British and Pakistani journalists said Sunday that the C.I.A.’s drone strikes on suspected militants in Pakistan have repeatedly targeted rescuers who responded to the scene of a strike, as well as mourners at subsequent funerals. - The report, by the London-based Bureau of Investigative Journalism, found that at least 50 civilians had been killed in follow-up strikes after they rushed to help those hit by a drone-fired missile. The bureau counted more than 20 other civilians killed in strikes on funerals. The findings were published on the bureau’s Web site and in The Sunday Times of London. The bureau’s findings are based on interviews with witnesses to strikes in Pakistan’s rugged tribal area, where reporting is often dangerous and difficult. American officials have questioned the accuracy of such claims, asserting that accounts might be concocted by militants or falsely confirmed by residents who fear retaliation.

AWIP: U.S. drones targeting rescuers and mourners

On December 30 of last year, ABC News reported on a 16-year-old Pakistani boy, Tariq Khan, who was killed with his 12-year-old cousin when a car in which he was riding was hit with a missile fired by a U.S. drone.

As I noted at the time, the report contained this extraordinary passage buried in the middle:

Asked for documentation of Tariq and Waheed’s deaths, Akbar did not provide pictures of the missile strike scene. Virtually none exist, since drones often target people who show up at the scene of an attack.

What made that sentence so amazing was that it basically amounts to a report that the U.S. first kills people with drones, then fires on the rescuers and others who arrive at the scene where the new corpses and injured victims lie. In a just-released, richly documented report, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, on behalf of the Sunday Times, documents that this is exactly what the U.S. is doing — and worse:

The CIA’s drone campaign in Pakistan has killed dozens of civilians who had gone to help rescue victims or were attending funerals, an investigation by the Bureau for the Sunday Times has revealed. The findings are published just days after President Obama claimed that the drone campaign in Pakistan was a “targeted, focused effort” that “has not caused a huge number of civilian casualties”.

Patrick Martin: CIA drones target rescue workers, mourners - The atrocities being committed in the drone missile strikes are not an aberration, but rather demonstrate the essence of the US intervention in Afghanistan and Pakistan, now in its eleventh year. - A report by the London-based Bureau of Investigative Journalism (BIJ) has found that the US Central Intelligence Agency deliberately attacked rescue workers and funeral processions in follow-up strikes after drone missile attacks on insurgents in Pakistan’s tribal areas. The findings were made public on the group’s web site and published by the Sunday Times of London. According to the organization, which includes British and Pakistani journalists, at least 50 civilians were killed in follow-up strikes while they were attempting to help victims of an initial CIA drone attack. Dozens more were killed by missile strikes against the funerals of victims of drone attacks. Overall, the group found that “since Obama took office three years ago, between 282 and 535 civilians have been credibly reported as killed, including more than 60 children.” Pakistani officials and humanitarian aid workers have reported much higher figures for the death toll in Pakistan’s tribal areas, as many as several thousand.

'Israeli attack will prompt Pakistani response' - European diplomat based in Islamabad says Israeli strike would force Pakistan to support Iranian retaliation, while EU official says 'political and economic consequences of attack would be catastrophic for Europe'. After US Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta estimated that Israel would attack Iran by June, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned government officials against "Iran chatter," A European diplomat based in Pakistan said that if Israel attacks, Islamabad will have no choice but to support any Iranian retaliation.

Kurt Nimmo: Diplomat Says Pakistan Will Retaliate if Israel Attacks Iran

Pakistan dismissed claims made in a classified NATO report that it is aiding Taliban guerrillas in neighboring Afghanistan, a study that also said the militants may again take power in Kabul once foreign troops leave in 2014. - “For me this is old wine in an even older bottle,” Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar said at a press conference in Kabul today. “I don’t think these claims are new. I can just disregard this as potentially strategic leak.” A report by senior NATO officers in Afghanistan says the Taliban are unbeaten and “its strength, motivation, funding and tactical proficiency remain intact,” the London-based Times said today. The report, entitled “State of the Taliban,” was based on 27,000 interviews with detainees and has been reviewed by the newspaper, according to the Times.

President Barack Obama readily confirmed the drone war in northwest Pakistan in an interview Monday, breaking with the protocol which normally demands U.S. officials not speak publicly about the classified program.

“I want to make sure people understand actually drones have not caused a huge number of civilian casualties,” President Obama said in an hour long interview hosted by Google. “For the most part, they’ve been very precise, precision strikes against against al-Qaeda and their affiliates.” The claim mirrors previous attempts to downplay the civilian casualties of the drone war. John Brennan, President Obama’s counter-terrorism advisor, told the public back in June that zero civilian casualties have occurred as a result of U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan. This was an obvious lie, but the Bureau of Investigative Journalism helped prove it so in August by cataloguing their lengthy findings on civilian casualties in the drone war, counting hundreds of civilians by name who were killed in drone strikes, including at least 168 children. Investigative reporter Noor Behram, who had been on the ground in Pakistan tallying the dead, estimated that “for every 10 to 15 people killed, maybe they get one militant.” A Washington Post report [has] said that the drone war in Pakistan has resulted “in an estimated 1,350 to 2,250 deaths.” But the public simply doesn’t have a good idea of how many have been killed, because “the identities…remain classified, as does the existence of the drone program itself.” [Image: Associated Press]

BIJ: Drone War Exposed – the complete picture of CIA strikes in Pakistan

At least five people have been killed in two strikes carried out by a US assassination drone in the Pakistani tribal area of North Waziristan, Press TV, reports. - Security officials said on Monday that the American drone targeted a vehicle and a house with two missiles, killing five people at Degan village near Miranshah, the main town of North Waziristan on the Afghan border. The death toll is expected to rise, and the rescue operation is underway in the area, local residents say. The US resumed its assassination drone operations in recent days after it halted the CIA-operated strikes in November 2011, when 24 Pakistani soldiers were killed in NATO attacks on two Pakistani military border checkpoints in Mohmand agency.

