U.S. may equip Pakistan with drones.

Note that the drones to be supplied are surveillance drones not those capable of making attacks. Gates seems to be acting as a cheerleader (and enforcer as well) to push Pakistan towards even further attacks on Islamic militants in the tribal territories.

CSMonitor.com.

US may equip Pakistan with drone aircraft, Gates says
US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates told leaders on his visit to Islamabad that all of South Asia faces instability if Al Qaeda goes unchecked in Pakistan.




By Ben Hancock Correspondent

US Defense Secretary Robert Gates landed Thursday in Islamabad with the goal of pressing Pakistan to stamp out Al Qaeda and other terrorist factions that he earlier warned could destabilize South Asia.

In his first visit to the country since the inauguration of the Obama White House, Mr. Gates said the US is considering supplying Pakistan with unarmed drone aircraft. While Pakistan has publicly called America's use of drones a violation of sovereignty, Islamabad has requested the technology for itself, Reuters reported.


"We are in partnership with the Pakistani military and we are working to give them their own intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance vehicles, both aircraft and drones," Gates said.



Until now, the US has not been willing to share the technology, The Hindustan Times reports.


The Pakistan government, which has opposed US drone attacks in its tribal belt bordering Afghanistan, had been pressing the American administration to provide it unmanned aerial vehicle technology so that its armed forces could carry out attacks on Taliban fighters. Till now, the US had refused to provide drones or UAV technology to Pakistan, which has a small number of indigenously developed spy planes.

Gates arrived after a meeting in India with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and other leaders. He told reporters there that focusing antiterror efforts on a single group would be a grave error, reports The New York Times.


“It’s dangerous to single out any one of these groups and say, ‘If we could beat that group that would solve the problem,’ because they are in effect a syndicate of terrorist operators,” Gates said. In short, he said, “the success of any one of these groups leads to new capabilities and a new reputation for all.”

The secretary also warned that a Pakistani failure to keep domestic terror cells in check could escalate into an international incident, referring to the 2008 rampage in Mumbai, which was blamed on the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba. “I think it is not unreasonable to assume Indian patience would be limited were there to be further attacks,” Gates said.

His visit comes amid increasing local concern about growing US involvement in Pakistan, reports the BBC. That compounds anger over civilian deaths in drone attacks along the country’s border with Afghanistan, where US officials believe many Taliban leaders are holding out.

But a recent US aid package that triples nonmilitary assistance to Pakistan, to the tune of $1.5 billion annually until 2015, has left Islamabad’s leadership somewhat bound to American antiterror efforts, says Reuters. Pakistan has lost about 2,000 troops fighting the Taliban so far and is expected to launch a new offensive close to the Afghanistan-Pakistan border later this year, according to reports.

.

Earlier, Pakistani Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani said the military option is not the only way to fight terrorism, The News reported.


"Only 10 percent success can be achieved through operations while 90 percent success is possible through economic development,” Gilani said.

--


.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The world's biggest and best armed Rogue State is at it again.

The everyday violation of international law by the U.S. is so normal now that commentary in the press does not even bring up the issue of these being violations. Of course if it were brought up nonsense would be brought up about the acts being self-defence. Here is a sampling of what is going on:

From antiwar.com. Of course no US official so far has given an official version just anonymous stuff that sounds like it might as well be an official version. The second article shows the Pakistani prime minister's reaction to drone attacks. It is likely that relations with Pakistan will go from bad to worse. This is happening at a time when Pakistan is taking serious casualties from its own war on terror but the US could care less about that.

Syria Condemns US Attack as “Serious Aggression”
Posted October 26, 2008
An unnamed US military official has confirmed the attack on the Syrian border town of al-Sukkariya earlier this evening, which killed at least eight and wounded 14 others. He said the attack targeted “elements of a robust foreign fighter logistics network” and that the US had decided to take matters “into our own hands.” US Marines Major General John Kelly had recently expressed discontent with Syria’s slow progress on constructing a physical barrier at the border, though as recently as Thursday he described security incidents in the border province as so uncommon as to be “almost meaningless,” making the timing of the attack puzzling.
Syria summoned the Charges d’Affaires of both the United States and Iraq to protest the attack, which it condemned as “serious aggression.” In a statement released through their state media they called on the Iraqi government to “assume its responsibilities and make an immediate investigation into the dangerous violation and prevent using the Iraqi lands from launching aggression on Syria.”
Iraqi officials have so far not publicly commented on the strike, but have consistently said that they would not allow the US to use their territory for attacks on neighboring countries. None of the reports suggest that Iraqi forces played any role in the raid, which may serve to further harm relations between the US and Iraq, already deteriorating over US warnings about the Status of Forces Agreement.
The attack may also have ramifications from US-ally Israel’s ongoing indirect peace talks with Syria. Israeli defense officials tried to distance themselves from the strike, saying it was in no way connected to Israel.

This article is also from antiwar.com. It would seem that the US wants to ensure that there is no peace deal with militants in the Tribal zone. In fact the US is pressing for enlisting tribespeople opposed to the militants to fight militancy. Whether this will work is moot. Perhaps in some areas but not in others. Certainly it will spill more Pakistani blood and provide more business for US arms suppliers.

Pakistan PM Slams US After Latest Drone Strike Kills 20
Posted October 26, 2008
Pakistani Prime Minister Yousef Raza Gilani publicly condemned the “intolerable” series of unilateral US drone strikes launched in North and South Waziristan in the past two months at a press conference today. He said the strike were an attack on Pakistan’s national sovereignty and were weakening the nation’s anti-terror efforts. He added that he had raised the issue at the latest Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) Summit and they supported the Pakistani position.
The most recent strike came earlier today, when a US drone attacked a village in South Waziristan Agency, killing at least 20 people. The strike reportedly hit two houses in an area of South Waziristan known to be a stronghold of Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud.
This is the second reported US drone strike in the past few days, and the 12th in the past 10 weeks, with a strike on Thursday morning on a North Waziristan Agency religious school killing 10. The previous attack was publicly condemned by several Pakistani Senators as an attack on the sovereignty of Pakistan’s parliament, which had recently passed a 14-point resolution criticizing the strikes and urging Pakistan to “de-link” its security policy from the US war on terror.