"Summons" and scolds US ambassador (once again). More on this story. "Pakistan protests US drone attacks, Taliban warns of reprisals," from AFP, November 20:
ISLAMABAD (AFP) – Pakistan's government on Thursday condemned the latest US missile strike in its territory while a militant Taliban group warned that another drone attack would bring reprisals within the country.Odd that. Why would two supposed enemies condemn a strike that hurts one of them? If the Pakistani government is against the Taliban, and if the US strike has obviously pained the Taliban, shouldn't Pakistan, if not supportive of its "friend and ally" (the US), at least be neutral?
Speaking in parliament, Pakistani premier Yousuf Raza Gilani denounced the latest US spy drone attack which killed six people Wednesday at Bannu district in northwest Pakistan, including a major Al-Qaeda operative."These attacks are adding to our problems. They are intolerable and we do not support them," Gilani told the national assembly.
The foreign ministry also summoned Anne Patterson, the American ambassador to Islamabad, to lodge a strong protest over the air raids that have fuelled public anger, foreign ministry spokesman Mohammad Sadiq said in the capital.
Sadiq said the US diplomat was told that "continued drone attacks undermined public support for government counterterrorism efforts and stressed that these attacks must be stopped".
"It was underscored to the US ambassador that such attacks were a violation of Pakistan's sovereignty and territorial integrity," he added.
Top Pakistani Taliban leader Hafiz Gul Bahadur on Thursday warned of reprisals by militants across Pakistan if the US carried out any further drone attacks in tribal territory, a spokesman for the commander said..
Bahadur's group has been accused by the United States of launching attacks across the border in Afghanistan, but it abstains from violence in the Pakistani territory under an understanding with military authorities.
"We will start revenge attacks across other districts if the US drone attacks do not stop after November 20," Taliban spokesman Ahmadullah Ahmadi said in a statement.
US spy drones have carried out more than 20 attacks in recent months but Wednesday's Bannu raid was the first outside the lawless tribal region bordering Afghanistan, known as a stronghold of Al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters....
In what sense does Pakistan have sovereignty over these tribal areas? They don't or can't control them and the inhabitants are mostly jihadists seeking the overthrow of Pakistan so surely they don't have sovereignty.
OF couse the paki arm of the taliban aka the Pakistani government is screaming after all they cant have the kufer killing good muslims (is there such a animal?)can they (sarc off)
Pakistan, Pakistan more like a head ache and a kind of love affair that has gone way beyond bad. It is more like a dependency relationship. I really do not know what to call this relationship with NATO and the US anymore. It is not an ally it is more like a convenience a cajoling on both sides. More money to Pakistan while it arms terrorists with weapons and attacks both India and the US troops as well as NATO.Appeasing to Muslims does not work anymore. Maybe in the colonial times it might have had some advantages but now there are none. As a matter fact it is dangerous and undermines and is threatening what the west and other free countries should be fighting for.
I am so sorry.....................................sorry that the missile strike didn't kill more of the jihadis.
If the pak govt cannot control their wayward citizens, the US/NATO will go over and kill these terrorists.Sovereignty can only be respected when one country actually controls their country. When the Paks let this area go without any controls they should not complain when another country actually goes after these mobsters. US to PAk blah,blah,blah.. oops a another one hits the mark. lol
That smooth mnan Husain Haqqani, Pakistan's Ambassador to the United States, is working hard to persuade the Americans to give still more billions -- is it five billon? ten billion? -- to Pakistan, at a time of great American economic turmoil, to a mendacious "ally" that has, since 2001, received $30 billion in direct and indirect aid (see the calculations of Selig Harrison). Pakistan should get nothing further from the American government. There is no connection between "prosperity" in Muslim lands and a lessening of hostlity to Infidels. The texts and tenets and attitudes and atmospherics of Islam remain the same. What changes is that when Muslims are too poor to behave as the Saudis do, spreading Islam through the funding of mosques and madrasas and campaigns of Da'wa and buying up armies of Western hirelings, too poor to buy armaments or to pay for projects to build nuclear weapons (it was American and other Infidel aid that allowed A. Q. Khan to successfully bring his nuclear project to completion), when Muslims are illiterate and lead a hardscabble existence they lack the smoothness to propagandize, and lack the time, being so busy staying alive, to promote the Jihad -- then those Muslims can do less harm than if they are given more Infidel aid, as Ambassador Husain Haqqani so ardently wishes his untrustworthy and essentially hostile country to receive, from what he regards as those endlessly gullible, or persuadable, Americans.
Official Washington must prove him wrong. And send him, and the rest of the Pakistanis, hat in hand to the rich Arabs, to see if they will share with fellow members of the umma, some of the 1.8 trillion dollars in surplus funds, they presently possess. Yes, ask Husain Haqqani to get on the first plane to Riyadh, or Abu Dhabi, or Kuwait City, or Doha, and see what he can come back with from his fellow Muslims. That should be enough. That should be more than enough. And if it isn't? Then let the Pakistanis know which members of the Umma, that one big Community of Believers, has decided to let them down.
Typical of terrorists! Talking out of both sides of their mouth.
"These attacks are adding to our problems. They are intolerable and we do not support them."
-Yousuf Raza Gilani, the PREMIER of Pakistan, as opposed to being a high ranking Taliban official within the borders of that same, ahem, "nation." Such a statement could be mistakenly, but not erroneously, applied to either.