Norway's head of intelligence Janne Kristiansen has handed in her resignation because she said too much during a parliamentary hearing. - Justice Minister Grete Faremo told reporters that a "potential breach of confidentiality is a very serious matter". According to a transcript, Ms Kristiansen told the hearing that Norway had agents working in Pakistan. Reports say Pakistan has asked Norway to explain her remarks. Ms Kristiansen resigned late on Wednesday night after meeting the justice minister. A ministry spokesman told the BBC News website that the Norwegian Police Security Service (PST) chief had "drawn her own conclusions".

The Washington Post: Head of Norway’s intelligence service resigns after disclosure gaffe
Montreal Gazette: Norway security chief quits in Pakistan agents row
The Foreigner: Norway PST director resigns

Just one day after reports began trickling out that the US was close to a deal with the Zardari government to resume their drone strikes against the tribal areas, the first drone attack in nearly two months was launched, killing four and injuring several others. - US officials declined to comment publicly, saying that the attack was “classified,” but reports are that it was “probably” a CIA strike. The US stopped all attacks in late November after a US warplane attacked two military bases in Pakistan, killing 24 soldiers. In December it was even reported that the Pakistani military was planning to shoot down future US drones invading the country’s airspace, though this threat apparently was an empty one, as there is no indication any such attempt was made. As usual, the identities of the victims are entirely unknown, as is the reason for the strike. We can expect a future comment from Pakistani officials to term the slain “suspects,” but in all likelihood their identities will never be made public.

Reports coming out of the Express Tribune say that the United States is close to finalizing a secret deal with the Zardari government which would allow them to resume drone strikes against Pakistan's tribal areas, but under new conditions. Under the deal, the U.S. would resume the strikes but launch them less frequently, with officials saying that the frequency of the strikes was a big source of public opposition. The U.S. halted all strikes after they attacked a Pakistani military base in November, killing 24 soldiers. U.S. officials have touted the strikes as a key part of their overall strategy, and a recent study revealed that they launched 75 attacks in 2011, killing 609 people. The vast majority of the victims were never identified publicly, but only three were ever confirmed to be al-Qaeda “commanders.”

Jason Ditz: Report: US Likely to Resume Pakistan Drone Strikes Soon

She has eyelashes but no eyebrows. She has all her fingers but is missing four nails. Her skin is so taut now that she can no longer frown. But she can still smile. Her face tells a story of suffering. Her name, Shakira, tells a story of a new journey. Shakira means thankful. Last week, 4-year-old Shakira arrived in the United States for what her caretaker, Hashmat Effendi, hopes will be the start of the rest of her life. Shakira, believed burned in a U.S. drone strike in Pakistan, will undergo reconstructive surgery in January. She will never look fully normal, but Effendi hopes the surgery will make it easier for Shakira to grow older and help others see what Effendi has seen all along: an effervescent bundle of love.

A group of fuel tankers contracted to NATO forces in Afghanistan were set on fire by armed militants on motorcycles who ambushed the convoy in southwest Pakistan, officials said. - The gunmen opened fire on the trucks, killing one driver and forcing the others to stop in an area 90 kilometers (55 miles) southwest of Quetta, the capital of Balochistan province, police official Abdul Qadir said. The eight trucks were then set alight. Fuel tankers, which normally would supply NATO forces in Afghanistan, have been left stranded in Pakistan and vulnerable to militant attack ever since the Pakistani government closed the border to NATO supply vehicles. Sunday's attack was the second of its kind in four days. Pakistan closed the routes to protest a NATO airstrike that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers last month, an attack that plunged Islamabad and Washington into one of their worst diplomatic crises ever. Pakistan's Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani has said the blockade of Pakistan's NATO supply routes will continue for weeks until "new rules of engagement" are established with Washington.

The Pakistani military are under orders to take down any UAV they locate in the country’s air space. So far, the only drones making incursions into Pakistani skies have been US Predators used to attack Taliban insurgents. - In a speech to troops on the border, Pakistan’s Chief General Ashfaq Pervez Kiani told them to use all means at their disposal to give a “shattering answer” to any aggression – whatever the price or consequences. For his part, the Commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan, American General John R. Allen, said he did not rule out the possibility of a repeat of last month’s NATO strike on Pakistani soldiers.

Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari has traveled to Dubai after falling ill, fuelling rumors Wednesday of his possible resignation. - Close associates of the president told the Associated Press he is currently "unwell," but did not provide specifics. His condition did not appear to be life-threatening, they said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue. Zardari's office said he was undergoing routine medical tests and a check-up "as planned." However, Reuters cited a source in Dubai as saying that Zardari had suffered a minor heart attack. "Two days ago, he had chest pain," the source added. Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani's office released a statement saying Zardari "went to Dubai following symptoms related to his pre-existing heart condition." The president's spokesman denied a media report that the trip meant Zardari, who has been under pressure from a memo scandal that forced the Pakistani ambassador to the U.S. to resign, would cite failing health as a pretext to step down.

The Guardian: Pakistan president Zardari in Dubai for treatment as coup rumours intensify
BBC: Pakistan's Zardari in hospital 'for heart condition'
Reuters: Pakistan president's 'chest pain' sparks rumors

Islamabad: Pakistan will review all its agreements with the US and the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) in the aftermath of the November 26 airstrike that left two dozen Pakistan Army soldiers dead, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani has said. - Mr Gilani said in Lahore on Sunday that the government had decided to review the agreements made by the then President Pervez Musharraf's government with the US, NATO, United Nations (UN) and the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), reported Dawn. The NATO airstrike on two checkposts in Mohmad Agency late last month left 24 Pakistan Army soldiers dead, sparking outrage in the country. Islamabad promptly stopped NATO supply through the country.

