

Here are words that you never thought you'd hear a Pakistani general utter about the drone strikes that batter Pakistan's tribal areas: "A majority of those eliminated are terrorists, including foreign terrorist elements."

That would be yawn-worthy if it came from the CIA, which never misses an opportunity to credit its drone strikes with taking out al-Qaeda and its affiliates. But it was the main message of an official briefing from Maj. Gen. Ghayur Mehmood in Miram Shah. He's the commander of Pakistan's Seventh Division, charged with leading troops in North Waziristan.

"Myths and rumours about US predator strikes and the casualty figures are many," Mehmood said, according to Dawn, "but it’s a reality that many of those being killed in these strikes are hardcore elements, a sizeable number of them foreigners."

He even brought stats. According to the general, "about 164" drone strikes have occurred since 2007 – the New America Foundation tallies 226 since 2004 – have killed "over 964 terrorists." Of those, 793 were Pakistanis and 171 were foreigners, "including Arabs, Uzbeks, Tajiks, Chechens, Filipinos and Moroccans." (Filipinos? Huh.) Only "a few civilians" have been killed, he said.

Somewhere, Georgetown's Christine Fair – full disclosure: a friend of this blog – is pumping her fist. Fair has been a proponent of the strikes as a sensible counterterrorism tactic. And she's blamed the widespread unpopularity of the drones in Pakistan on a "disinformation campaign" by terrorist sympathizers in Pakistan's intelligence service. (Also, she claims based on her travels in Pakistan that the drones are more popular within the tribal areas, but independent confirmation for that claim is dicey.) For a senior Pakistani general to embrace the drones is quite a vindication.

The Pakistani government and military prefer to be quiet partners in the drone strikes, letting the CIA use military bases on their territory to fly Predators and Reapers and furiously denying in public that they're doing any such thing. In order to pose as defenders of Pakistani sovereignty, official mouthpieces used to demand the strikes stop "immediately," and Pakistani TV has broadcast pictures of drone parts after the robot planes have crashed. Pakistani opposition parties currently maintain they're united in rejecting the drones. And sure enough, the New York Times quotes a Pakistani Army spokesman dismissing Mehmood's remarks as a "personal assessment."

A cynic would say it's an opportunistic way for Pakistani officialdom to deflect domestic anger while still taking billions from their American patron. But a realist might say it's the cost of counterterrorism in Pakistan that still gets the CIA what it wants. Even while U.S.-Pakistani spy relations are at an ebb now that CIA contractor Raymond Davis is in a Lahore jail, a drone strike still killed five people in South Waziristan on Wednesday.

It's completely unclear why Mehmood decided to publicly hug the drones. The most cynical interpretation: by praising the efficacy of the drones, he implicitly cites a reason for delaying the invasion of North Waziristan that the U.S. desperately wantsand the Pakistanis have long avoided. After all, if the drones are so effective, why bother to launch a costly ground campaign? Or who knows: maybe Mehmood is unusually candid. Either way, the usual Pakistani narrative about counterterrorism in the tribal areas – We hate the drones and want the Army to deal with any terrorist problem we have– just got way more complicated.

Photo: U.S. Air Force

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