-fly zone.

There is no such thing as confusion when the things are so evident.Diplomatic Language (request) is just an excuse.

 

[53fd]

If Pakistan Denies U.S. Its Drone Bases, There’s a Backup Plan Next Door
By Spencer Ackerman

Pakistan may be kicking the CIA out of its premiere base for the drone war. Or it may not — who can tell with the Pakistanis anymore? What’s for certain is that all their griping strengthens the U.S. resolve to keep bases in neighboring Afghanistan to launch drones into Pakistan unilaterally.

In the spirit of their pique with the United States after the SEALs’ unilateral Osama bin Laden kill, the Pakistanis are loudly declaring the United States is cut off from its most prominent drone launching pad. “No U.S. flights are taking place from Shamsi any longer,” says Pakistani Defense Minister Chaudhary Ahmed Mukhtar.

He’s referring to the Shamsi air base near Quetta. Shortly after Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-California) blabbed that the Pakistanis hosted CIA drones in 2009, eagle-eyed sleuths ID’d Shamsi as an epicenter of the drone war using GoogleEarth.

But losing Shamsi is no great shakes — if it’s even happening, and not just a cynical Pakistani sop to anti-Americanism. (“News to the United States,” a U.S. counterterrorism official says to McClatchy.)

For one thing, if Mukhtar’s for real, Defense Tech’s John Rood notes that the United States is rumored to fly drones out of two other Pakistani air bases. More fundamentally, the CIA already flies drones into the Pakistani tribal areas from Jalalabad in eastern Afghanistan. And Air Force drones hovering above Afghanistan, launched from J’bad and Kandahar in the south, chase fleeing insurgents into Pakistan with regularity — they just have to give the Pakistanis a heads-up.

The harsh truth is that the Pakistanis can’t stop the drone war on their soil. But they can shift its launching points over the Afghan border. And the United States is already working on a backup plan for a long-term drone war, all without the Pakistanis’ help.


The Obama team’s new counterterrorism strategy should remove all doubt about the centrality of drones to a long-term fight against al-Qaida. That’s one of the main reasons it’s quietly negotiating with the Afghan government to keep a few residual bases jointly with Afghan troops after most U.S. forces leave.

A senior Obama aide explicitly told Danger Room last week that the intent is to host a “counterterrorism capability … a strike capability” on the bases “to ensure that there’s not that reemergence of a safe haven threat to us.”

In other words: If the Pakistanis want to let the United States use their bases, great. If not, no big deal.

Former U.S. officials stationed in Afghanistan over the past few months have speculated to Danger Room about the bases the United States is likeliest to maintain for a counterterrorism war across the border. Most frequently mentioned: the huge airfields of Bagram and Kandahar, which already host drones. (These include the RQ-170 “Beast of Kandahar” spy drone used in the bin Laden raid.) Jalalabad, already a CIA drone epicenter, is another base the United States will likely want to retain.

Pushing the drone war’s origins a little bit westward isn’t without risk. Afghan President Hamid Karzai is hardly less mercurial than his Pakistani counterparts. But the senior Obama aide tells Danger Room that Karzai isn’t stupid — an incognito U.S. military presence doesn’t just help blast terrorists with Hellfire missiles, it keeps him alive and in power, too.

The big question is whether those bases will be a dealbreaker in peace talks with the Taliban.

It’s ironic. The more the Pakistanis deny U.S. air bases to protest unilateral strikes on its territory, the more they’ll wind up with … unilateral strikes on their territory. Maybe the Pakistanis won’t be so quick to declare Shamsi a U.S. no-fly zone.

There is no such thing as confusion when the things are so evident.Diplomatic Language (request) is just an excuse.

If the US operates solely from Afghanistan, & stops using supply routes from Pakistan, they will be eaten alive by the Taliban in the country & they know it. Which is why they still need Pakistan at all times.

 

[muse]

Unicorn

Excellent - Perhaps the report will allow our forum member S2 to take a more reasonable position when offered positions that reflect reality and not US spin.- If Karzai publicly opposes this US move (to use Afghan territory against a third country, Pakistan) , especially after his return from Tehran where he committed himself and his country, to seek "regional" solutions to the issue of "terrorism", may be a step the US will not tolerate.

That the US will transfer it's war of terror towards Pakistan is a given - but the success of that endeavor is far from given.

 

[unicorn]

self delete

 

[fuse]

The obvious answer to the drone dilemma is that our military must put a copyright stamp on all anti-terror operations within Pak Sar Zameen. After this, they need to deploy some serious aerial firepower, and also armed drones that China has to get their over here from Beijng ASAP, we are going through early stages of full blown war and eventually Civil war that would even leave the Communist party in tangles. Then when America sees our willing, straight-forward, assertive and FUTURISTIC, BRAVE, INTELLIGENT THINKING APPLIED IN OUR POLICIES and you will see, nations will get off our backs, even India is willing to get off our backs and conventionally they haven't uttered a peep after the failed bombing raid post 26/11 Bumbai.

 

[|| |\| ||)) || /\\ |\|]

US rejects the demand to leave Shamsi base.

http://www.defence.pk/forums/u-s-foreign-affairs/118074-us-rejects-demand-vacate-shamsi-base.html

 

[unicorn]

self delete

 

[Respect4Respect01]

"The CIA three months ago suspended its long-standing use of an air base in Pakistan, US newspaper.