Jason Ditz: US Begins Pullout From Pakistan’s Shamsi Airbase
Daily Mail: US forced to leave Pakistan base as relations reach new low after attack that killed 24

Days after a NATO airstrike killed two dozen Pakistani soldiers amid worsening tensions between Islamabad and Washington, the White House says that President Obama does not plan to offer an apology for the executions. - There will be no “oops.” There won't be any “whoopsy daisy.” According to the officials within the administration, apologizes offered already — but not from Obama himself — will have to suffice for now. “The US government has offered its deepest condolences for the loss of life, from the White House and from Secretary Clinton and Secretary Panetta,” Tommy Vietor, spokesman for the National Security Council said Wednesday, “and we are conducting an investigation into the incident.” Vietor added that no further comments will be issued until the full details of the weekend’s events come to light, reports the New York Times. With Obama’s approval rate slumping into some of its lowest numbers to date so soon before Election Day, an acknowledgment of the attack out of the Oval Office — if any — could be as far away as post-November 2012, lest the commander-in-chief wants to align himself as a president that projects his support towards a country unfavorable with many conservatives.

COAS General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani has suspended 'chain of command' system to counter any aggression. - Sources said the Army Chief has suspended the chain of command system in order to enable the senior officers on the posts to take appropriate action in case Pakistani forces come under attack. Sources said that decision would however be applicable to eventualities involving Nato troops. Sources said that General Kayani has also ordered the troops to counter any aggression with full force and defend the motherland against any assailant. General Kayani has also said that the Pak Air Force should have taken action while Nato helicopters had violated the Pakistani airspace and attacked the Pakistani posts, sources said. In a letter written to the Armed Forces Chiefs, COAS Gen Kayani has said that the PAF jets must have dashed to the border area after the Nato attack. General Kayani has also observed that the communication of the attacked posts had snapped after the Nato attack. He said that now the senior officer on the ground would decide about counter measures.

Pakistan: US Attack on Base Lasted ‘Almost Two Hours’ as Calls to Stop Were Ignored
Pakistan orders US to leave airbase in row over deadly Nato assault
Nato helicopters 'kill Pakistan checkpoint soldiers'

Dunya News: Pakistan's Senate unanimously approves resolution against NATO attacks

Questions continue to grow over the Friday night US attack on a Pakistani military base today, with new reports coming out of Pakistan saying that the air attacks against the base lasted for almost two hours. - The Army statement says that the base repeatedly broadcast calls for a ceasefire over the course of the two hours and that those calls were repeatedly ignored, with the attack, carried out by warplanes and helicopters, killing 24 soldiers. Major General Athar Abbas, the Pakistani Army’s chief spokesman, termed the attack a “deliberate aggression” by NATO and angrily rejected the new claims that the Pakistani army had started it. “There was no fire from this direction,” Abbas insisted, challenging the claims on the basis that there were zero claims of any casualties on NATO’s side and no evidence that the people at the base, who were sleeping at the time, did anything to provoke the strikes.

Alex Lantier: Outrage spreads in Pakistan over NATO bombings

Pakistan orders US to leave airbase in row over deadly Nato assault - Islamabad says US must leave Shamsi base in 15 days after deaths of at least 24 Pakistani soldiers in mistaken attack.

Pakistan has given the US 15 days to vacate an airbase used as a key launchpad for drone strikes in Afghanistan in retaliation for a mistaken attack on a Pakistani border outpost that killed at least 24 soldiers and injured 13. American forces were told to leave the remote Shamsi airbase, secretly given over to the US after 9/11, following an emergency meeting of Pakistan's top civilian and military leadership late on Saturday. Pakistan has also blocked supply routes for US-led troops in Afghanistan. Shamsi was used heavily for launching the war in Afghanistan in late 2001, and later served as the base for the US drone programme. Set in sparsely populated desert in the western Baluchistan province, Shamsi is highly controversial within Pakistan for its association with drones, which Islamabad officially condemns.

The News Tribe: Protests across Pakistan against NATO attack
Sydney Morning Herald: CIA ordered by Pakistan to halt drone operations
Keith Jones: NATO raid kills two dozen Pakistani soldiers
The Independent: Pakistan cuts off Nato's supply line after 25 troops killed
Jason Ditz: Fury in Pakistan After NATO Attack Kills 28 Soldiers

Nato helicopters have fired on a military checkpost near Pakistan's Afghan border, killing up to eight soldiers. The unprovoked and indiscriminate attack took place in the Pakistani tribal region of Mohmand, the Pakistani military said in a statement. - In response, Pakistan has closed the border crossing for supplies bound for Nato forces in Afghanistan. Nato said it was aware of "an incident" near the border and was investigating. The alleged attack took place at the Salala checkpoint, about 1.5 miles (2.5 km) from the Afghan border, Reuters reports, at around 02:00 local time (21:00 GMT). If confirmed, the attack would further complicate US-Pakistan relations, already under strain following a unilateral US raid that killed Osama Bin Laden in Pakistan in May. Unnamed officials initially put the toll at up to eight, including an army major, but it has since risen. At least seven soldiers were wounded.

PressTV: Pakistan summons US envoy over raid
MSNBC: NATO chopppers kill up to 28 Pakistani troops
Russia Today: NATO helicopters fire on checkpoint, 25 killed

Pakistan has decided to take up the issue of strikes by the CIA-run unmanned aircraft in the country's tribal regions, which the government, rights groups and tribesmen said killed innocent people, reported local TV channel Dawn on Thursday. - The U.S. drones routinely fire missiles into Pakistani tribal regions which the American officials have claimed to be bases for the militants who launch cross-border attacks into Afghanistan. Pakistan repeatedly asks the Unites States to stop drone strikes but Americans have ruled out any change in the policy. The issue of drone attacks is one of the irritants in the bilateral relationship. After the U.S. refusal to halt the strikes, Pakistan has decided to approach the UN to seek its help to stop these attacks, which Pakistan insists is counter-productive in the war on terror. Dawn reported Pakistani government has started collecting data about the U.S. drone attacks and casualties.

