Tehreek-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP) leader Hakimullah Mehsud has been “confirmed” killed by US drones so many times it’s become a recurring joke. However the tenth (or by some counts eleventh) time may have been the charm, as unnamed Pakistani Taliban sources reportedly confirmed his death in today’s attack, which killed at least 25 people in Dandy Darpa Khel.
Pakistan’s Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan condemned the attack, saying it was a US effort to “sabotage” the peace process with the Pakistani Taliban.
Key political Imran Khan also criticized the attack as a direct attack on the peace process, and promised to push forward anti-drone resolutions in parliament.
Incredibly, Pakistani spies were quoted as saying Hakimullah’s funeral is scheduled for 3 pm Saturday. Given the Obama Administration’s penchant for attacking major funerals in the tribal areas, that may set the stage for even more deaths tomorrow.
If he is indeed dead, I feel so much safer. I'm sure he was in the process of mobilizing his vast military and was about to attack us. God, I'm sick of this sh*t.
The most exhaustive studies of drone strikes in Pakistan were conducted by The London Bureau of Investigative Journalism and the Brookings Institute in 2009. The Brookings study found that 90% of drone strike victims that year in Pakistan were civilian non combatants. The Bureau of Investigative Journalism found 95% of Pakistan drone victims were civilian.
I wonder how many Americans would support drone strikes if they were told that 95% of the victims would be innocent civilians?
I'd like to know how many of the 25 who were slaughtered were also innocents. Not to mention how this latest attack will further harm relations with Pakistan.
They obviously killed Meshud, when he was in a crowd. Based on past studies we can estimate 90 to 95% of those killed were civilian non combatants.
I meant to write "The Bureau of Investigative Journalism", London Office.
The Pakistani Che………. Dead at 34………
Yeah, I feel much safer, now I can walk through an airport, send my kids to school, go to a movie theater without worrying that some Pakistani Taliban living six thousand four hundred miles away is going to shoot up the place with an assault rifle.