Pakistani Responses to the CIA’s Predator Drone Campaign against the Taliban and al-Qaeda, The Jamestown Foundation // Terrorism Monitor, 19 February 2010
EXCERPT: "Conventional wisdom in the West seems to have coalesced around the notion that the CIA’s airborne assassination campaign against al-Qaeda and the Taliban in Pakistan’s remote FATA (Federally Administered Tribal Areas) is driving Pakistanis to new levels of anti-Americanism. Western news sources report routinely on Pakistani discontent with the strikes. In truth, Pakistani leaders have spoken against them, the Pakistani media regularly condemns them and they do seem to be genuinely unpopular with Pakistanis according to opinion surveys. But not everyone in Pakistan is against the killing of al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters by the CIA’s robotic killers in the sky. Recent accounts from the Pakistani media and blogs show that an increasing number of Pakistanis have turned against al-Qaeda and the Taliban and many have come to see the Predator and Reaper strikes on al-Qaeda as a legitimate response to terrorism."
Read the full report.
Related articles:
Senior al-Qaeda military commander killed in Predator strike [blog], The Long War Journal, 20 February 2010
Al-Qaeda leader killed in North Waziristan, DAWN, 20 February 2010
Related posts:
Pakistan shifts drone blame to US despite assistance, 14 January 2010
US drone war delivers with negative consequences, 12 January 2010
US senators defend drone attacks amidst new strikes and Pak opposition, 8 January 2010
US drone attacks killed 700 civilians in 2009: Officials, 4 January 2010
Death from the skies: An overview of the CIA’s drone campaign in Pakistan, 19 October 2009
