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U.S. drones a thorny issue

ISLAMABAD: U.S. Special Representative Richard C. Holbrooke is arriving here on Monday.

Mr. Holbrooke is arriving on his second visit to this country, which seems to have descended further into the hands of militants since his first time here in February.

The Taliban has virtually legitimised itself as the rulers of Swat Valley thanks to a peace agreement between the NWFP government and a Taliban-associated group called the Tehrik-e-Nifas-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi.

The extent of their grip was evident in a mobile phone video that surfaced three days ago showing the Taliban lashing a young girl in public for the alleged crime of being seen with her father-in-law. The video has shaken Pakistan, bringing home in the most chilling way possible the dangers of doing peace agreements with militants.

Taliban presence in other parts of the country was confirmed when the south Waziristan warlord Beithullah Mehsud claimed responsibility for a militant siege of a police training school on the outskirts of Lahore, within a month of a terror attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team there.

A suicide attack in a posh area of the capital on Saturday that killed eight people, including six paramilitaries and two civilians, showed that despite taking several new security measures, the government has not been able to guarantee safety even in the most well guarded places in the country.

Meanwhile, Pakistan is also walking a tightrope between keeping the U.S. pleased and satisfying nationalist sentiment at home on the issue of drone attacks in the tribal areas.

The demand that the drone attacks must stop have increased after Beithullah Mehsud said the attack on the Lahore police school was in retaliation for the American drone attacks, which have of late also begun targeting him.

A drone attack in the North Waziristan area of Datakhel on Saturday killed 13 people, and was followed within hours by a suicide attack on a checkpoint that killed another dozen people including five children.

Though the belief is widespread among Pakistanis that the government and military have done a deal with the U.S. allowing it to carry out these strikes, Pakistan has said it intends to raise the issue with Mr. Holbrooke, as according to it, it is making the task of battling terrorism increasingly more difficult.

“On drone attacks our position is very clear. They are a violation of our sovereignty and secondly they are counterproductive. They are not helpful in our efforts to win hearts and minds. So, we cannot accept drone attacks,” said Foreign Ministry spokesman Abdul Basit last week.

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