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PAKISTAN: Locals Rue Price to Pay for Role in U.S. Intervention

Zofeen Ebrahim

KARACHI, Pakistan, Dec 17 2010 (IPS) - Kareem Khan probably expected his wife to break down once he brought their 18-year-old son’s body to the women’s section. But when she saw their dead boy, she just smiled and wished him farewell.

“In Islam, when a person dies during war, he goes straight to heaven and so we didn’t mourn his death,” says Khan, adding that being a Hafiz, or someone who had memorised the Koran, his son Zainullah was “special”.

“For such people, they say, he makes way for 10 more to join him in heaven,” explains Khan.

On Dec. 31, 2009, the U.S. drone fired missiles at their compound in Machikhel, in North Waziristan, a tribal area bordering Afghanistan in Pakistan’s north-west. Zainullah, his uncle Asif Iqbal, a local schoolteacher, and a construction worker were killed instantly. “We neither had a militant in our house nor was it a training ground,” says Khan. “Then why?”

Carried out by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the predator drones are supposed to target alleged al-Qaeda and Taliban militants in the tribal areas in north-west Pakistan. Since June 2004, there have been about 205 drone attacks in these areas.

Washington has long argued that this ‘push-button’ mechanised killing has killed many senior Al-Qaeda leaders and their allies. But there are strong indications that these “successes’ have come at a large civilian cost, fomenting resentment against the United States among Pakistanis, some of whom suggest that the attacks have just made the militants stronger.

Khan, a journalist working for such media organisations like Al Jazeera and Al Qudds, says, “These infidels want to wipe out the Muslims. They call us extremists when all we do is lead our lives according to Islam…within the precinct of our home.”

Lawyer Mirza Shahzad Akbar adds, “”CIA kills tribals and it gives birth to a nursery of suicide bombers, benefitting the Taliban more than damaging them.”

The exact number of deaths from drone attacks is unknown. But the Washington DC-based policy institute New America Foundation (NAF), estimates the figure to be between 1,290 and 1,985 out of which only 32 were “high-value targets”. NAF, though, says about 1,400 of those killed by the attacks were militants.

But Akbar says he has plenty of evidence to prove the attacks have taken a heavy toll on innocent tribesmen: “The victims who have come forward tells us that the label of militants is being used very broadly.”

“There is no war between the U.S. and Pakistan,” he notes, “and therefore these attacks can only be bracketed as ‘homicide’ or ‘extrajudicial killing’.”

More than two weeks ago, in fact, he helped Khan serve notice to the CIA that the journalist was demanding 500 million dollars for the “wrongful killing” of Zainullah and Asif. Talking to IPS by phone from Islamabad, Khan’s voice trembles with anger as he says, “I cannot forgive the Americans for this wrongful killing…. Had they been on ground, I swear, I would have hunted them down.”

Recently, Khan joined some two dozen tribesmen who travelled to Islamabad and protested for two days in front of parliament. Eighteen-year old Muhammad Faheem from North Waziristan was among the protesters. In 2009, he had lost his left leg and an eye in yet another drone attack. Yet he is considered fortunate, being the sole survivor among the nine members of his family who were affected by the attack.

The experience, however, has left not only physical scars on Faheem, but also psychological ones. He recounts by phone from Islamabad: “Every time I hear the sound of drones, my heart begins to pound. I can’t concentrate on my studies. I keep thinking who the next target will be; it may well be me again!”

Khan, meanwhile, is pressing on, although his legal notice remains unacknowledged. On Dec. 13, Khan registered a report at a police station against the CIA’s Islamabad chief Jonathan Banks. Khan says he and Akbar next plan to file a first ever case in the court against Banks for the use of unsanctioned drone attacks in Pakistan.

“And finally,” Akbar himself says, “we will be moving the High Court against the government demanding from it under what authority they are allowing these attacks and why are they failing to protect their citizens.”

“I have been contacted by over a dozen more who want to come to Islamabad to file legal claim,” he says. “All have been directly affected; either they have lost a family member or have been maimed for life.”

Of the 15 families he has met, he is representing 12, plus three minors. But while he is hopeful that these people will get justice, Akbar concedes, “These cases take a lot of time.”

I A Rehman of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan also believes those affected by the drone attacks will be compensated, although he says it is highly unlikely that the “CIA will be taken to court” or that the drone attacks would end.

Still, he says, “The strategy for their use may be revised.”

Islamabad, for its part, has repeatedly condemned the attacks, saying they violate its sovereignty. But according to one of the leaked diplomatic cables released by Wikileaks, Premier Syed Yousaf Raza Gillani in a 2008 meeting had supposedly said to former U.S. Ambassador Anne W Patterson, referring to the drones: “We’ll protest in the National Assembly and then ignore it.”