After a break of about a month and a half, the CIA’s drones entered the Pakistani airspace on Tuesday. Two missiles were fired at a house in the North Waziristan town of Miranshah leading to the death of four of its inmates. The resumption of attacks is a blatant violation of our sovereignty, a most reprehensible act, which must be condemned in the harshest terms possible. Drones has ceased to operate in the Fata area in the wake of Pakistan and its people’s strong protestation against the Nato attack on the Salalah check post on November 26, 2011. That attack caused the death of 24 of our soldiers and roused the entire nation's sentiments to a high intensity of anger and resentment. The government has, since then, blocked Nato supplies transiting through Pakistan and despite all efforts of the US to restore this supply route to troops in Afghanistan, the blockade has not been lifted. One reason for the government not to re-open the route has been strong public pressure for a permanent end to these supplies passing through Pakistan.
Drones are a legacy of military dictator Musharraf who connived at, or, as Washington Post reported, gave advance permission for these attacks letting the violation of Pakistan’s territorial sovereignty take place in his misguided interpretation of cooperation in the war on terror. The practice of this permission ended with the induction of the present government and the Obama administration intensified the attacks. Local estimates place the death toll as a result of drone attacks well over 3,000 and injured even higher, since 2004 when the drones hit their first suspected target. However, US think tank New America Foundation (ANF) has put the figure of those killed at a maximum of 2,680 till the end of 2011. According to the ANF, out of these, only 38 were high-profile terrorists. There were some ordinary militants as well. The rest, an overwhelming majority, were obviously ordinary citizens.
Islamabad should make a strong demarche with Washington about the resumption of attacks. In fact, it should have done that earlier when the American media, quoting informed circles, including some Senators and unnamed officials, began dropping hints that the US was thinking of re-launching the operations in Fata.