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U.S. drone strike kills 15 in northwest Pakistan: officials

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MIRANSHAH, Pakistan | Mon Jun 4, 2012 12:01am EDT

MIRANSHAH, Pakistan (Reuters) - Rockets fired from a U.S. drone killed 15 people in northwest Pakistan on Monday, intelligence officials said, an attack likely to add to tensions between Washington and Islamabad amid a standoff over NATO supply routes to Afghanistan.

The strike, the third in three days, targeted a militant hideout in the Hesokhel village of the North Waziristan tribal region, officials said.

It brought the death toll from drone attacks in Pakistan in the past three days to 27. Pilotless U.S. drones hit targets in the South Waziristan tribal region on Saturday and Sunday.

The United States and Pakistan are deadlocked in difficult negotiations for the re-opening of overland supply routes to NATO forces in Afghanistan. No breakthrough is in sight.

Islamabad blocked the routes in November 2011 after 24 Pakistani soldiers were killed by cross-border "friendly fire" from NATO aircraft.

The supply lines through Pakistan are considered vital to the planned withdrawal of most foreign combat troops from Afghanistan before the end of 2014.

The Pakistan government says the CIA drone campaign fuels anti-American sentiment in the country, and is counterproductive because of collateral damage.

U.S. officials, however, say such strikes by the remotely piloted aircraft are highly effective against militants and are an important weapon in war against militancy.

(Reporting by Haji Mujtaba in MIRANSHAH, Jibran Ahmad in PESHAWAR and Saud Mehsud in DERA ISMAIL KHAN; Writing by Qasim Nauman; Editing by Paul Tait)
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Comments (14)
1XslaveUSA wrote:
Once again the U.S. disrespects the people of Pakistan and its impotent running-dog-lackey government by using the murderous drones to kill Muslims on sovereign Pakistani soil. Clearly the will of the people of Pakistan is of no concern to the arrogant and bloodthirsty U.S. These drone attacks only turn the people of Pakistan and many Muslims worldwide against the U.S. The true causation of all the violence in Afghanistan and Pakistan is the continued presence of foreign invaders. The Afghanis are a proud people who hate foreign invaders. The killing and bloodshed will continue until the greatly outnumbered Taliban warriors purge the land of Afghanistan of the infidel armies. Soon the neo-Crusaders will be forced to beat a hasty retreat out of Afghanistan. In contemporary history, like the British and Soviets before them, another arrogant superpower is suffering an ignoble and inglorious defeat at the hands of lightly armed Afghan warriors. The Crucifixer armies will soon flee Afghanistan bloodied, broken, bewildered, deranged, suicidal, homicidal, humiliated and defeated. The I.S.A.F. soldiers will be slithering home from with their serpent-like tails between their legs. The most powerful militaries on earth with the greatest weaponry known to man could not defeat a much smaller (150,000 vs. 20,000) group of Afghani fighters. This will go down in history as a great victory for Islam! When will the American public begin to earnestly ponder the reasons as to why the U.S. military is still in Afghanistan? We have been told that Obama bin Lying, oops, Osama bin Laden is dead and by all reports there is not much of an al-Qaeda presence in Afghanistan anymore, so why are Americans still there? Mission accomplished, right? Wrong, there is the heroin and opium in Afghanistan. In the years prior to the U.S./N.A.T.O. invasion Taliban-controlled Afghanistan went from being the world’s #1 opiate producer to virtually no production at all. The Taliban Islamists had reduced the country’s poppy cultivation to almost nil, and as soon as the U.S. came in 2001 the poppy growers were back in business and for the past decade the drug trade in Afghanistan has been booming again. Americans, surely some government officials and members of the military are profiting off of the drug trade in Afghanistan. The U.S. military and the D.E.A. are currently investigating allegations of drug running in the Afghani Air Force. Without question Americans are involved too, it would be naïve to dismiss such thoughts because, to put it simply, drugs is big business! Also, if you really want to know why the U.S. still has boots on the ground in Afghanistan then just ask the people at Union Oil Company of California about natural gas pipelines and ask the White House about a team of U.S. geologists and Pentagon officials discovering vast mineral wealth in Afghanistan. A few years ago Americans discovered over $1 trillion in untapped mineral deposits in Afghanistan, including iron, copper, cobalt, gold and critical industrial metals like lithium. A Pentagon memo said that Afghanistan could become the “Saudi Arabia of lithium,” a key raw material in the manufacture of batteries for laptops and cell phones. So until 2014 more U.S. soldiers will die and be injured so that the oil companies, big business and of course, don’t forget the military-industrial complex (that President Dwight D. Eisenhower so famously warned us about in his 1961 farewell address. Keep in mind that President Eisenhower was also a 5 star General and the military commander of Allied forces during World War 2) can be monetarily enriched. The war on Terror (really the war on Islam) has cost the hard-pressed U.S. taxpayers over $1,700,000,000,000 since 2001. The war on Islam has bankrupted America and sent world economies (especially the N.A.T.O. countries) reeling. The stated intent of al-Qaeda was to draw the U.S. into a long protracted war that would drain the financial coffers of America as was done to the Soviet Union when the U.S.S.R. went to war in Afghanistan in the 1980’s. The Soviet Union financially collapsed because of the debacle of their Afghan war, now the country is called Russia. U.S. troops are dying for naught, unless protecting American business interests is equated with protecting American freedoms. Maybe a dead soldier means a healthy economy? I guess it makes sense if you are a vampire-like business tycoon or investor. Until 2014 more Americans will die so that the corrupt Afghan President Hamid Karzai and his graft-ridden cronies can steal more U.S. and international community money. The bribable Afghanistan government is a toilet that American taxpayer money is being flushed down. But, the U.S. populace does not seem to care; they have been tricked into believing the war in Afghanistan is a noble cause in defense of the American way of life. As long as the parents of U.S. troops are content to sacrifice their sons and daughters on the altar of the military-industrial complex the futile war on Islam will continue. In Afghanistan nearly 1,800 U.S. soldiers have died (the number of Afghanis killed in Operation Enduring Freedom is of no consequence to the citizenry of the U.S.A. After all they are sub-humans; the only real value of Afghanistan is the minerals under the ground and the needed pipelines to run natural gas from Central Asia thru), numerous contractors have been killed. Tens of thousands of Americans have been injured in the Afghan conflict, some horrifically scarred for life with missing limbs. Many others are mentally damaged beyond repair. Soon, all will be home and recently we have already witnessed several multi-fatality murders and at least 4 law enforcement officers killed in the line of duty by military veterans. Surely more crime and carnage will be set upon America by the soldiers coming home in the coming years. Monetarily the Afghan war has thus far cost this nation is well over $670,000,000,000. These monies spent upon Bush & Obama’s neo-Crusader misadventures are the real reason this country is in economic trouble. This money could have been better spent on education, social services, health care, public safety, public services and infrastructure rebuilding. If it was not for the imperialist wars state and local governments would not have had to implement so many devastating budget cuts and many people would not have been laid-off around the country. The Iraq and Afghan wars have financially wrecked America. Recent reports state that the Taliban feel that they are on the verge of victory. It really seems as if the Taliban are correct and are justified in believing they are winning. Battlefield moral is a big issue in warfare. The Taliban Jihadists are gladly fighting and happily dying as martyrs for a cause they truly believe in (Islam). The Taliban are anxious for the fight, whereas each and every U.S. soldier is fearful of warfare and dreads waking-up in Afghanistan each morning. Lastly, if the U.S. had not created and continue to prop-up the fraudulent Afghan government the Taliban would be in power today. So maybe the Taliban are winning? But as long as the warmongering war-profiteers and their lobbyists continue to line the pockets of U.S. politicians and influence the media the bloodletting and taxpayer spending will continue. If America wants to make friends around the world, stop dropping bombs on people and drop food on them.

