Tension between US and Pakistan soars as drones kill 25

Published on Friday 22 April 2011 18:23

AMERICAN drones fired a volley of missiles into a militant-held Pakistani region close to the Afghan border yesterday, killing 25 people, Pakistani intelligence officials said.

It came a day after Pakistan's army chief denounced such attacks, and could further sour deteriorating relations between Washington and Islamabad.

Ten missiles hit a house in Spinwam village in North Waziristan, a region home to Taliban militants targeting American and Nato troops just across the border in Afghanistan, as well as international al-Qaeda terrorists, the officials said.

Three children and two women were believed to be among the dead. The US has been firing missiles into the border region regularly for more than two years, but does not formally acknowledge this.

US officials rarely comment on specific strikes but have said they accurately hit militants.

American silence means the usual sources of information about the strikes are Pakistani intelligence officials, who speak on condition of anonymity. Their accounts are impossible to verify independently because access to the border area is forbidden. The attacks have long been a source of tension between the two allies, at least on the surface.

The missiles are the only way Washington can directly hit Afghan Taliban factions hiding in Pakistan, something it says is essential to success in Afghanistan. The dilemma has become more acute, as the US wants to begin withdrawing troops in summer.

Pakistan's army and political leadership has always publicly condemned the missile attacks, but is believed to have sanctioned them privately. That policy allows them to be insulated from some of the anti-American sentiment in the country.

But ties sunk to new lows this year after an American CIA contractor in January shot and killed two Pakistanis he said were trying to rob him. A March missile strike that allegedly killed dozens of innocent tribesmen also angered Pakistani leaders.

Pakistani officials say they now want America to limit the use of the strikes and give them more information about them. But several US officials in Islamabad and Washington have said they will continue regardless of Pakistani objections, which some analysts have suggested were aimed at domestic political consumption or extracting more concessions from Washington.

The CIA honours an agreement to target within the geographic "boxes" of territory previously agreed with Pakistan, but does not give the Pakistanis any notice of the strikes, said the officials.Tensions over Pakistan's alleged ties to Afghan Taliban factions have also had an airing.

During a visit earlier this week, Admiral Mike Mullen, the chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff, accused Pakistan's military-run spy service of maintaining links with the Haqqani network, an Afghan Taliban faction based in North Waziristan.

Islamabad denies supporting the group, but many analysts and US officials suspect Islamabad may be trying to maintain its links to the Haqqanis so that it can use them as a means of retaining influence in Afghanistan after the Americans leave.

While officials from both nations have raised the level of rhetoric, they also say they want to keep the partnership intact.

Also yesterday, a security official said hundreds of militants attacked a checkpoint in a northwest Pakistani district, killing 14 security troops.