Islamabad: United States military personnel have left Shamsi Airbase in Pakistan’s Balochistan Province, a senior Pakistani intelligence official told CNN on Friday.
The airbase is central to command drone activity as they take off and refuel for operations against militants, according to CNN.
The development comes amid a public furor over drone strikes which have killed a large number of civilians in the northwest region of Pakistan.
A suspected US drone strike in Pakistan tribal region killed 25 people on Friday and on March 17 attack, 44 people out of which were mostly civilians in a another strike.
A US military official who did not want to show his identity told CNN, “There are no US forces at Shamsi Air Base in Balochistan.” He did not respond at the time or writing to queries as to whether US personnel had been based there in the past.
The departure of American personnel, if confirmed, would be significant because the development has emerged at a time of increased strain between Islamabad and Washington, sparked by the continuing drone attacks and by Raymond Davis affair, in which a CIA contractor killed two Pakistanis in Lahore on January 27.
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