Glenn Greenwald: What endless war looks like and how to get it [Salon]

FAISALABAD: Pakistan Muslim League-N President Nawaz Sharif Sunday accusing President Asif Ali Zardari of selling out country's sovereignty, said the present regime wanted to put Pakistan's army under the US control. - In his address to a public meeting at Dhobi Ghat where PML-N supporters turned up in a huge number, Nawaz Sharif said: "The letter written and sent to Mike Mullen with the help of Pakistan Ambassador in US Hussain Haqqani, sought to put Pakistan army under the US control". He reiterated the call for launching an investigation into the memogate scandal within a couple of days. The PML-N President warned that the inquiry be completed within 9 days or else his party would approach the Supreme Court. He asked as to what kind of government it was whose knees trembled when the US executed an armed operation in Abbottabad.

PressTV: Pakistanis stage anti-US rally in Lahore - VIDEO

Attack Brings Toll to 33 in the Past Three Days. - US drones attacked a house in the Ramzak area of North Waziristan today, killing at least eight “suspects” and wounding two others. The house attacked was said to have been completely destroyed in the attack. The identities of the slain was entirely unclear today, but all were termed “suspects” by local security officials. One uncomfirmed report had the slain including “foreigners” though other reports said all the slain were tribesmen. The attack comes just one day after an attack on a pair of homes in South Waziristan killed 18, and with seven more killed the day before the three day death toll is now at least 33.

Frontier Post Editorial: New US drone regime - Our people’s lives are very dear to us. Our tribal children are no less lovely than the American children. - The CIA’s new rules for its illegal and audacious drone attacks in Pakistan in reality represent no whittling down in its arrogant adventurism against a sovereign independent state, as has it projected to be by the American media. It just reflects an outcome of a heated inter-agency wrangling of America, specifically a triumph of sorts of US secretary of state Hillary Clinton’s doctrine of “smart power”. For furthering the US interests abroad, she has been pressing for lesser reliance on its brute power projection and more on diplomatic and development assistance initiatives, with the state department playing the central role in the entire gamut of America’s foreign domain. By using her immense stature, clout and status, she has already wrested a pivotal position for the state department in interacting with Iraq after the withdrawal of all the US troops by this year’s end. And the new CIA drone attack regime manifests she has secured a more decisive voice of her department in the conduct of the assaults as well.

At least seven people have been killed in the latest non-UN-sanctioned US assassination drone strike in the northwestern tribal belt of Pakistan near the border with Afghanistan, Press TV reported. - Local officials told Press TV that the US unmanned aircraft fired four missiles at a house in the remote Padam Shah village of Razmak area in the troubled North Waziristan district on Thursday. At least seven people were killed and several others were wounded in the aerial attack. The strike comes a day after 18 people were killed and several others were injured in a US assassination drone attack in Pakistan's South Waziristan. The US regularly carries out attacks by unmanned aircraft on Pakistan's tribal regions, claiming that the airstrikes target pro-Taliban militants. But locals say that civilians are the main victims of the non-UN-sanctioned strikes. The aerial attacks, initiated by former US President George W. Bush, have escalated under US President Barack Obama.

US drones attacked a house in the town of Miramshah in North Waziristan overnight, destroying the home and killing seven people inside. Two others were reported wounded in the attack, and are recovering at a nearby hospital. - The identities of the slain are unclear, but they were all termed “suspects” by officials. Some suggested they might be linked to the Tehreek-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP), though this would be unusual as the group is not generally active in North Waziristan. The attack comes as tribesmen are increasingly petitioning the Zardari government to do something about the constant drone strikes, and as the Tehreek-e Insaf (PTI), an opposition party led by Imran Khan, is organizing a general strike in the region to protest the lack of action against the attacks.

The crisis in relations between the US and Pakistan has deepened following the Pakistani army’s refusal to take action against the Haqqani network, a militant group based in the country’s northwest tribal areas that the Obama administration has blamed for a series of bold attacks against US-led occupation forces in Afghanistan. Tensions between the two countries have been running high since late September, when Admiral Mike Mullen, the outgoing Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, claimed that the Haqqani network serves as a “veritable arm” of Pakistan’s principal intelligence agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence agency or ISI. The continuing crisis in US-Pakistan relations stems from the strategic dilemma facing the Pakistani ruling elite. At Washington’s behest, Pakistan has waged a ruthless counterinsurgency operation against Taliban-aligned militants based in the Afghan border region, displacing over a million Pashtuns in the process. Pakistan remains the linchpin of the neo-colonial occupation of Afghanistan, but the Pakistani elite now fears its strategic and geopolitical interests are being undermined by an increasingly aggressive US.

NYT: For Our Allies, Death From Above

Cricket legend and opposition politician Imran Khan railed against the government and its alliance with the U.S. before more than 100,000 flag-waving supporters on Sunday, establishing himself as a force in Pakistani politics.

Khan, 58, entered politics 15 years ago when he founded Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, or the Movement for Justice Party, but up to now he has struggled to translate his fame into votes. The rally in the eastern city of Lahore indicated his message may have found new resonance at a time when Pakistanis are fed up with the country's chronic insecurity and economic malaise.

"I have come here to register my hatred against this corrupt system," said 29-year-old Nadeem Iqbal, who attended the rally.

A poll conducted by the U.S.-based Pew Research Center in June found Khan, the captain of Pakistan's 1992 world champion cricket team, to be the most popular political figure in the country. Khan's rising popularity could be a concern for the U.S., given his harsh criticism of the Pakistani government's co-operation with Washington in the fight against Islamist militants.

