Tom Coghlan in Kabul, Zahid Hussain in Islamabad and Jeremy Page in Delhi. From The Times:
The CIA is secretly using an airbase in southern Pakistan to launch the Predator drones that observe and attack al-Qaeda and Taleban militants on the Pakistani side of the border with Afghanistan, a Times investigation has found.
The Pakistani and US governments have repeatedly denied that Washington is running military operations, covert or otherwise, on Pakistani territory – a hugely sensitive issue in the predominantly Muslim country.
The Pakistani Government has also repeatedly demanded that the US halt drone attacks on northern tribal areas that it says have caused hundreds of civilian casualties and fuelled anti-American sentiment.
Dangerous double game that mirrors Pakistan’s identity crisis
Jeremy Page in The Times:
The discovery of a secret CIA airbase in southern Pakistan exposes the dangerous double game that Asif Ali Zardari, Pakistan’s President, has to play as he tries to manage relations both with the United States and with a fiercely anti-American public.
While he is criticised in Washington for surrendering to the Taleban by allowing Sharia in the Swat Valley, he will be lambasted at home for allowing the Americans to use a Pakistani base to launch drone attacks on his own territory.
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