Risk-Free And Above The Law: U.S. Globalizes Drone Warfare

[Jan Klimkowski]

Fighting to hide an inconvenient truth:

Pakistan fights to seize crashed US drone from Taliban

Taliban takes control of debris from unmanned US aircraft after it crashes near Jangara village in tribal South Waziristan region

Associated Press guardian.co.uk, Sunday 18 September 2011 12.14 BST

Pakistani soldiers have fought Taliban militants to seize precious debris from a suspected US drone that crashed in a rugged tribal area near the Afghan border, Pakistani intelligence officials said.

The unmanned aircraft crashed on Saturday night near Jangara village in the South Waziristan tribal area, said the officials, who were speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to talk to the media. The village is near the border with North Waziristan.

The officials said they learned of the crash by intercepting Taliban radio communications but do not know what caused it. Both North and South Waziristan are home to many Taliban fighters, though it is unclear whether they shot down the aircraft or if it crashed because of technical problems.

The debris was first seized by the Taliban. Several hours after the crash, the Pakistani army sent soldiers in to wrest it out of militant hands, sparking a fight with the Taliban in which three militants were killed, said the officials. Three militants and two soldiers were also wounded in the clash, they said.

Nawab Khan, a government official in South Waziristan, confirmed the drone crash and the subsequent clash between militants and army troops. But he did not know whether the army had successfully seized the debris.

Neither the Pakistani army nor the US embassy responded to requests for comment.

The US normally does not acknowledge the covert CIA-run drone programme in Pakistan, but US officials have said privately that the attacks have killed many high-level militants, most recently al-Qaida's second in command, Atiyah Abd al-Rahman, and its chief of operations in Pakistan, Abu Hafs al-Shahri.

The US president, Barack Obama, has dramatically increased the number of drone attacks against militants in Pakistan's semi-autonomous tribal region since taking office in 2009, partly in response to Pakistan's failure to target militants who stage attacks against US troops in Afghanistan.

Pakistani officials regularly denounce the drone attacks as violations of the country's sovereignty, but the government is widely believed to have supported the strikes in the past and even allowed the aircraft to take off from bases within Pakistan.

That support has come under strain in recent months, especially in the wake of the US commando raid that killed the al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden in a Pakistani garrison town on 2 May. Pakistan was outraged that the US did not tell it about the operation beforehand.

Elsewhere in Pakistan's tribal region, militants attacked a security checkpoint, killing a police officer and two members of an anti-Taliban militia, said Farooq Khan, a local government administrator.

The attack took place late on Saturday night in the Aka Khel area of the Khyber tribal region, said Khan. The checkpoint is located on a key route that Nato uses to transport supplies to forces in neighbouring Afghanistan. Security forces and local tribesmen fought back against the militants, killing 10 of them, said Khan.

No group has claimed responsibility for the attack. But the Pakistani Taliban have staged frequent attacks against security forces and tribesmen who have opposed them.