This was the deadliest strike by US drones in Pakistan’s tribal areas since June 18, 2004, when the first-ever such attack killed the local Taliban commander Nek Mohammad and sabotaged the first peace deal that Pakistani authorities had controversially made with the militants in South Waziristan. Scores of civilians had already lost their lives in the previous 232 US drone attacks also. But the one in Dattakhel on March 17 was the first time that nobody doubted that those slain, wounded and maimed were all civilians. The victims had gathered to resolve an issue concerning the monetary share of their respective sub-tribes and clans from the lease of a jointly-owned hill containing a chromites mine.
A section of the Western media did try to create doubts about the identity of those present in the jirga, held in the open space near the banks of river Tochi, by pointing out that one Sharbat Khan who died in the attack had links with the local Taliban. However, this claim had no leg to stand on because everyone knew Sharbat Khan, the contractor who had leased the chromites mine for Rs8.8 million and had been summoned by the jirga to explain as to when and how he was planning to pay the lease money to different sections of the Madakhel Wazir sub-tribe that owned the Khar Sangi hill. Even if there happened to be a Taliban fighter or sympathiser in the jirga on that fateful day, no government or military would order bombing a gathering of more than 150 people discussing a mundane issue in the open just to kill one suspected militant. They weren’t doing military training or finalising plans to infiltrate the nearby Afghan border to attack the US-led Nato forces. That kind of gatherings aren’t held in the open, and everyone in South and North Waziristan is aware of the constant overhead presence of drones carrying out surveillance and searching for targets...
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Rahimullah Yusufzai @'The International News'
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