US bombing in northern Pakistan: an act of imperialist recklessness
By James Cogan - World Socialist Web Site
16 January 2006
The US air strike carried out on January 13 on the isolated village of Damadola, near Pakistan’s border with
Afghanistan, was as reckless as it was criminal. At least 18 civilians were killed, including five women and five
children, further inflaming already high political and social tensions inside Pakistan.
Under international law, the strike was an act of war. The Pakistani government of President Pervez Musharraf has
collaborated with the US takeover of Afghanistan and its broader international aggression, but it has never formally
granted the US military the right to cross the border and carry out operations on Pakistani soil or airspace. It is
unclear whether the Pakistani government and military had pre-knowledge of the attack. But in the face of public outrage
it has been compelled to issue a protest to the US ambassador and deplore the bombing of Damadola as “highly
condemnable”.
Not only was the attack a violation of Pakistani national sovereignty, the intended target—the senior Al Qaeda leader
Ayman al-Zawahiri—was not even in the village. Haroon Rashid, the local member of the Pakistani National Assembly, told
Afghan Islamic Press: “I know all the 18 people who were killed. There was neither al-Zawahiri nor any other Arab among
them. Rather they were all poor people of the area.” A Pakistani military intelligence officer told Al Jazeerah: “Their
[the US military] information was wrong, and our investigations conclude that they acted on false information.”
Full Article: http://www.wsws.org/articles/2006/jan2006/paki-j16.shtml