London: The US deployment of unmanned planes in Pakistan has killed thousands of people, a majority of them civilians, a think tank says.
Since 2004, the US has carried out close to 250 unsanctioned drone attacks that killed over 2,000 people, most of them civilians, according to the Conflict Monitoring Center, an Islamabad-based think tank.
“The assessment that we have from the people directly affected in the tribal areas is that 80 percent of these casualties are innocent people, and that only 20 percent of those are wanted,” said Rustam Shah Mohmand, former Pakistani ambassador for Afghanistan.
The US conducted a record 124 drone attacks in the tribal areas of Pakistan in 2010, more than double the number in 2009.
The assaults killed 1,184 people in 2010, compared to 2009’s 760 in 53 attacks. Most of the attacks took place in the North Waziristan tribal area — a hotbed of Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan and Al-Qaeda-linked militants.
Though Washington at times has claimed it has an agreement with Islamabad about such attacks, the Pakistani authorities insist there has never been such a deal and that they view the strikes as repeated violation of the country’s sovereignty. The missile strikes have proven “counterproductive” as large numbers of outraged residents of the border areas are beginning to support the militants, say Pakistani officials.
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