Pakistan Braces for More Drone Attacks from U.S. Under Obama

KARACHI, Feb 9 -- On Jan 23, days after Barack Obama was sworn in as President of the United States, a series of missiles slammed into Pakistan's tribal areas along the Afghan border -- in continuation of Washington's policy of targeting al-Qaeda and Taliban elements regardless of sovereignty issues.

"The drone attacks anger Pakistanis because the government, in cahoots with the media, refuses to explain that Pakistani governments have been complicit in seeking rent from Washington to fight what now appears to be America's war," said military analyst, Ayesha Siddiqa.

Drones or remote-controlled are pilotless aircraft that hover high in the skies and fire missiles with accuracy at selected targets, but in Pakistan they have caused significant ‘collateral damage' to civilian populations.

In 2008, there were 32 such attacks on Islamist militant sites, killing 216 terrorists and 84 civilians, according to a report by the Pakistan Institute for Peace Studies (PIPS), an Islamabad-based think tank.

More than 134 civilians have died, so far, in missile attacks within Pakistani territory and no other country in the world has been subjected to such a sustained campaign using drones. The attacks followed Washington's perception that Pakistan was not doing enough to stop cross-border operations by Islamist militants or, more recently, attacks on supply routes to Afghanistan through Pakistan.

Siddiqa, who got into the military's crosshairs after the publication in 2007 of her book, ‘Military Inc., The politics of Military's Economy in Pakistan', said Obama was only protecting U.S. interests. "His understanding is that despite payment of 12 billion U.S. dollars Pakistan has not delivered [on its commitment to go after al-Qaeda and Taliban holed up in the tribal areas]."

Obama's policy appears to be one of using a smaller carrot and a bigger stick to get the Pakistan army to stick to its side of the bargain. On his first day in office he said that the delivery of non-military annual aid worth 1.5 billion dollars to Pakistan would depend on "performance" in combating extremists.

Washington has also deducted 55 million dollars from reimbursements for expenses billed by Pakistan for war-on-terror expenses -- releasing only 101 million dollars against Pakistan's claim of 156 million dollars.

This approach has bred resentment in Pakistan and President Asif Ali Zardari said, in an article in the Washington Post published on Jan. 28, that this country did not "need lectures" on its commitment to the war but "assistance".

‘'Frankly, the abandonment of Afghanistan and Pakistan after the defeat of the Soviets in Afghanistan in the 1980s set the stage for the era of terrorism that we are enduring. U.S. support for the priorities of dictatorship back then, and again at the start of the new millennium, neglected the social and economic development of our nation, the priorities of the people," Zardari wrote.

Nasim Zehra, a political analyst said in her column published on Feb. 4 in ‘The News', a leading English-language daily, that "to aid Pakistan in tracking and fighting militants operating within Pakistani territory and from keeping its Pakistan-Afghan border secure, Washington should provide Pakistan the military means that Pakistani forces have repeatedly requested to ensure effective intelligence gathering ... "

"At this stage Pakistan cannot afford to reduce the strength and budget of the army," says Sher Zaman Taizai, a noted Pakhtun writer, and formerly Pakistan's defense attaché to Kabul. "The civil armed forces in most parts of the frontier province are not strong enough to control the situation."