Jason Ditz: Massive Rally in Lahore: Imran Khan Leads Calls for Pakistan to End US Alliance

US assassination drone attacks on Pakistan's northwestern region have killed at least six people, Pakistani officials report. - According to the report, two US assassination drones fired six missiles at a vehicle in Tura Gula village of Azam Warsak area in South Waziristan on Thursday, Xinhua reported. The US has deployed its terror drones to launch airstrikes inside Pakistan's tribal belt. Relations between Islamabad and Washington have soured over the unauthorized attacks. Pakistan insists that the airstrikes by the remotely controlled, unmanned aircraft violate its sovereignty. Washington claims its drone strikes target militants, although casualty figures indicate that the aerial bombings have led to the loss of hundreds of Pakistani civilians.

Thousands of people have taken to the streets in the Pakistani city of Peshawar, protesting against US assassination drone attacks in Pakistan's tribal areas, Press TV reports. - The anti-US protests were instigated on Sunday when tribesmen gathered in Peshawar with the intent to express strong opposition to the killing of innocent people by US drone strikes in the country's tribal areas.

“The so-called war on terror has made us miserable. US drone attacks are sheer violation of our country's sovereignty,” tribal leader Zar Noor Afridi told Press TV on Sunday. “We demand an immediate end to drone attacks on our tribal areas,” he added.

The protesters also voiced their anger at the violation of their country's sovereignty by US assassination drone strikes and Washington's pressure on Pakistan to expand its military operations in the country's northwestern tribal regions near Afghan border. Despite repeated condemnation from the highest levels of the Pakistani government, there has been no let up in US drone attacks on the restive tribal regions of Pakistan.

[May 3, 2011] RT's military contributor, Colonel Evgeny Khrushchev, has pointed out that it took Obama two years to present his birth certificate. Now, it may take a lot longer to show Bin Laden's death certificate.

"It's great news, if that's true," Khrushchev said referring to the news of the assassination of Osama Bin Laden. "But it looks like a [highly] staged fairytale, first. And secondly, the United States hasn't proved that the White House has iron-clad, video-taped evidence regarding the operation and how his body was transferred to land-locked Afghanistan later, to be dumped at sea, with all those honors... [It] doesn't make any sense for me."

RT's military contributor believes the statement of the US officials that none of the countries wanted to take Bin Laden's body is a phony excuse.

"That was not the reason," Khrushchev said. "He was supposed to be brought for forensic [examination] back to the United States, because he was the main target of the ten-year-long manhunt." "It took Obama two years to [provide] his birth certificate. I don't know how many years or months, or maybe just hours, it will take the Obama administration to [provide] Osama's death certificate," Evgeny Khrushchev concluded.

For the last ten years, there have been multiple reports of Bin Laden's death, recalls Patrick Henningsen, a journalist and editor at the 21st Century Wire. Among those declaring Bin Laden's passing have been Pakistani politician Benazir Bhutto in 2007, US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright in 2003, and Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf in 2002. Henningsen does not expect photographs or videos to be released in this case. "At best we are going to get grainy videos of some kind of a raid. If we are lucky, we might see a photograph of a mutilated corpse," he says. Henningsen believes that this news signals that, in the long term, the US might move away from seeing the shadowy form of Al-Qaeda as its chief enemy in "the War on Terror", and refocus on nation state enemies, namely Libya, Syria and Iran.

"The administration in the US is going into a new election cycle in 2012. This announcement of Bin Laden's death achieved by Barack Obama is a great line for his resume as a wartime president. With poll numbers really down in the doldrums [for the] last two or three years, the US administration is suffering and this gives them some credence overseas. And also if the US chooses to engage in a new conflict like in Libya or in Iran over the next 12 months, this is going to help Obama, because American voters won't change leadership during a hard conflict," says Henningsen.

At least six people have been killed in the latest non-UN-sanctioned US drone strike in the northwestern tribal belt of Pakistan near the border with Afghanistan, Press TV reports. - The unmanned aircraft on Thursday fired two missiles in Dandey Darpakhel village, some seven kilometers north of Miranshah, the capital of the North Waziristan tribal district, AFP reported. The assault destroyed a compound leaving six people dead, local security officials said. The US regularly carries out attacks by unmanned aircraft on Pakistan's tribal regions, claiming the airstrikes target pro-Taliban militants. But locals say civilians are the main victims of the non-UN-sanctioned US strikes. The aerial attacks, initiated by former US President George W. Bush, have escalated under President Barack Obama. While the US government has always declined to publicly discuss its aerial attacks in Pakistan, US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta admitted on Tuesday that the US is fighting a war in Pakistan by using the drones. On Sunday, a Pakistani Foreign Office spokeswoman said the US drone attacks on its territory were unacceptable and a violation of the country's sovereignty. “It is very clear that drone attacks are against the sovereignty of Pakistan,” Tehmina Janju stated.

Pakistan has denounced the US drone attacks on its territory as unacceptable, reiterating that the strikes were being carried out in violation of the country's sovereignty. - “There is no change in Pakistan's stance on drone attacks. It is very clear that drone attacks are against the sovereignty of Pakistan,” Pakistani Foreign Office spokeswoman, Tehmina Janjua, was quoted by Pakistani daily, The Nation, as saying in the capital, Islamabad, on Sunday. The US Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, recently alleged that Islamabad had stopped demanding an end to the aerial assaults, which are carried out by the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) on northwestern Pakistan. Janjua rejected Clapper's remarks, saying that the country would never retreat from its principally-adopted position on the drone attacks. Major General Athar Abbas, spokesperson for the Pakistan Defence Forces, has also described the US official's comments as 'incorrect' and stressed that the strikes were counterproductive. Last year alone, over 1,200 people were killed and hundreds others injured in the non-UN-sanctioned US drone strikes, which are being conducted amid growing popular outrage.

