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“No evidence of U.S. drone crash”

ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan military has not yet found any evidence of a U.S. unmanned drone aircraft crashing in the tribal areas bordering Afghanistan on Saturday, said an official.

Reports said a drone aircraft, commonly used by the U.S. for carrying out missile strikes in the tribal areas had crashed on Saturday morning in the Angor Adda area of South Waziristan.

Some reports said the pilotless plane had been shot down by Taliban militants.

But military spokesman Major-General Athar Abbas said security forces searching the area had not come across any wreckage or any other evidence of a crash yet.

“We are yet to confirm the reports,” he said. “We have not been able to locate anything in the area indicated by the reports.”

Missile-carrying U.S. drones have frequently targeted tribal areas, and despite official protests by Pakistan at the transgression into its air space and sovereignty, it is now widely held that they do so with the knowledge and complicity of the government and military.

It was another violent day in the North-West Frontier Province, with at least 10 people, including seven policemen, killed in two separate bomb attacks.

The policemen were killed when a bomb went off in a car in Peshawar, the provincial capital.

An unknown caller had informed them that a body was lying in a parked car, and they went to inspect it.

There was a body inside the car, and the bomb went off as the policemen were bringing it out.

Another bomb killed three civilians in Darra Adam Khel and wounded four security personnel, while a suicide bomber killed four people in a mosque in the Khyber tribal area.

PTI reports:

Pakistan and China on Saturday signed an agreement for the serial production of 42 JF-17 Thunder jet fighters, which are expected to form the backbone of the Pakistani aerial combat fleet in coming years.

Air Chief Marshal Tanvir Mahmood, chief of the Pakistan Air Force, said the first squadron of JF-17s would be inducted into his force this year.

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