Despite Pakistan cutting off one supply route to the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation-led International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan in protest against airspace violation, drone attacks on Pakistani tribal areas continued on Saturday; killing at least 15 alleged terrorists in North Waziristan.
Agency reports suggest that the U.S. intelligence used the tactic of terrorists to wreck maximum damage. After the first round of drone attacks on a suspected hideout in Datta Khel, the Predators returned when people were trying to pull out the dead and injured from the rubble of the first attack.
On Friday the ISAF Commander, David Petraeus, is reported to have telephoned Pakistan’s Chief of Army Staff Ashfaq Parvez Kayani to express regrets for the NATO attack on a Frontier Corps (F.C.) outpost which killed three personnel and injured three others. He also assured Pakistan that the U. S. would share intelligence.
Earlier this week, the Pakistani leadership – right from President Asif Ali Zardari – had registered the nation’s protest over these violations of the country’s territorial integrity with the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency Leon E. Panetta.
The past month has seen a surge in drone attacks. This coupled with air space violation by manned ISAF aircraft has resulted in Pakistan blocking off a vital NATO supply line at the Torkham border post. With no NATO vehicle being allowed to cross over since Thursday, the border post now looks like a huge parking lot for containers.
The Government, meanwhile, is coming under increased criticism for its perceived inaction to violations of Pakistan’s territorial integrity along its Western border. Though the Foreign Office had issued a de marche on Monday after the first round of intrusions by NATO aircraft and asked its Ambassador in Brussels on Thursday to register yet another protest after FC personnel were killed, some security analysts feel that Islamabad’s dual policy – quiet acceptance of the unmanned drone attacks but anger at violation of air space by manned aircraft -- was to blame for the ineffectiveness of such diplomatic protests.
Also, questions are being asked as to why Pakistan is not doing more in retaliation of violation of airspace along its border with Afghanistan when any such development on its eastern border with India evokes a prompt response.