Islamabad—A well-known American journalist has claimed that Pakistanis would be the next on the target list of nations that would “soon be feeling the military muscle of the United States.” - In an article published on Monday the well-known American writer, Wayne Madsen, claimed that it did appear that for some Pentagon brass, including Defence Secretary Leon Panetta as well as top Republican and Democratic politicians that, indeed, Pakistan is next on the target list of nations that will soon be feeling the military muscle of the United States.” Writing in the online journal ‘Strategic Culture Foundation’, Wayne Madsen added that

“unlike other Muslim nations that have been subjected to U.S. military intervention, including Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Yemen, and Libya, Pakistan’s ultimate prize for the West is its nuclear weapons arsenal…”

Wayne Madsen noted that “a number of observers, including former senior figures with the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency, have made no secret of western contingency plans, which appear to be going active, to secure Pakistan’s nuclear weapons in order to eliminate the nation as a nuclear weapons power.

“The plans have been coordinated between the CIA, India’s Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) and Israel’s Mossad,” the report added.

NewsRoomAmerica: Report: U.S., Pakistani Military Units Exchanged Fire

Pakistan's intelligence chief says Islamabad will respond to any potential United States-waged military action against the country, responding to relevant threats by US officials. - Pakistan would not allow the situation to get to a 'point of no return,' should the US carry out an attack against the country, the Director General of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Lieutenant General Ahmed Shuja Pasha, said on Thursday, Reuters reported.

"American attack on Pakistan in the name of (fighting) extremism is not acceptable," he said.

On Monday, the US Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, who serves on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said Washington had to consider military action against Pakistan in the event of, what he called, Islamabad's continued support for militant attacks against the US troops in Afghanistan. Graham said that the US lawmakers might support military options beyond the drone strikes, which the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has been conducting against Pakistan for year.

At least four people have been killed and five others injured in the latest US drone strike in troubled northwest of Pakistan, Press TV reports. - The assault took place in Baghar village of South Waziristan tribal district on Friday when the drone fired two missiles at a vehicle. The US frequently carries out attacks by the unmanned aircraft on Pakistan's tribal regions, claiming the airstrikes target pro-Taliban militants. The aerial attacks, initiated by former US President George W. Bush, were escalated under President Barack Obama. Relations between Islamabad and Washington have soured over the attacks with Pakistan insisting that the airstrikes violate its sovereignty. US Republican Senator Lindsey Graham said on Thursday that there is growing support in the US Congress for expanding military options against militants in Pakistan beyond the drone strikes.

Admiral Mike Mullen's allegations of Pakistani-Haqqani collusion may have been knowingly inaccurate. - Admiral Mike Mullen’s speech to lawmakers last week accusing Pakistan’s intelligence service of colluding with the Haqqani insurgent group was inaccurate and overstated, according to anonymous officials speaking with the Washington Post. A senior Pentagon official with access to intelligence files on Pakistan said Mullen’s language “overstates the case,” because there is little evidence of direct control or cooperation with the Haqqanis. Mullen suggested otherwise and cited the recent 20-hour attack on the US Embassy in Kabul as a case in point.

Paul Craig Roberts: The Latest Orchestrated Threat and The End of History

Pakistan's foreign minister said on Thursday the United States risks losing an ally if it continues to publicly criticise Islamabad's performance in the war against militancy. "You will lose an ally," Hina Rabbani Khar told Geo TV in New York. "You cannot afford to alienate Pakistan, you cannot afford to alienate the Pakistani people. If you are choosing to do so and if they are choosing to do so it will be at their (the United States') own cost." Khar was responding to a Senate testimony by the outgoing chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, who said Pakistan's top spy agency was closely tied to the Haqqani Network, the most violent and effective faction in the Afghan Taliban insurgency.

Express Tribune: White House calls on Pakistan to break ties with Haqqani Network
AwamiWeb: Haqqani Network Was Set Up By USA: Hina Rabbani
IRIB: USA drohen Pakistan mit Angriff
The Nation: China supports Pakistan’s sovereignty, territorial integrity
Pakistan News Online: Top Chinese security official visits Pakistan
Jason Ditz: Pakistan Scrambles for New Allies as US Split Looms
Jacob G. Hornberger: Another Official Enemy for the Empire
Paul Craig Roberts: The Latest Orchestrated Threat and The End of History

Thousands of Pakistanis have held an anti-US rally in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, slamming the American government for what they called its intervention in Pakistan's internal affairs, Press TV reports. - The activists of Pakistan's largest religious party, Jamaat-e-Islami, on Sunday called for an end to unauthorized US drone attacks in the country's tribal regions that have left many civilians dead. Anti-American sentiment ran high in Pakistan as more people from different walks of life came to join the rally, chanting slogans against the US and the incumbent Pakistani government which they held responsible for the current unrest and instability across the country.

PressTV: US senator threatens Pakistan with war

The Pakistani government has decided to lodge a complaint with the United Nations on unauthorized US drone attacks against civilians with the pretext of targeting militants, Press TV reports. - Speaking in a press briefing in the Pakistani capital of Islamabad on Monday, advisor to the country's Prime Minister, Mustafa Nawaz Khokar, said that the issue of US drone attacks in Pakistan will be discussed among government officials and then a formal complaint will be lodged against the United States. He said that the drone attacks violate Pakistan's territorial sovereignty and are not at all acceptable. The US has carried out numerous drone attacks against Pakistan's tribal areas since 2008 but there has been a significant surge in such attacks over the past few months.

A US drone strike against the Hasou Khel village in North Waziristan Agency today killed at least five people and left a number of others wounded. The attack destroyed a pickup truck and also leveled a house, burying people within. - Pakistani officials said that the four people slain in the vehicle were “militants” but the identities of the people in the destroyed house have not been made clear. Locals say the toll may rise further as rescue workers continue to search for more people buried in the house. The attack was reported as the 40th drone strike against North Waziristan Agency this year, and the 55th strike against Pakistan overall. The Pakistani government has repeatedly demanded the US halt such strikes.

