Pakistan tribesman threatens to sue US officials over drone strikes

Nov 30, 2010, 12:07 GMT

Islamabad - A tribesman is planning to sue US officials overseeing operations by unmanned drone aircraft that have killed hundreds of people in Pakistan's tribal region along the Afghan border, a media report said Tuesday.

Karim Khan, a local journalist from the North Waziristan tribal district, said he had sent a 500-million-dollar claim to US Defence Secretary Robert Gates, CIA chief Leon Panetta and the agency's station head in Islamabad, Jonathan Banks, for the deaths of his teenage son and brother in a drone airstrike.

The Express Tribune newspaper quoted Khan as saying that he would go to the criminal and civil courts against the three men if they did not respond to his claim within 14 days.

Khan lost his brother Asif Iqbal, an English teacher, and 18-year son Zaheenullah, a government employee, when the pilot-less aircraft fired missiles at his house on December 31.

Khan charged that much of the information the US Central Intelligence Agency buys from agents in the tribal region is wrong and misleading and results in the deaths of innocent people, the newspaper reported.

The United States has intensified its drone strikes since 2008 in the mountainous tribal region, especially in North Waziristan, a hotbed of Taliban and al-Qaeda militants. More than 100 such attacks have taken place this year.

Even though Washington does not acknowledge the drone attacks, its officials privately claim they have eliminated dozens of Islamist insurgents.

Pakistan condemns the US missile strikes, saying they violate its sovereignty and the collateral damage done fuels public anger, complicating its efforts against Islamist militants.

It is widely believed, however, that Pakistani intelligence officials secretly cooperate with the CIA in identifying targets.

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