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US Brushes Off Pakistani Claims Drone Strike 'Scuttled' Taliban Talks
[TOLONEWS] The United States insists it has a shared interest in ending myrmidon violence after Islamabad accused Washington of scuttling efforts towards peace talks by killing Pak Taliban leader Hakimullah Mehsud in a drone strike.Mehsud, who was under a $5 million US government bounty, was killed when a drone targeted his car in a compound in North  Wazoo tribal district on Friday.The death of its young, energetic leader represents a major setback for the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistain (TTP), a coalition of factions behind some of the most high-profile attacks to hit Pakistain in recent years. But it also threatens the government's efforts to begin talks to end the TTP's bloody six-year insurgency that has left thousands of soldiers, police and civilians dead. Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar condemned the US strike as a "drone attack on the grinding of the peace processor", saying a team of religious holy mans was about to meet the TTP with a view to starting peace talks when Mehsud was killed. "Brick by brick in the last seven weeks we tried to evolve a process by which we could bring peace to Pakistain and what have you (the US) done?" he said. "You have scuttled it on the eve, 18 hours before a formal delegation of respected Learned Elders of Islam (religious scholars) was to fly to Miranshah ... headquarters of al-Qaeda in Pakistain and likely location of Ayman al-Zawahiri. The Haqqani network has established a ministatein centered on the town with courts, tax offices and lots of madrassas... and hand over this formal invitation." A State Department official declined to confirm that Mehsud had been killed and did not specifically address Nisar's comments, saying the issue of whether to negotiate with the TTP was an internal matter for Pakistain. "The United States and Pakistain continue to have a vital, shared strategic interest in ending myrmidon violence so as to build a more prosperous, stable and peaceful region," the official said. Pakistain's foreign ministry said it had summoned US ambassador Richard Olson to protest over the drone strike that killed Mehsud and another that hit a day earlier. The ministry statement also stressed that despite the drone strike the government was "determined to continue with efforts to engage the TTP". Islamabad routinely condemns drone strikes as a violation of illusory sovereignty, and Prime Minister  Nawaz Sharif... served two non-consecutive terms as prime minister, heads the Pakistain Moslem League (Nawaz). Noted for his spectacular corruption, the 1998 Pak nuclear test, border war with India, and for being tossed by General Musharraf... urged President Barack Obama I mean, I do think at a certain point you've made enough money... to end them during White House talks in October, but summoning the ambassador is an unusual step. Mehsud's death is the third major blow struck against the TTP by the US this year, following the killing of number two Waliur Rehman in a drone strike in May and the capture of another senior lieutenant in Afghanistan revealed last month. The TTP's supreme shura, or decision-making council, met Saturday to decide who should now lead the network, which emerged following a deadly 2007 military raid on the radical Red Mosque in Islamabad. A Taliban capo told AFP the process was being held up because the meeting location keeps moving to avoid the attentions of the US drones that fly overhead almost continuously. Candidates under consideration to take over from Mehsud include Asmatullah Shaheen Bhittani ...a Pashtun tribe centered on Jandola, in Tank district. They are the hereditary enemies of the Mehsuds, unless there are furriners or infidels around, in which case they share ammunition and targeting data... , the head of the central shura, and Khan Said, alias Sajna, who became number two after Rehman's death in May. Senior Taliban capo Azam Tariq dismissed media reports that Said had been elected as "speculation", telling AFP a decision would be made "in the next few days". He accused the government of running a "dual policy", supporting the US and at the same time saying it wants talks. "Taliban will not talk with Pakistain until drone strikes are stopped," he said. Opposition parties accused Washington of using the drone strike to stymie the grinding of the peace processor before talks proper had even started. Former cricketer Imran Khan  ... aka Taliban Khan, who isn't your heaviest-duty thinker, maybe not even among the top five... , leader of the Pakistain Tehrek-e-Insaaf (PTI) party that rules in northwestern Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa ... formerly NWFP, still Terrorism Central... province, said the strike had "sabotaged" peace talks and showed the US did not want peace in Pakistain. The PTI said it would call an emergency session of the provincial assembly to block NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. It's headquartered in Belgium. That sez it all.... supply convoys transiting Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa on their way to Afghanistan. Pakistain blocked all NATO supply routes through its territory for seven months in 2012 in protest at a botched US air raid that killed 24 soldiers. For the United States, Mehsud's death will represent a success for the CIA's drone programme at a time when it is under intense scrutiny over civilian casualties. But the killing has prompted fears of TTP reprisals, as happened after the death of founder Baitullah Mehsud in 2009. The TTP has risen to become arguably the biggest security threat facing Pakistain. It was behind the 2008 bombing of the Islamabad Marriott hotel and the attempt to kill schoolgirl activist Malala Yousafzai last year. The TTP also claimed the 2010 Times Square bomb plot after training Pak-American Faisal Shahzad. Posted by: Fred 2013-11-04 |
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