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Pakistan, U.S. appear once again to be cooperating on drone strikes
BY TOM HUSSAIN
McClatchy Foreign StaffOctober 14, 2014
ISLAMABAD — A series of CIA drone strikes launched last week against Taliban insurgents in Pakistan’s northwest tribal areas provide the clearest demonstration yet that the U.S. intelligence agency and Pakistani security forces are once again cooperating on defeating the insurgents.
The drone strikes – nine in all, launched daily with a day off on Friday – targeted Taliban fighters as they retreated from the country’s advancing military, which has launched an offensive in the North Waziristan tribal area. Pakistani authorities have billed the campaign as the decisive battle of a seven-year war against Pakistan Taliban insurgents.
...
“Relative silence can be interpreted as, at the very least, tacit acceptance and, possibly, active cooperation between the countries. From the general location of the strikes . . . it would appear active cooperation is taking place – for surely neither the U.S. nor Pakistan could want an errant U.S.-fired missile hitting a Pakistani military target,” Dawn said in an editorial.
...
Each of the nine drone strikes launched between Oct. 5 and Saturday targeted militants fighting the Pakistani military, rather than anybody the U.S. would consider a high-value terrorist target. And the drones operated in airspace in frequent use by Pakistani warplanes and helicopter gunships.
None of the four drone strikes launched against militants in the Dattakhel area of North Waziristan, for example, targeted the dominant local faction, which is led by Hafiz Gul Bahadur, a key Haqqani network ally and, presumably, someone the United States would want to eliminate.
...
Read more here: ISLAMABAD: Pakistan, U.S. appear once again to be cooperating on drone strikes | Afghanistan & Pakistan | McClatchy DC
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BY TOM HUSSAIN
McClatchy Foreign StaffOctober 14, 2014
ISLAMABAD — A series of CIA drone strikes launched last week against Taliban insurgents in Pakistan’s northwest tribal areas provide the clearest demonstration yet that the U.S. intelligence agency and Pakistani security forces are once again cooperating on defeating the insurgents.
The drone strikes – nine in all, launched daily with a day off on Friday – targeted Taliban fighters as they retreated from the country’s advancing military, which has launched an offensive in the North Waziristan tribal area. Pakistani authorities have billed the campaign as the decisive battle of a seven-year war against Pakistan Taliban insurgents.
...
“Relative silence can be interpreted as, at the very least, tacit acceptance and, possibly, active cooperation between the countries. From the general location of the strikes . . . it would appear active cooperation is taking place – for surely neither the U.S. nor Pakistan could want an errant U.S.-fired missile hitting a Pakistani military target,” Dawn said in an editorial.
...
Each of the nine drone strikes launched between Oct. 5 and Saturday targeted militants fighting the Pakistani military, rather than anybody the U.S. would consider a high-value terrorist target. And the drones operated in airspace in frequent use by Pakistani warplanes and helicopter gunships.
None of the four drone strikes launched against militants in the Dattakhel area of North Waziristan, for example, targeted the dominant local faction, which is led by Hafiz Gul Bahadur, a key Haqqani network ally and, presumably, someone the United States would want to eliminate.
...
Read more here: ISLAMABAD: Pakistan, U.S. appear once again to be cooperating on drone strikes | Afghanistan & Pakistan | McClatchy DC
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