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Title: * News * World news * President orders air strikes on villages in tribal area (Pakistan)
Source:
Guardian UK
URL Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/200 ... kistan-barack-obama-air-strike
Published: Jan 24, 2009
Author: Ewen MacAskill
Post Date: 2009-01-24 10:47:40 by bush_is_a_moonie
Keywords: None
Views: 680
Comments: 43
* News * World news * Pakistan
President orders air strikes on villages in tribal area
* Ewen MacAskill in Washington * The Guardian, Saturday 24 January 2009 * Article history
Barack Obama gave the go-ahead for his first military action yesterday, missile strikes against suspected militants in Pakistan which killed at least 18 people.
Four days after assuming the presidency, he was consulted by US commanders before they launched the two attacks. Although Obama has abandoned many of the "war on terror" policies of George Bush while he was president, he is not retreating from the hunt for Osama bin Laden and other al-Qaida leaders.
The US believes they are hiding in the tribal areas along the border with Afghanistan, and made 30 strikes last year in which more than 200 people were killed. In the election, Obama hinted at increased operations in Pakistan, saying he thought Bush had made a mistake in switching to Iraq before completing the job against al-Qaida in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The US marine corp commander said yesterday that his 22,000 troops should be redeployed from Iraq to Afghanistan. Gen James Conway said "the time is right" to leave Iraq now the war had become largely nation-building rather than the pitched fighting in which the corps excelled; he wanted the marines in Afghanistan, especially in the south where insurgents, and the Taliban and al-Qaida, benefit from both a nearby safe haven in Pakistan and a booming trade in narcotics.
Obama has warned that he is prepared to bomb inside Pakistan if he gets relevant intelligence about the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden. He had also said he would act against militants along the border if the Pakistan government failed to.
The US missiles were fired by unmanned Predator drones, which hang in the sky gathering intelligence through surveillance and, when commanded and directed by remote control, to launch attacks.
The strikes will help Obama portray himself as a leader who, though ready to shift the balance of American power towards diplomacy, is not afraid of military action.
The first attack yesterday was on the village of Zharki, in Waziristan; three missiles destroyed two houses and killed 10 people. One villager told Reuters of phonethat of nine bodies pulled from the rubble of one house, six were its owner and his relatives; Reuters added that intelligence officials said some foreign militants were also killed. A second attack hours later also in Warizistan killed eight people.
The Pakistan government publicly expressed hope that the arrival of Obama would see a halt to such strikes, which stir up hostility from Pakistanis towards the government; in private, the government may be more relaxed about such attacks.
There is a lot of nervousness in the new administration about the fragility of Pakistan, particularly as it has nuclear weapons, but it also sees Afghanistan and Pakistan as being linked. In the face of a Taliban resurgence, there is despair in Washington over the leadership of the Afghan leader, Hamid Karzai, and there will not be much disappointment if he is replaced in elections later this year.
But Washington insists on seeing as one of its biggest problems the ability of the Taliban and al-Qaida to maintain havens in Pakistan. Obama on Thursday announced he was making veteran diplomat Richard Holbrooke a special envoy to Pakistan and Afghanistan. The secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, spoke by phone to the Pakistan president, Asif Ali Zardari. 
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#6. To: christine, bush_is_a_moonie, all (#0)
(Edited)
Christine, There is nothing written about the Pakistani president in this article other than the fact the Clinton talked to him on the phone. It's Obama that's doing the bombing here. Let's be clear. Someone needs to fix this headline. moonie, why did you insert the word "Pakistan" into the headline? It's hard to imagine that you did so accidentally either by typing it in or by insert/paste. I think it's a good idea to stay with the rules in so far as titles go. I can go along with "My Title" at the head of a post. Meddling with the article title however in this way misrepresents what the author had to say and screws up the context of the article as you're reading it. The original title is "President orders air strikes on villages in tribal area." Why in the hell would you want to put the onus on Asif Ali Zardari when it was Obama and our predators that did this bombing? I don't know what others think. The title ought to be changed.
Quit whinning. When I copied the headline it pulled the line above it with it. Do you ever do anything but cry like a little baby about everything?
Cheers.
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Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest* News * World news * Pakistan President orders air strikes on villages in tribal area
#27. To: randge (#6)
#30. To: bush_is_a_moonie (#27)
(Edited)
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