Pakistan Army rejects NYT report on drone strikes

Pakistan’s military on Tuesday rejected a report published in a US newspaper on recent drone strikes in northwestern Pakistan, calling it a “distortion of facts” and an attempt at weakening the country’s stand against drone strikes.

Commenting on the report published in the New York Times on Tuesday, a spokesman for the Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR) said “such an accusation is a distortion of the facts and seems to be aimed at diluting Pakistan’s stance on drone strikes.”

                              

Local and international media had reported two suspected US drone strikes in the North and South Waziristan tribal regions in early February.

According to Dawn reports, the first strike on Feb 6 targeted a suspected compound in North Waziristan agency killing three unidentified people. The second strike on Feb 8 carried out on the border of the North and South Waziristan tribal regions was reported to have targeted a compound owned by a local Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) commander.

Intelligence officials said the Feb 8 attack killed eight militants, including two Al Qaeda men. The rest, sources said, were local TTP fighters.

However, the report published by the New York Times today quoted unnamed US intelligence officials as denying the US carried out the attacks and instead accused Pakistani forces of carrying out the strikes.

Rejecting the report, the ISPR spokesman denied Pakistan’s security forces having carried out any operation, including air strikes, in the area on dates mentioned in the news report.

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