Pakistan to shoot down intruding US drones

Pakistan will shoot down any US drone that intrudes its airspace as per new directives, a media report has quoted senior Pakistani official as saying. Daily ‘Nation’ reported that Pakistani military official in an interview with western media said according to the new Pakistani defense policy, “any object entering our airspace, including US drones, will be treated as hostile and be shot down.” According to reports on Monday the policy change comes just weeks after a deadly NATO attack on Pakistani military checkpoints killed 24 Pakistani soldiers, prompting Pakistani officials to order all US personnel out of a remote airfield in Balochistan. Army Chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani had issued multiple directives since the November 26 NATO attack, which included orders to shoot down US drones, senior military officials confirmed. Since 2004, US drones have carried out more than 300 attacks inside Pakistan. Islamabad has also closed the border crossings that the Western military alliance uses to transfer fuel and other supplies for the US-led forces in Afghanistan. Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani has also warned the US and NATO that any future cross-border attack would be met with a ‘detrimental response’. “The democratic government would not allow a similar attack on the country’s sovereignty and any attempt in future will definitely meet the detrimental response,” Gilani said. Tribesmen in North Waziristan have said that no drone attack was carried out in the tribal areas after November 26 when NATO forces raided two Pakistani posts and killed 24 soldiers. Last drone attack was carried out on November 17 which had killed six suspected militants near Razmak in North Waziristan tribal region. No attack has been launched over the past 25 days, probably this is for the first time since 2004 that the tribal areas witnessed break in drone attacks for about three weeks.