Pakistan Demands CIA Halt Drone Attacks And Vacate Airbase

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11/26/11 2:27 PM EST

ISLAMABAD — The Pakistani government has demanded the U.S. vacate an air base within 15 days that the CIA is suspected of using for unmanned drones.

The government issued the demand Saturday after NATO helicopters and jet fighters allegedly attacked two Pakistan army posts along the Afghan border, killing 24 Pakistani soldiers. Islamabad outlined the demand in a statement it sent to reporters following an emergency defense committee meeting chaired by Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani.

Shamsi Air Base is located in southwestern Baluchistan province.

The U.S. is suspected of using the facility in the past to launch armed drones and observation aircraft to keep pressure on Taliban and al Qaeda militants in Pakistan’s tribal region.

read: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1111/69126.html


THE Pakistani government has responded to NATO air strikes that killed at least 25 soldiers by ordering the CIA to vacate the drone operations it runs from Shamsi Air Base in northern Pakistan and closing the two main NATO supply routes into Afghanistan.

Pakistani officials said that NATO aircraft hit two military posts at the northwestern border with Afghanistan. The country's supreme army commander called the attacks unprovoked acts of aggression.

The CIA was given just 15 days to stop its drone operations. Among the two NATO supply routes into Afghanistan shut by the government was the one at Torkham. NATO forces receive about 40 per cent of their supplies through that crossing, which runs through the Khyber Pass. Pakistani officials gave no estimate as to how long the routes would be shut down.

read more: http://www.smh.com.au/world/cia-ordered-to-halt-drone-operations-by-pakistan-20111127-1o1bw.html

American forces were told to leave the remote Shamsi airbase, secretly given over to the US after 9/11, following an emergency meeting of Pakistan's top civilian and military leadership late on Saturday. Pakistan has also blocked supply routes for US-led troops in Afghanistan.

Shamsi was used heavily for launching the war in Afghanistan in late 2001, and later served as the base for the US drone programme. Set in sparsely populated desert in the western Baluchistan province, Shamsi is highly controversial within Pakistan for its association with drones, which Islamabad officially condemns.

The decision of the country's defence committee of the cabinet is an admission that Shamsi remains in American hands. The committee announced that the government would "revisit and undertake a complete review of all programmes, activities and co-operative arrangements" with the US, and US-led forces in Afghanistan, "including diplomatic, political, military and intelligence".

read: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/nov/27/pakistan-orders-us-leave-shamsi-airbase?newsfeed=true


Whatever the President and the Pentagon had in mind in the immediate future in Afghanistan/Pakistan just got much harder, if not impossible. Looks like Afghan troops ordered the airstrike; just as bad, if not worse for relations between the two nations. We look even shittier now. Record civilian deaths this year. 1,555 Afghan policemen were killed over the past year. American deaths are at the highest level since the beginning of the occupation. Over 1700 deaths -- over three hundred killed just this year.