Jun 03, 2012 12:09am EDT  --  Report as abuse
ruffsoft wrote:
I totally agree with Xslave. Afghanistan is a war crime, and using killing robots in Pakistan is violating the sovereignty of a nuclear nation, with a militant anti-US faction (thus the war on militancy) who are bolstered by US attacks.

Disaster. Disaster. Disaster. It is all about the gas pipelines, for before 9/11 (in which the US now maintains bin Laden was NOT the mastermind and had no evidence to present), Condi Rice was the Union Oil negotiator with the Taliban. 9/11 was a pretext for invading AFghanistan, which had nothing to do with bin Laden, in other words the cover for a war crime of aggression. Now we are aggressing against a nation with a large nuclear arsenal. It’s madness. It is flirting with a radical take over in Pakistan, and the threat of a nuclear confrontation.

Imagine if Pakistan were killing Americans with drones in the US.
Well, now imagine how they feel about US continuing to invade their country despite repeated warnings not to. Militants in small villages in the remote mountains of Pakistan are NOT a threat to the US.

If patriots are those who defend their homeland against foreign invaders, then we are killing patriots in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yeman, and through proxies in Libya, Syria, and Iraq.

It’s a crying shame. And when you have a drone drop bombs on a village, how do you know whom you have killed? How many children and women are killed. This is the most evil form of war ever invented.
Shame on the US, shame on Bush, Shame on Obama. The US is breeding wars and making us far less safe.

Jun 03, 2012 12:46am EDT  --  Report as abuse
iAmKantri wrote:
I do not understand why Pakistan continues to harbor terrorists and complain when someone is cleaning their mess.

Jun 03, 2012 12:50am EDT  --  Report as abuse
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