According to a US newspaper, the US and Pakistani officials said the launches were halted in April after a dispute over a CIA contractor, Raymond Davis, who killed two Pakistani citizens in Lahore.


All US drone strikes in the past three months have been launched from Afghanistan, in the vicinity of Jalalabad, according to the officials, who spoke about intelligence matters on the condition of anonymity.


According to the paper, officials from both countries said the rupture in their intelligence cooperation has slowly begun to heal.



Pakistan has reversed its freeze on visas for the US intelligence officials, they said, and allowed dozens of CIA personnel to re-enter the country."

 

[Pioneerfirst]

WASHINGTON: The CIA suspended its long-standing use of an air base in Pakistan as a launch site for armed drones targeting members of al Qaeda and other militant groups three months ago, according to US and Pakistani officials.

In a report published in Washington Post newspaper, Pakistan in recent days has publicly declared that it "ended" all US flights from the base in the wake of the secret US commando raid that killed al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in May.

But US and Pakistani officials said the launches were halted in April, weeks before the bin Laden raid, after a dispute over a CIA contractor who fatally shot two Pakistani citizens in Lahore in January.

All U.S. drone strikes in the past three months have been launched from Afghanistan, in the vicinity of Jalalabad, according to the officials, who spoke about intelligence matters only on the condition of anonymity.

The New America Foundation, which tracks the strikes, has listed 23 such raids since the beginning of April, all but one in Pakistan's tribal regions of North and South Waziristan. A June 20 attack was reported in Kurram, an area above North Waziristan along the Afghanistan border.

Drone flights from Pak base halted three months ago

 

[Pioneerfirst]

The US has opted to shift its drone bases of operation from Pakistan to Afghanistan, sources told Arab News.

According to the Arab News sources, the decision by the US came as domestic pressure in Pakistan gained momentum against presence of the bases in the country.

Defense Minister Chaudhry Ahmed Mukhtar's remarks on Wednesday that the US had been asked to vacate Shamsi Air Base.

According to the sources, the CIA, which has been using Shamsi Air Base in Pakistan since 2004, had to develop other sources, largely based in Afghanistan, to carry out its drone operations targeting al Qaeda and its affiliates.

US to shift drones from Pak to Afghan bases

 

[Dexteraj]

But Pakistan is still attacked by the drones.

 

[JanjaWeed]

Pak snubs US, refuses permission to use airbase for drone strikes

ISLAMABAD: The US has halted the launch of Predator drone strikes against al-Qaida and other militant leaders from an airbase in Pakistan after a dispute over a CIA contractor who shot dead two Pakistani citizens in Lahore in January, a US newspaper quoted Pakistani and US officials as saying.

The Shamsi airbase in Baluchistan has been one of the facilities that Pakistan provided to the US for its counter-terrorism operations in the region. Under a secret arrangement, Islamabad had allowed the US to use the Shamsi airbase for its covert drone operations inside Pakistan's tribal areas.

The US has been using the place for more than seven years to launch Predator and Reaper drone strikes against al-Qaida and Taliban hideouts. The CIA presence at Shamsi was detected in 2004, when the first drone strikes were launched from the base. Google Earth images showed Predator drones parked on the runway at the base.

In recent days, Pakistan claimed that it had asked the US to close its operations from Shamsi following the secret commando raid in Abbottabad in May in which al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden was killed.

The Washington Post reported on Saturday that the US stopped drone strikes from Shamsi in April after a diplomatic row over a CIA contractor who killed two Pakistani nationals in Lahore, weeks before the raid on bin Laden's safe heaven.

"US personnel and Predator drones remain at the facility, in the southwestern province of Baluchistan, with security provided by the Pakistani military," officials told the Post, adding that the US drone strikes inside Pakistan in the past three months have been launched from an airbase in Afghanistan. The latest drone strike was on June 20 in Pakistan's Kurram Agency.

Although Pakistan had tacitly allowed the US to launch drone strikes, the country's civilian leadership always condemned such attacks to avoid public wrath.

According to revelations by WikiLeaks, Pakistani leaders told the US to continue its strikes in the tribal areas against al-Qaida and Taliban and assured them that they will handle the situation in the country by condemning and protesting the lethal attacks.

In another version of the story, Pakistan's civilian officials recently said that they closed the Shamsi base in retaliation for an American reduction in coalition support funds, a multibillion-dollar subsidy for Pakistani military operations.

Pakistan's defence minister Ahmed Mukhtar said on Wednesday "the US had been told to stop launching strikes from Shamsi". The US personnel had already started to shift equipment from the base, he added.

The US officials, however, rejected the claim and said: "This is news to us. American operations against terrorists in Pakistan are continuing."

Pakistan's senior air force official told the country's legislators in a briefing after bin Laden's killing that Shamsi Airbase was built by the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The area was sold to them by the government in late 1990's. The Arab Sheikhs use the base for facilitating their trips of hunting falcons.

Pak snubs US, refuses permission to use Shamsi airbase for drone strikes - The Times of India

 

[Hunzaghazi]

This is just for public. This matter will die down soon as US squezes Pak aid money.
Pak hypocritic & incompetent Generals will be forced to back down.
Hypocrite since they portray one face to public(by taking tough stance against US by making public comments)
Incompetent as they failed to enforce pak sovereignty during osama raid.