Raw Story: Joint Chiefs chairman praises 10 years of war as America’s ‘vengeance’

A doctor who helped the CIA find 'Osama bin Laden' has been barred from leaving Pakistan, a commission investigating the killing of the Al Qaeda leader said yesterday. Dr. Shakil Afridi ran a phony vaccination program in the Pakistani town where the Al Qaeda leader hid in an effort to obtain a DNA sample from him. Afridi is being detained by Pakistani authorities, but has not been charged with any crime.

The official story publicized by the US on the raid that supposedly killed al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden contains many inconsistencies, a prominent journalist tells Press TV's US Desk. - “Things that simply make no sense, in that they contradict what the Obama White House originally told us about the raid. Almost nothing about this so-called official history actually makes any sense,” said Russ Baker, an award-winning investigative reporter and founder of WhoWhatWhy.com, on Sunday. In his exclusive interview with Press TV, Baker questioned the authenticity of an article published by The New Yorker in early August, which detailed the May 1 raid against the compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, where bin Laden had allegedly hidden.

Written by Nicholas Schmidle, the article is titled “Getting Bin Laden: What happened that night in Abbottabad,” and was published on August 8. He said the article gives the impression that all the details of what took place was provided by the soldiers and the navy seals who conducted the raid, while its author was not even allowed to speak to any of the people who were actually present at the event. The investigative journalist cast serious doubts on the American magazine's account, saying it seems as if The New Yorker was given the details by an official in the Obama administration while trying to create the impression that this was real information from the scene. The official story of bin Laden's death caused by a US commando team raid has been seriously contested by many experts and officials alike.

ISLAMABAD – The Central Intelligence Agency of the United States recruited over 1,500 men from Mazar-e-Sharif for fighting against the Qaddafi forces in Libya. - Sources told The Nation:

“Most of the men have been recruited from Afghanistan. They are Uzbeks, Persians and Hazaras. According to the footage, these men attired in Uzbek-style of shalwar and Hazara-Uzbek Kurta were found fighting in Libyan cities.”

When Al-Jazeera reporter pointed it he was disallowed by the ‘rebels ‘to capture images. Sources in Quetta said:

“Some Uzbeks and Hazaras from Afghanistan were arrested in Balochistan for illegally traveling into Pakistan en route to Libya through Iran.

Aljazeera’s report gave credence to this story. More than 60 Afghans, mainly children and teenagers, have been found dead after suffocating inside a shipping container in southwestern Pakistan in an apparent human smuggling attempt. More than 100 illegal immigrants were discovered 20km from the border town of Quetta last week inside the container, which had been locked from the outside. Aljazeera having dubious record gave human touch to this story as most of the men who intruded inside Pakistan from Afghanistan were recruits for Libyan Rebels’ Force.

Michel Chossudovsky: The "Liberation" of Libya: NATO Special Forces and Al Qaeda Join Hands

People around the world have participated in the International Quds Day to show their solidarity with the Palestinian resistance against the Israeli occupation.

In Iran, millions took to the streets across the country to denounce Israel's atrocities against the Palestinian people and voice their anger at world hegemony and Israeli policies. Iranian protesters also condemned the violent crackdown against opposition protesters in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia. Saudi-backed Bahraini regime forces attacked anti-government demonstrators, protesting both the banning of International Quds Day rallies and the government's criticism of Sheikh Issa Qassim, one of the country's top clerics, who has been accused of inciting sectarian tension.

This is the second consecutive year that Quds Day rallies have been banned in Bahrain. Anti-regime protesters say the regime ban is due to its fear that the gathering will turn into an anti-regime demonstration. Several Bahraini protesters were reportedly injured as regime forces fired tear-gas to disperse the crowds that had been on the streets since Thursday evening. Many were also arrested in the demonstrations. Anti-Israel rallies were also held in several Saudi Arabian cities including the town of Awamiyah in the al-Qatif region where protestors voiced their support for the people of Bahrain and condemned the Riyadh government for aiding the Al Khalifa regime's brutal crackdown on peaceful Bahraini protesters.

Earlier in the week British nationals from different backgrounds took part in the annual Quds Day demonstration in London. Quds Day demonstrations have also been planned in Pakistan, France, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands and several other countries.

Tamim Al-Barghouti: In Al-Quds “In Jerusalem” -تميم البرغوثي ... في القدس - VIDEO
The Nation: Rallies-mark-AlQuds-DayRallies mark Al-Quds Day
Jason Ditz: US Vows to Stop All Aid If Palestinians Seek Statehood

ISLAMABAD, Aug 26 (Reuters) - Flash floods triggered by monsoon rains wiped out a village in northwest Pakistan, killing at least 33 people, a government official said on Friday. - Rescue officials were looking for survivors after at least 63 people went missing when heavy rains on Wednesday night caused a river to burst its banks in the remote Kohistan district in the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province.

"We have recovered 33 bodies and the search is on for the remaining missing persons," the area's top administrator Imtiaz Hussain Shah told Reuters. "It is just one area in the whole district that has been hit by sudden strong torrents after heavy downpour lashed the area and swept away some 25 to 30 houses scattered over the village."

Last year, monsoon rains caused the worst floods in Pakistan's history, with the country's northwestern areas among the worst hit. The Nation: Kohistan floods: 63 people missing, 33 dead bodies recovered

Pakistan gave China access to the previously unknown U.S. "stealth" helicopter that crashed during the commando raid that [allegedly] killed Osama bin Laden in May despite explicit requests from the CIA not to, the Financial Times reported on Sunday.

