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Pakistan’s defence ministry came under criticism yesterday from opposition parties and rights groups, who said it had underestimated the number of civilians killed in US drone strikes. |
The ministry said on Wednesday only 3% of those killed in drone attacks in the country’s tribal regions since 2008 were civilians, lower than many other estimates.
A report shared with the parliament this week revealed that 67 civilians were among the more than 2,000 people killed in strikes by unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) over the past five years. The figures compiled by the defence ministry also said there had been no civilian casualties since 2011.
An earlier foreign ministry figure put the number of civilian deaths in attacks close to the Afghan border at more than 400 between 2004 and 2012.
A spokesman for the foreign ministry said the defence ministry might have understated the figures.
“There are different assessments about the numbers,” said spokesman Aizaz Ahmed Chaudhry. “We are in touch with the ministry of defence to get full details.”
Members of opposition parties said in parliament that they also had doubts.
“This looks to be a gross understatement,” said Chaudhry Aitzaz Ahsan, a senator from the main opposition Pakistan People’s Party.
Research groups have also questioned the numbers.
“More than 100 civilians have died in just two attacks in recent years,” said Mansur Mehsud, director of the FATA Research Centre, an Islamabad-based academic group that has researchers in the region.
“Forty people were killed in one drone strike alone in March 2011 in the Datta Khel area of North Waziristan,” he said. “Of those, only five were militants.”
In June 2009, he added, drones attacked a funeral in South Waziristan, killing
another 60 civilians.
The 67 figure undermines the government’s own argument that drone strikes must end because popular anger over civilian deaths fuels radicalisation, militancy and more recruits for the insurgents, some analysts said.
The controversy erupted days after Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif asked US President Barack Obama during a visit to Washington to end drone
operations.
London-based rights group Amnesty International described civilian deaths in drone attacks as “extrajudicial killings” in a report this month.
Drones are a politically charged issue, viewed by many Pakistanis as inaccurate, an insult to national pride and a sign of the nation’s inability to safeguard its borders against foreign meddling. Islamabad regularly criticises the attacks in public, even though it’s believed to have supported and even provided targeting data for some past strikes.
Washington views the drone program in Pakistan as a vital weapon against Al Qaeda and Taliban militants who take refuge in the lawless northeast to mount cross-border attacks on American troops in neighbouring Afghanistan.
