ISLAMABAD: President Asif Ali Zardari yesterday lodged a strong protest with the United States for its latest drone-fired missile attacks in North and South Waziristan regions. Latest missile attack has claimed 22 lives.
Zardari, during his meeting with US ambassador here, N. W. Peterson, strongly protested and said these acts were creating difficulties for Pakistan’s security forces to combat terrorist on ground.
Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani had repeatedly assured the nation that after the departure of President George W. Bush from White House there will be no more CIA-sponsored drone-fired missile attacks inside Pakistan.
Presidential palace sources said, “the president was quite upset about the midnight missile attack in Waziristan and he told US ambassador, these attacks are causing difficulties for the government of Pakistan to continue its cooperation with US-led NATO alliance in Afghanistan and to track militants on ground.
The death toll from three US missile attacks on Al-Qaeda bases has risen to 22, officials and residents said yesterday. Eight suspected foreign militants were among the dead. A senior security official said Pakistani authorities were trying to determine the seniority of an Egyptian Al-Qaeda militant believed to have been killed.
Three intelligence officials told The Associated Press that funerals were held yesterday for nine Pakistanis killed Friday in Zharki, a village in the North Waziristan region.
A senior security official in the capital, Islamabad, identified one of the slain men as a suspected Al-Qaeda operative called Mustafa Al-Misri. He said it was unclear if the man was a significant figure.
The second strike hit a house in the South Waziristan region. Residents and security officials say eight people died in the village of Gangi Khel. Resident Allah Noor Wazir said he attended funerals for the owner of the targeted house, Dil Faraz, his three sons and a guest. “I also heard that three bodies had been taken away by Taleban. They say they belong to foreigners,” Wazir told the AP by telephone.
Also yesterday, Pakistan’s government welcomed Obama’s decision to close the Guantanamo Bay detention facility. A Foreign Ministry statement said Obama’s decision was a step toward “upholding the primacy of the rule of law” and would add a “much-needed moral dimension in dealing with terrorism.”
— With input from agencies
