Pakistan has called a stop to US drone flights from a base that has launched strikes against Taliban and al-Qaeda militants on its border with Afghanistan.
In the latest sign of US-Pakistan tensions, Chaudhary Ahmed Mukhtar, defence minister, said on Wednesday that Islamabad had ended US operations at the Shamsi airbase in Baluchistan. The move comes after a surge of anti-American feeling in the wake of the killing of Osama bin Laden last month in a US raid on Abbottabad, a Pakistani hill station.
The Shamsi base, about 300km from Quetta and close to the Afghan border, has been used to launch drone strikes on militants – part of a campaign the US says has wiped out about half of al-Qaeda’s leadership.
“No US flights are taking place from Shamsi any longer. If there have to be flights from this base, it will only be Pakistani flights,” Mr Mukhtar told the Financial Times. “We have ended all US flights from the base.”
Separately, a senior Pakistani government official said the US had been told to remove infrastructure from the airbase. But he claimed that drone attacks had not taken place since 2009.
“The US has been told to remove all of its belongings [from Shamsi],” the official said.
The White House, which refuses officially to acknowledge that it carries out drone strikes in Pakistan, declined to comment.
Drone strikes are deeply unpopular in Pakistan and domestic political pressure has mounted over them since Barack Obama, US president, came to office. He has increased the strike campaign even as it has become more widely known that the drones take off from CIA bases on Pakistani territory – with Islamabad’s tacit acceptance.
Mr Obama said on Wednesday that the US would carry out its troop drawdown from Afghanistan in a way that would allow it “to continue to put pressure on al-Qaeda until that network is entirely defeated”.
Some US officials acknowledge that Pakistan might shut down all the CIA drone bases on its territory. This is part of the reason why Washington is set to retain bases in Afghanistan, which could serve as an alternative for launching drone strikes.
The curtailment of US operations in Pakistan comes as US officials say that rebuilding intelligence and military contacts with Islamabad is their top priority.
The US raid that killed bin Laden, launched from Afghanistan, is viewed as the Pakistan military’s worst humiliation since the loss of East Pakistan and the creation of Bangladesh in a war in 1971.
Pakistan’s army has been wounded by its failure to detect the US helicopter-borne raid and Washington’s decision not to share intelligence about bin Laden’s whereabouts with Pakistani counterparts.
The incident laid bare the lack of trust between the intelligence agencies and military of the US and Pakistan in spite of their alliance in the fight against militants holed up on the Afghan border.
In the weeks that have followed Islamabad has sought to scale down the presence of foreign troops on its soil as fears of a repeat strikes by foreign forces have circulated.
Earlier this week, a team of British military trainers were expelled from the country. The UK’s Ministry of Defence said that 18 trainers, deployed to support Pakistan’s Frontier Corps, had left the country.
Pakistan had earlier expelled about 120 US trainers.
Their exit was a setback to US efforts to forge closer ties on the ground with Pakistan’s main army units deployed to fight Islamist extremists.
In the latest sign of US-Pakistan tensions, Chaudhary Ahmed Mukhtar, defence minister, said on Wednesday that Islamabad had ended US operations at the Shamsi airbase in Baluchistan. The move comes after a surge of anti-American feeling in the wake of the killing of Osama bin Laden last month in a US raid on Abbottabad, a Pakistani hill station.
The Shamsi base, about 300km from Quetta and close to the Afghan border, has been used to launch drone strikes on militants – part of a campaign the US says has wiped out about half of al-Qaeda’s leadership.
“No US flights are taking place from Shamsi any longer. If there have to be flights from this base, it will only be Pakistani flights,” Mr Mukhtar told the Financial Times. “We have ended all US flights from the base.”
Separately, a senior Pakistani government official said the US had been told to remove infrastructure from the airbase. But he claimed that drone attacks had not taken place since 2009.
“The US has been told to remove all of its belongings [from Shamsi],” the official said.
The White House, which refuses officially to acknowledge that it carries out drone strikes in Pakistan, declined to comment.
Drone strikes are deeply unpopular in Pakistan and domestic political pressure has mounted over them since Barack Obama, US president, came to office. He has increased the strike campaign even as it has become more widely known that the drones take off from CIA bases on Pakistani territory – with Islamabad’s tacit acceptance.
Mr Obama said on Wednesday that the US would carry out its troop drawdown from Afghanistan in a way that would allow it “to continue to put pressure on al-Qaeda until that network is entirely defeated”.
Some US officials acknowledge that Pakistan might shut down all the CIA drone bases on its territory. This is part of the reason why Washington is set to retain bases in Afghanistan, which could serve as an alternative for launching drone strikes.
The curtailment of US operations in Pakistan comes as US officials say that rebuilding intelligence and military contacts with Islamabad is their top priority.
The US raid that killed bin Laden, launched from Afghanistan, is viewed as the Pakistan military’s worst humiliation since the loss of East Pakistan and the creation of Bangladesh in a war in 1971.
Pakistan’s army has been wounded by its failure to detect the US helicopter-borne raid and Washington’s decision not to share intelligence about bin Laden’s whereabouts with Pakistani counterparts.
The incident laid bare the lack of trust between the intelligence agencies and military of the US and Pakistan in spite of their alliance in the fight against militants holed up on the Afghan border.
In the weeks that have followed Islamabad has sought to scale down the presence of foreign troops on its soil as fears of a repeat strikes by foreign forces have circulated.
Earlier this week, a team of British military trainers were expelled from the country. The UK’s Ministry of Defence said that 18 trainers, deployed to support Pakistan’s Frontier Corps, had left the country.
Pakistan had earlier expelled about 120 US trainers.
Their exit was a setback to US efforts to forge closer ties on the ground with Pakistan’s main army units deployed to fight Islamist extremists.