ISLAMABAD (AFP) — Pakistan's government on Thursday condemned the latest US missile strike in its territory while a militant Taliban group warned that another drone attack would bring reprisals within the country.
Speaking in parliament, Pakistani premier Yousuf Raza Gilani denounced the latest US spy drone attack which killed six people Wednesday at Bannu district in northwest Pakistan, including a major Al-Qaeda operative.
"These attacks are adding to our problems. They are intolerable and we do not support them," Gilani told the national assembly.
The foreign ministry also summoned Anne Patterson, the American ambassador to Islamabad, to lodge a strong protest over the air raids that have fuelled public anger, foreign ministry spokesman Mohammad Sadiq said in the capital.
Sadiq said the US diplomat was told that "continued drone attacks undermined public support for government counterterrorism efforts and stressed that these attacks must be stopped".
"It was underscored to the US ambassador that such attacks were a violation of Pakistan's sovereignty and territorial integrity," he added.
Top Pakistani Taliban leader Hafiz Gul Bahadur on Thursday warned of reprisals by militants across Pakistan if the US carried out any further drone attacks in tribal territory, a spokesman for the commander said..
Bahadur's group has been accused by the United States of launching attacks across the border in Afghanistan, but it abstains from violence in the Pakistani territory under an understanding with military authorities.
"We will start revenge attacks across other districts if the US drone attacks do not stop after November 20," Taliban spokesman Ahmadullah Ahmadi said in a statement.
US spy drones have carried out more than 20 attacks in recent months but Wednesday's Bannu raid was the first outside the lawless tribal region bordering Afghanistan, known as a stronghold of Al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters.
The Washington Post newspaper reported early this week that the US and Pakistani governments have reached a tacit agreement on drone strikes within Pakistani territory, under which Islamabad allows them while continuing to complain about them and Washington never acknowledges them.
However the prime minister told parliament there was no "understanding" with the United States which permitted the missile attacks.
"Being chief executive of this country I want to assure you that there is no understanding," Gilani said.
The prime minister said he hoped to resolve the sovereignty issue with the American government through diplomatic measures and was optimistic the incursions would halt when Barack Obama's administration takes over in January.
But opposition MPs criticised the government in the parliament for failing to put pressure on Washington to stop violation of the country's territory.
"If we do not stop them, tomorrow they can attack Islamabad or Kahuta," MP Ahsan Iqbal said, referring to the country's main nuclear facility outside the capital.
Separately, Pakistani jets and artillery killed 17 people, including up to four Uzbek commanders, as they pounded suspected Taliban and Al-Qaeda hideouts in tribal Bajaur district overnight and into Thursday morning.
Pakistan's northwestern tribal belt became a stronghold for hundreds of extremists who fled Afghanistan after the US-led invasion toppled the hardline Taliban regime in late 2001.
The Pakistani military is currently engaged against Taliban and Al-Qaeda-linked militants in Bajaur, where officials say more than 1,500 rebels have been killed and hundreds more captured since August.
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