Pakistan gov't responsible for killing own people in tribal areas
IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency
Islamabad, Feb 14, IRNA -- Political analyst and a senior scholar Dr. Shireen M. Mazari on Saturday held the government responsible for killing its own people in tribal areas bordering Afghanistan.
Talking to IRNA, she said the statement of the US Senate Intelligence Committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein about the existence of US drone bases in Pakistan must be based on some facts which cannot be ruled out.
Senator Dianne Feinstein has disclosed that unmanned Predator aircraft striking terrorist targets in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) are flown from an airbase inside Pakistan.
At a hearing, Feinstein expressed surprise at Pakistani opposition to the ongoing campaign of Predator-launched missile strikes. "As I understand it, these are flown out of a Pakistani base," she said.
A spokesman for Feinstein said her comment was based solely on previous news reports that Predators were operated from bases near Islamabad.
Dr Shireen M. Mazari alleged that the government of Pakistan has failed to stop Americans from carrying out drones' strikes on its soil.
She contended that the statement of the US Senator reveals that Pakistani government is complicit in killings its own people.
To a question, Dr. Shireen M. Mazari replied that people of Pakistan feel disgusted the way the US is behaving towards them but she added the problem is the attitude of the Pakistani government who had been lying to their citizens. "The credibility of the government is zero", she said.
To another question she said that the US had never trusted Pakistan and Americans are doing exactly what they want.
Dr. Shireen M. Mazari added that Pakistan government thought that the US would stop such kind of attacks after the take over of new administration.
Pakistani officials have long denied that they ever granted the United States permission to fly the Predator planes over Pakistani territory, let alone to operate the aircraft from within the country.
Shireen M. Mazari is a scholar and commentator on Strategic Studies and Political Science from Pakistan. She was director general of Institute of Strategic Studies, a research think-tank based in Islamabad, Pakistan.
She received her B.Sc (Honors) from the London School of Economics and Political Science and a Ph.D in Political Science from Columbia University.
She joined Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, a political party, on November 25, 2008.
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End News / IRNA / News Code 354555
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