WASHINGTON: US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has said that she personally conveyed her concern on civilian casualties in US drones attacks to the presidents of Afghanistan and Pakistan but added that the tribal areas were a source of trouble for the entire region and beyond.
Mrs Clinton’s remarks coincide with a separate statement by the US Defence Secretary Robert Gates who told a Senate US panel earlier Tuesday that the United States has informed Pakistan that US drone attacks in Fata will continue.
This marks the first time a cabinet level US official has confirmed the drone attacks. Previously, US officials refused to comment, saying that since the attacks happened inside Pakistan, they would let Pakistani officials deal with it.
‘We are looking very broadly and comprehensively at the situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan and along their borders,’ Secretary Clinton told a briefing at the State Department.
Since last summer, the US has carried out at least 30 US missile attacks on Pakistan's tribal area, killing more than 130 people, many of them civilians.
Similar attacks were carried out in Afghanistan as well, also causing civilian casualties.
Last week, US Vice President Joe Biden not only indicated that the attacks would continue but also warned Americans to brace themselves for an increase in US casualties in the fight against the Taliban and al-Qaeda.
Asked to comment on these developments, Secretary Clinton said the region that includes Afghanistan and Pakistan was ‘an area that we are following closely.’
She said that as the US moved forward in this area, civilian casualties in US air strikes would ‘certainly (be) a part of our assessment’ about the situation there.
‘But there’s little doubt in anyone’s mind that the border areas between Afghanistan and Pakistan are a source of instability for Afghanistan, for Pakistan, and far beyond the borders of those two countries,’ she added.
Mrs Clinton said that President Obama and she thought it was important to move ‘as quickly as possible’ for dealing with the situation in that area and that’s why they appointed a special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan.
She recalled that the Bush administration had already started a review of the situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan, which was going to continue under the new administration as well.
We are engaged very vigorously in trying to assess what has been done before and what we are going to be doing. And we thought it imperative that we had a high-level representative – and in this case, Richard Holbrooke – to be guiding that process with us,’ she said.
There will be other decisions made as we go forward. But I don’t think anyone should be surprised by our willingness to engage,’ she added.
‘So there will be more to report about our views as to how we’re going to proceed in the future,’ she said.
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