The deadly attack by NATO against Pakistani military targets was not the first such incident and will not be the last. On September 30 of 2010 NATO helicopter gunships attacked a security post in the Upper Kurram Agency in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, killing three Pakistani soldiers and reducing the fort to rubble in the third violation of the nation's airspace in a week.
Two fixed-wing NATO aircraft accompanied the helicopters, which launched two attacks over four hours apart. "According to local people, the dead and injured had suffered severe burn injuries."
In a strike in the same agency three days before, "Nato claimed killing six insurgents and injuring eight others while local people contradicted the claim and said those killed were Muqbal tribesmen." [13]
The following month NATO aircraft penetrated the province of Balochistan when "NATO warplanes and helicopter gunships entered up to 15 kilometers inside Pakistani airspace." [14]
By November NATO attack helicopters had, in addition to conducting strikes in the tribal belt, "violated Pakistani airspace, defying the integrity and sovereignty of Pakistan, over half a dozen times in...northwest Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and southwest Balochistan provinces...." [15]
Not only has the U.S. killed over 2,000 people with drone missile strikes in North and South Waziristan, but over the last five months NATO has slain several Pakistani military personnel, extending the war into a nation with a population of 170 million and nuclear weapons.
While most of the world's attention is concentrated on events in North Africa, the West is steadily and inexorably intensifying the longest, largest and most lethal war on the planet.
1) Reuters, February 2, 2011
2) New York Times, February 6, 2011
3) U.S. Department of Defense, February 8, 2011
4) Deutsche Presse-Agentur, February 8, 2011
5) Deutsche Presse-Agentur, February 27, 2011
6) Ibid
7) Deutsche Presse-Agentur, February 21, 2011
8) RTT News, February 24, 2011
9) The News International, February 22, 2011
10) Ibid
11) The News International, February 3, 2011
12) The News International, February 6, 2011
13) DawnNews, October 6, 2010
14) Asian News International, October 19, 2010
15) Xinhua News Agency, November 28, 2010
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