The disclosure, if confirmed, is likely to further shake the U.S.-Pakistan relationship, which has been improving slightly after hitting its lowest point in decades following the [alleged] killing of bin Laden. During the raid, one of two modified Blackhawk helicopters, believed to employ unknown stealth capability, malfunctioned and crashed, forcing the commandos to abandon it.

"The U.S. now has information that Pakistan, particularly the ISI, gave access to the Chinese military to the downed helicopter in Abbottabad," the paper quoted a person "in intelligence circles" as saying on its website.

It said Pakistan, which enjoys a close relationship with China, allowed Chinese intelligence officials to take pictures of the crashed aircraft as well as take samples of its special "skin" that allowed the American raid to evade Pakistani radar.

Unidentified men have kidnapped a 63-year-old US national from his residence in Model Town area of Pakistani city of Lahore. - Senior Superintendent Police Investigation, Abdul Razaq Cheema, said on Saturday that the American man, identified as Justin Warner, was taken from his residence by a group of ten persons, Xinhua reported. Warner had been living at the compound for four or five years and only his guards and employees had been seen around his residence, neighbors said. The abduction took place at 4 a.m. local time and the gunmen also beat the guard at the main gate, witnesses said. No group has claimed responsibility for the incident.

At least 2,200 people have been killed and more than 1,100 others injured by the unauthorized US drone strikes in Pakistan since 2004, a report says.

A new study conducted by the London-based Bureau of Investigative Journalism has also revealed that up to 168 children have lost their lives in more than 291 attacks since they began under George W. Bush, a Press TV correspondent reported on Friday. The aerial raids have escalated since President Barack Obama took office in 2009. At least 236 attacks have taken place during his term, the report added. Washington claims the attacks target al-Qaeda linked and pro-Taliban militants in Pakistan's northwestern tribal regions bordering Afghanistan. However, locals say the strikes kill civilians.

At least twenty-five people were killed in the latest drone attack in North Waziristan on Wednesday after the unmanned aircraft fired two missiles on a vehicle and a compound. Islamabad has repeatedly condemned the strikes as a violation of its sovereignty, asserting that such attacks have proved counterproductive in US-led war against terrorism.

PressTV Video: Pakistanis protest US drone strikes

A new report reveals the non-UN sanctioned US drone strikes have killed up to 168 children in Pakistan over the last seven years.

Research by the London-based Bureau of Investigative Journalism has found that CIA drone attacks on Pakistan's tribal belt have led to far more deaths than previously mentioned. It says just over four percent of the nearly 2,900 people killed in the drone attacks have been militants. It reports the CIA has carried out 291 drone strikes in Pakistan since 2004 -- a figure eight percent higher than in previous research. Over 80 percent of all strikes have been carried out under President Barack Obama administration. This breaks down to one strike every four days.

Washington claims its air raids target militants who cross the Pakistani border into Afghanistan to help the Taliban fight US-led foreign forces. However, locals say civilians are the main victims of the non-UN-sanctioned attacks. A recent report by the Brookings Institution says the illegal strikes have taken the lives of 10 civilians for every militant killed.

Islamabad has repeatedly condemned the strikes as a violation of its sovereignty, asserting that such attacks have proved counterproductive in US-led war against terrorism. The United Nations says the US-operated drone strikes in Pakistan pose a growing challenge to the international rule of law. Philip Alston, UN special envoy on extrajudicial killings, said in a report in late October 2010 that the attacks were undermining the rules designed to protect the right of life. Alston also said he feared that the drone killings by the US Central Intelligence Agency could develop a "playstation" mentality.

Chris Woods: The US has killed more than 168 children in Pakistan - Drone War Exposed – the complete picture of CIA strikes in Pakistan. The Obama administration has come to rely heavily on CIA drone strikes to attack alleged militants in the country’s western tribal areas. To date, at least 236 drone attacks have been ordered in Obama’s name. CIA drone strikes have led to far more deaths in Pakistan than previously understood, according to extensive new research published by the Bureau. More than 160 children are among at least 2,292 people reported killed in US attacks since 2004. There are credible reports of at least 385 civilians among the dead. In a surprise move, a counter-terrorism official has also released US government estimates of the numbers killed. These state that an estimated 2,050 people have been killed in drone strikes – of whom all but an estimated 50 are combatants.

The death toll from a non-UN-sanctioned US drone strike in Pakistan's northwestern tribal belt has climbed to 21. - Local media say more bodies have been pulled out of the rubbles of a house targeted near Miranshah, center of northwestern tribal area of North Waziristan Agency, a Press TV correspondent reported. A US unmanned aircraft fired two missiles at the house early on Wednesday. Local media reports indicate that the attack by American drones took place as residents of the house were having their pre-dawn meal before a day-long fasting in the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. Local people say all the slain people were local tribesmen. The US often carries out such attacks on Pakistan's tribal regions, claiming to target anti-US militants. But locals say civilians have been the main victims of the non-UN-sanctioned aerial strikes. The issue of civilian casualties has strained relations between Islamabad and Washington with the Pakistani government repeatedly objecting to the bombing campaign. The aerial attacks, initiated by former US president George W. Bush, have been escalated under President Barack Obama. Islamabad has repeatedly condemned the attacks, saying they violate Pakistan's sovereignty.

Speaking today in an interview with the BBC, Admiral Michael Mullen today demanded that the Pakistani government launch a military offensive against the Haqqani Network in the North Waziristan Agency, the latest in years of demands from the US for such an offensive. - Mullen, who was in Kabul during the interview, warning that US-Pakistani relations could be seriously harmed if the Zardari government did not address the “safe havens” in North Waziristan. The demands will likely not sit well with the Pakistani government, particularly at a time when US-Pakistani relations are already at a comparative low. The Zardari government has confirmed plans to eventually go into North Waziristan, but demands related to timing don’t appear to sit well with the military, which is already upset by US unilateralism.