US Drone Attacks Killed 700 Civilians [Last Year], Officials Say

[Flaneur]

http://www.thenational.ae/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100104/GLOBALBRIEFING/100109919/1009/NEWS?template=globalbriefing

In 2009, 44 predator strikes carried out by the CIA in the tribal areas of Pakistan struck only five of their intended al Qa'eda and Taliban targets, but more than 700 innocent civilians also died, according to Pakistani authorities. A senior Taliban commander said a suicide bomb attack that killed seven CIA operatives in Afghanistan last week was an act of retaliation against the US drone attacks.

Pakistan's Dawn newspaper reported: "According to the statistics compiled by Pakistani authorities, the Afghanistan-based US drones killed 708 people in 44 predator attacks targeting the tribal areas between January 1 and December 31, 2009.

"For each al Qa'eda and Taliban terrorist killed by US drones, 140 innocent Pakistanis also had to die. Over 90 per cent of those killed in the deadly missile strikes were civilians, claim authorities."

The Wall Street Journal said: "A senior commander connected to the Afghan Taliban and involved with the attack against the CIA that left eight people dead said on Saturday that the bombing was retaliation for US drone strikes in the Afghan-Pakistan border region.

" 'We attacked this base because the team there was organising drone strikes in Loya Paktia and surrounding area,' the commander said, referring to the area around Khost, the city where the US facility was attacked. The commander, a prominent member of the Afghan insurgency, spoke on the condition of anonymity.

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more at link

[Flaneur]

1. I thought this would have gotten some attention here. Guess I was wrong.

[ConcernedCanuk]

2. Killing civilians is SO old news when it comes to the USA's War Machine

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and we wonder why the East hates the West

:freak:

[tekisui]

3. It was posted earlier:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x7390958

[indepat]

4. Make to mistake: the vast majority of people in this country would consider drone strikes launched

by some foreigner and killing civilians on our soil to be acts of terrorism or maybe acts of war a la the Japanese sneak attack on Pearl Harbor, or have I got it all wrong? :P