The drone, the CIA and a botched attempt to kill bin Laden's deputy
Jason Burke and Imtiaz Gul in Islamabad
Sunday January 15, 2006
The Observer
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Yesterday some of the results of the strike were very clear: three ruined houses, mud-brick rubble scattered across the steeply terraced fields, the bodies of livestock lying where thrown by the airblast, a row of newly dug graves in the village cemetery and torn green and red embroidered blankets flapping in the chilly wind. Four children were among the 18 villagers who died in the brutally sudden attack on their homes.
Yet evidence emerging appeared to indicate that, though the technology that guided the missiles to their targets at 3am on Friday was faultless, the intelligence that had selected those targets was not. Even as American military and intelligence sources spoke of the possible death of Ayman al-Zawahiri, the second-in-command of al-Qaeda and the man considered to be the brains behind the militant group's strategy, Pakistani officials said that there was no evidence any 'foreigners', shorthand locally for al-Qaeda fighters, were among the 18 victims, though they said that 'according to preliminary investigations there was foreign presence in the area'.
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But his words did little to calm the anger in and around Damadola, a bastion of conservative religion and tribal chauvinism, and elsewhere in Pakistan. The village lies in the semi-autonomous Bajur tribal region around 120 miles northwest of Islamabad, the Pakistani capital. It is a rugged and desperately poor region, until recently a centre of opium cultivation, where local men habitually go armed and government authority is limited to main roads. Thousands of local men marched in a series of protests yesterday, one crowd attacking the office of a US-funded aid group. In another incident, police were forced to fire tear gas to disperse as many as 400 protesters chanting anti-American slogans and waving banners condemning the Pakistan President, General Pervez Musharraf.
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'This is a big lie... Only our family members died in the attack,' said Shah Zaman, a jeweller who lost two sons and a daughter in the attack. 'They dropped bombs from planes and we were in no position to stop them... or to tell them we are innocent. I don't know
. He was not at my home. No foreigner was at my home when the planes came and dropped bombs.' Haroon Rashid, a member of parliament who lives in a village near Damadola, told The Observer that he had seen a drone surveying the area hours before the attack.
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http://observer.guardian.co.uk/world/story/0,16937,1686918,00.html
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