Pakistan says U.S. drones in its air space will be shot down

MSNBC

By NBC News, msnbc.com staff and news service reports

ISLAMABAD — Pakistan will shoot down any U.S. drone that intrudes its air space per new directives, a senior Pakistani official told NBC News on Saturday.

Asghar Achakzai / AFP – Getty Images file

Pakistani security personnel examine a crashed US surveillance drone inside Pakistan in August.

According to the new Pakistani defense policy, “Any object entering into our air space, including U.S. drones, will be treated as hostile and be shot down,” a senior Pakistani military official told NBC News. 

The policy change comes just weeks after a deadly NATO attack on Pakistani military checkpoints accidentally killed 24 Pakistani soldiers, prompting Pakistani officials to order all U.S. personnel out of a remote airfield in Pakistan.

Pakistan told the U.S. to vacate Shamsi Air Base by December 11.

A senior military official from Quetta, Pakistan, confirmed to NBC News on Saturday that the evacuation of the base, used for staging classified drone flights directed against militants, “will be completed tomorrow,” according to NBC’s Fakhar ur Rehman.

Pakistani Military Chief Gen Ashfaq Pervez Kayani had issued multiple directives since the Nov. 26 NATO attack, which included orders to shoot down U.S. drones, senior military officials confirmed to NBC News on Saturday.

It was unclear Saturday whether orders to fire upon incoming U.S. drones was part of the initial orders.

T. Mughal / EPA file

Supporters of opposition political party Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf (Movement of Justice) carry a mock US drone as they listen to a speech by the party founder Imran Khan, during a protest rally against the United States drones attacks.

The Pakistani airbase had been used by U.S. forces, including the CIA, to stage elements of a clandestine U.S. counter-terrorism operation to attack militants linked to al-Qaida, the Taliban and Pakistan’s home-grown Haqqani network, using unmanned drone aircraft armed with missiles.

President Barack Obama stepped up the drone campaign after he took office. U.S. officials say it has produced major successes in decimating the central leadership of al-Qaida and putting associated militant groups on the defensive.

Since 2004, U.S. drones have carried out more than 300 attacks inside Pakistan.

Pakistani authorities started threatening U.S. personnel with eviction from the Shamsi base in the wake of the raid last May in which U.S. commandos killed Osama bin Laden at his hide-out near Islamabad without notifying Pakistani officials in advance.

NBC News’ Fakhar ur Rehman, msnbc.com’s Sevil Omer and Reuters contributed to this report.


About Eeyore

Canadian artist and counter-jihad and freedom of speech activist as well as devout Schrödinger's catholic

15 Replies to “Pakistan says U.S. drones in its air space will be shot down”

  1. Eeyore! A childish fiction, apt for the racist bile driven lies and nonsense that you spew. Get over yourself you sad Racist prick!

    Grow up, get a life, move from your parent’s basement, form some real human relationships and give up the Saddo posturing, Fucking Muppet!

  2. paul “mohammed” nicholl, too much of a moron to be able to distinguish between genetic structures and belief systems, and he’s calling people fucking muppets.

  3. P. Nicholl:

    What is racist or fiction about this article you decided to comment on please?

    Are you saying MSNBC is racist fiction? Mostly I agree with that actually. But this article about Pakistan’s policy on US drones is posted verbatim. So what is racist or lies about it?

  4. Quote: Pakistan says U.S. drones in its air space will be shot down

    Take care though. Drones are programmed for self-defence. It is their inalienable right.

  5. Cameron ‘Pixie Boy’ Barbarossa,

    You’re a racist knob. Face up to it.

    Do you still live with your parents? Poet? Self indulgent wanker, shit for brains pseudo-intellectual. I see your status on your Pixie website is ‘single’, no surprise there! Your hatred of Islam is pathetic, much like your life!

    FOAD

  6. Interestingly, Muslims and leftists never adress the actual issues. They have to rely on harsh ad-hominem attacks depending on the belief in freedom of speech for them, by their ‘enemies’, a freedom they would never, and do never, grant to their ideological opponents.

    What we see from Paul Nicholl, is about as good as the arguments get in defense of Islam and leftism and their shared, illiberal and anti-freedom agenda.

  7. One’s right to freedom of speech does not include the ‘right’ to be provided with a platform from which to exercise one’s freedom of speech. This web site is private property, and, like all private property, one can rightfully use it (in this case, post comments on it) either by ownership or by permission from the owner. If one is posting comments on this website (and doesn’t own it), one is doing so by permission from the owner, and in these circumstances one should take care not to abuse one’s granted right by making foul and abusive ad hominem attacks, particularly when they are directed at the owner and are motivated by arbitrary, irrational and evil beliefs. A granted right can always be revoked – by right.

    It is also worth noting that freedom of speech is man’s right by virtue of his nature. One can be prevented from exercising one’s right to this freedom (by coercion or by the threat of coercion), but one’s right to it remains. Man’s individual rights to life, liberty, property and the pursuit of happiness are derived from his nature as a rational being: since man’s only means of survival is his faculty of reason, he must be fully free to use this faculty to discover the values that will enable him to survive and flourish, i.e., to preserve and enhance his highest value (and his standard of value) – his life – and he must also be fully free to act to achieve these values. Man’s individual rights, because they are derived from his nature as a rational being, are not granted by other men and cannot be revoked by other men; they should always be respected by all men, and never violated by any man; however, a man can forfeit his rights, but only by violating the same rights of another man or other men.

  8. Sorry, “man’s only means of survival” should read “man’s basic means of survival”.

  9. Dear George. Did it take you long to write that shite? Sorry cut and paste, that shite!

    What a prick!

    The only platform you offer is to like minded racists and other assorted right wing lunatics.

    Trying to justify Islamaphobia and racism by means of infantile sophistry. Shameful and pathetic!

  10. Dear Paul Nicholl,

    Thank you for responding.

    One cannot reason with the unreasonable, as all reasonable people well know, and I exhort anyone reading this missive not to interpret it as an attempt to do so. (These subtle points will be lost on you, Paul, but please bear with me.)

    I have to confess that I do find your unreasonable (again, bear with me here) and abusive comments – particularly your nuanced use of the scatological expletive – eminently fascinating; not only do they provide invaluable case material for my treatise-in-progress ‘The Thought Processes of the Mind in Disintegration’, but they also press my chuckle button – they really are exquisitely amusing. So please, please keep them coming.

    Yours sincerely, and expectantly,

    George

  11. Dear George,

    I give up.

    I really do not like racists and cannot fathom your irrational hatred of Muslims. I have lived and worked with Muslims throughout my life and find them no different from any other members of society. No better, but certainly no worse. They do not deserve to be demonised. This website is extremely crude in its depiction of Islam. You profess the rationalism of Rousseau etc but come across as Keyboard Crusaders. Probably not a fair depiction of your personal views, but a fair reflection of your fellow travellers.

    At least I detect that you have a sense of humour. So there is some hope for you.

    Hope you get better!

    Paul