10/3/12, "Inside Pakistan's drone country," BBC News,
Pakistan's tribal region
of Waziristan, constantly watched and regularly bombarded by US military
drones, has been called the most dangerous place on earth. The
relentless assault exacts a huge psychological toll on the people who
live there.
The US missile-attacks destroy militant training compounds and cars but they also hit mosques, homes, religious schools and civilian vehicles.
I witnessed the fear, stress and depression this causes for the tribal communities on a visit to the region in May.
The drones do not suddenly appear over the horizon, carry out the attack and leave. At any given time of the day, at least four are hovering in the sky, emitting a distinctive and menacing buzzing sound....
People here tell me that it is not just Taliban and al-Qaeda members who are targeted, many ordinary citizens have been killed as well.
In some cases, tribesmen, motivated by a clan or blood feud, have pointed out a rival as a Taliban member or al-Qaeda sympathiser, they say, in the hope he will be blown to bits.
Everybody believes they could be next. "There is only one way to sleep now," says Mateen Khan, a car mechanic in the town of Miranshah. "I take sleeping pills like many other people here. It is either that or stay awake all night."
As I drive into Waziristan via the Orakzai tribal region the road is littered with sites of drone attacks - some militant compounds, but most of all vehicles.
Locals have left markers to remember the sites and in some places burnt-out car wrecks are lying on the roadside....
Four drone strikes occurred during my 25-day stay in North Waziristan, two in the town of Mir Ali and two around Miranshah.
One, on 26 May, hits a building in the main bazaar in central Miranshah, less than 500m from where I am staying.
It's 04:15 in the morning when the blast wakes me. Just as someone next to me says it's the sound of a missile being fired there is an angry whizzing noise overhead and then an explosion.
The gap between the missile being launched and hitting its target is just a few seconds. People run out of their homes into the street in fear. Some are rushing to the spot to see who has been hit.
A room on top of a bakery in the centre of the market has been destroyed. Some local people and Taliban are clearing the rubble. They say three people have been killed.
A few minutes later, the Taliban and locals are able to sift through the rubble and dig up the dead and injured. These are quickly taken away from the site of the attack and no-one is willing to say who they are.
When I try to speak to people and militants later, everybody gives a different answer. It seems that no-one is sure who has been killed, but before long I hear on the radio that a senior al-Qaeda leader - Abu Hafs al-Misri - is among the dead.
In the aftermath of this attack, I speak to local shopkeepers. One is very angry. He says the attacks have destroyed the lives and livelihood of the local population.
While no-one - common citizen or militant - disputes the fact that al-Qaeda leaders have been killed in the strikes, they also point to the massive "collateral damage" incurred, and the many innocent lives that have been lost.
The Taliban have no real answer or solution to the drones - so they spend most of their time trying to weed out the spies who supply information for the strikes. I see several people being arrested.
A Taliban commander tells me most of the spies are local people recruited by Pakistan's security agencies. Like almost all other Taliban commanders, he holds the Pakistan government and security forces responsible for the drone attacks.
The Taliban leaders say the drones will never cause them to give up.
Yet in the middle, it is the common people in these regions who continue to suffer - undergoing mental anguish every day." photo at top AFP, via BBC
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