When last we left America's drone war over Pakistan, the local government seemed resigned to idea of the United Sstates launching its unmanned air force from Pakistani soil, on targets within Pakistan, without Islamabad's permission. All the ministers asked was that America respect their "red line" – and keep U.S. ground forces out of their country.

But the red line may have suddenly shifted, from human troops to robots in the sky. In a meeting yesterday with U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Admiral Michael Mullen, top Pakistani officials allegedly demanded that America stop the unmanned attacks and "shift the drone technology and authority to the Pakistan Army," according to Pakistan's* Dawn *newspaper.

"We did talk about drones and let me be very frank, there is a gap," Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi tells Reuters.

Pakistani leaders have huffed about the drones in public before – only to cooperate in secret with the robotic aircraft strikes. But these requests are a bit different. Rather than demand the drones stop flying, the leaders are asking for control of the aircraft.

"We would much prefer that the U.S. share its intelligence and give us the weapons, drones and missiles that will allow us to take care of this problem on our own," Pakistani president Asif Ali Zardari tells the Independent. "These drone attacks are counter-productive."

Meanwhile, the attacks continue. An unmanned aircraft fired a pair of missiles today into a vehicle in the town of Gangi Khel. Four suspected militants were killed. " It's the third such strike this month and the fourteenth inside Pakistan in 2009, according to the Long War Journal.

Gangi Khel is thought to be under the control of Pakistani Taliban leader Maulvi Nazir. In an interview earlier this week with al-Qaeda's propaganda wing, Nazir practically begged the Americans to come after him – declaring his intents to wage terror worldwide, and calling President Barack Obama a "black ass." A week earlier, Nazir's ally Baitullah Mehsud threatened to "launch an attack in Washington." Which, of course, makes the idea of America giving up her killer drones all the more remote.

[Photo: USAF]

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