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The U.S. launched a massive drone attack today after suspending the strikes for long stretches while Raymond Davis was jailed in Pakistan on murder charges. The timing of the attacks adds more fuel to suspicions about the timeline behind the negotiations to release Davis from Pakistani custody, in a case already steeped in considerable controversy.

On Thursday, the U.S. launched its second drone strike in the Pakistani region of North Waziristan in two days, killing at least 40 people--many of them civilians attending a tribal meeting--in the deadliest such attack since 2006, the BBC reports. The strikes occurred amidst mounting anti-American protests in Pakistan over the pardoning of Davis by relatives of the two men the CIA contractor allegedly shot and killed in late January. Davis was freed after the families received over a $2 million in so-called "blood money."

Davis' release was announced only yesterday, but some reporters believe it was agreed upon earlier. Declan Walsh, Afghanistan and Pakistan correspondent for The Guardian, for example, noted on Twitter that, according to Pakistani officials, the deal was struck sometime last week but held up because the victims' relatives harbored reservations. There are two other clues to bolster this theory: