AntiWar.com & Reuters & The Daily Times – 2011-07-01 00:13:37
US Rejects Pakistani Demand to Leave Air Base
Jason Ditz / AntiWar.com
(June 30, 2011) — Fresh off of the public demand by Pakistani Defense Minister Chaudhry Mukhar that the United States must immediately vacate the Shamsi Air Base, a small airfield in Pakistani Balochistan which the US has been using for drone attacks, the Obama Administration has officially rejected the demand.
The consequences of this unprecedented stance remain to be seen, but US officials insist that Shamsi is not being vacated, nor will it be vacated, and that the US will rather continue to use the base. If they assume that the Pakistani government will simply let the matter drop or not, they seem intent on occupying the base outside of the Zardari government’s consent.
Pakistani Air Force officials say that the military has already informed the US personnel operating at the base that no security will be provided to them, though the district’s MP insists that there has been no local indication of removal since the government first broached the subject nearly two months ago.
The Shamsi air base has been the source of CIA drone strikes across Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas and the demand to vacate the base comes amid repeatedly Pakistani demands to stop unilateral drone strikes, which the US has repeatedly refused to do. Other Pakistani military officials say two bases were originally given over to the US, and that the US had already vacated the Jacobabad base some time ago.
US Rejects Demands to Vacate Pakistan Drone Base
Reuters
ISLAMABAD (June 30, 2011) — The United States is rejecting demands from Pakistani officials that American personnel abandon a military base used by the CIA to stage drone strikes against suspected militants, US officials told Reuters.
US personnel have not left the remote Pakistani military installation known as Shamsi Air Base and there is no plan for them to do so, said a US official familiar with the matter, who asked for anonymity to discuss sensitive material.
“That base is neither vacated nor being vacated,” the official said. The information was confirmed by a second US official.
The US declaration that drone operations in Pakistan will continue unabated is the latest twist in a fraught relationship between security authorities in Washington and Islamabad, which has been under increasing strain for months.
Regarding the Shamsi base in particular, Pakistani officials have frequently suggested it is being shuttered, comments that may be aimed at quieting domestic opposition to US military operations using Pakistani soil.
Earlier this week, Pakistani Defense Minister Ahmed Mukhtar told the Financial Times that Pakistan had already stopped US drone operations there.
On Thursday, Mukhtar told Reuters: “When they (US forces) will not operate from there, no drone attacks will be carried out.”
He said Islamabad had been pressuring the US to vacate the base even before the May 2 commando raid in which US Navy SEAL commandos killed Osama bin Laden. After the raid, Mukhtar said, “We told them again.”
A senior Pakistani military official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, added that when US forces first launched counter-terrorism operations in Afghanistan, Pakistan “provided Americans two bases in Jacobabad and Shamsi. Jacobabad base has been vacated for long time ago, but Shamsi is still with them.”
“They are vacating it,” the official insisted. “Shamsi base was for logistic purpose. They also used it for drones for some time but no drones have been flown from there.”
DIFFERENT STORIES
The official said no base in Pakistan was presently used by the Americans for drone operations. But he did not give a precise date for when drones supposedly stopped operating from Shamsi.
The US officials disputed that account. If anything, the Obama administration is moving to a counter-terrorism strategy based more on drone strikes and other covert operations than on deploying large numbers of troops.
On Wednesday, John Brennan, president Barack Obama’s top counter-terrorism advisor, promised that in the tribal regions along the Afghan/Pakistan border, the US would continue to “deliver precise and overwhelming force against al Qaeda.”
“And when necessary, as the President has said repeatedly, if we have information about the whereabouts of al Qaeda, we will do what is required to protect the United States — as we did with bin Laden,” Brennan said in a speech.
Pakistani officials have faced fierce criticism for tacitly allowing the CIA to conduct drone operations on Pakistani soil. Allegations that civilian bystanders have been killed in drone attacks have only compounded the political problems facing Pakistani authorities.
Brennan rejected suggestions that US drone attacks had caused numerous civilian casualties, claiming that the US had been “exceptionally precise and surgical” in its operations. “Not a single collateral death” had been caused by US counter-terrorism operations over the last year, he said.
US officials have said that since the United States in July 2008 greatly increased the rate of drone-borne missile strikes against suspected militants along the Afghan/Pakistan border, the number of civilian deaths caused by such attacks has totaled under 40. Some Pakistani officials and human rights activists have claimed the death toll is much higher.
(Additional reporting by Sanjeev Miglani and Chris Allbritton; Editing by Warren Strobel and Anthony Boadle)
Pakistan Tells US to Leave ‘Drone’ Air Base
The Daily Times
RAWALPINDI (June 30, 2011) — Defense Minister Chaudhry Ahmed Mukhtar said on Wednesday that Pakistan has told the United States to leave “drone” airbase.
“We have told them (the US officials) to leave the Shamsi airbase,” said the minister while talking to journalists at his office. He said the trust between the US and Pakistan had reduced to a great extent after the May 2 incident. “This mistrust could be reduced by sitting together and taking joint actions.” The minister pointed out that the Coalition Support Fund (CSF) had stopped its funding for the war on terror being fought in FATA that had been harming the country’s economy.
He said there was no need to change the military leadership against the backdrop of the Abbottabad incident. “The Inter-Services Intelligence’s director general had presented himself before parliament and offered resignation, but it reposed confidence into him,” he added.
Mukhtar said Pakistan’s nuclear assets were “safe” and were being “well maintained.” About the Pak-Russia defence cooperation, he said, it would depend on the results of forthcoming presidential elections in Russia.
