Drone strikes

Just one day after a drone attack near the Pakistan-Afghanistan border killed at least 20 people, including some Haqqani Network militants, the US launched two more attacks    on Tuesday    which killed at least 11 more people. Both the attacks are believed to have taken place on the Afghan side of the border and there are reports that Umar Khalid Khurasani – the head of the Jamaat-ul-Ahrar – was also killed in one of the attacks. The JuA is a splinter group of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan and Pakistan has long urged both the US and Afghanistan to target its hideouts in Afghanistan. The lack of action against both the TTP and JuA had led to suspicions that such groups may have been used by Afghanistan and India against us. The group had taken advantage of its bases in Afghanistan to launch regular attacks on Pakistani soil. The US uses drones regularly in Afghanistan – carrying out more than a thousand strikes in a year – and yet it has rarely gone after militants who use their safe havens to plan attacks on Pakistan. That these drone attacks came just one day after the Quadrilateral Coordination Group met in Muscat to discuss a political solution to the war in Afghanistan will add to the impression that Pakistan is finally getting the message through to the US that it needs to be aggressive in targeting groups which threaten our country.

Tuesday’s      drone strikes also lend credence to Pakistan’s assertion that the attacks the day before also took place on Afghan soil, and not Kurram Agency. If that indeed were the case and it turns out to be true that many of the dead were members of the Haqqani Network, then it would also strengthen Pakistan’s case that it has tried to drive out the group from its territory. In recent meetings with US officials, Pakistan has emphasised Afghan and Indian patronage for militant groups. That the US is belatedly targeting such groups may be a sign that our message is hitting home. Pakistan had also told the US that further Indian involvement would be a red line for us. If that message has been heeded by the Trump administration, it could end up making it easier to bring the Afghan Taliban to the negotiating table. Even though Trump has announced plans to beef up the US military presence in Afghanistan, eventually he too will realise that military might alone will never bring peace to the country. This can also be seen in the fact that the Taliban set off a wave of attacks across Afghanistan on Tuesday, killing at least 74 people, The best option the US has left is to go after and try and disarm all militant groups in the country – including those who carry out attacks in Pakistan – and then seek a negotiated settlement.