WANA, PAKISTAN: Taliban militants claimed to have shot down a US drone in the Angoor Adda area of South Waziristan on Saturday.
Militants loyal to Taliban commander Maulvi Mohammad Nazir said the unmanned aircraft had crashed in a jungle after the attack and soldiers took away the wreckage.
But security officials and political authorities disputed the Taliban’s claim, saying that teams dispatched to the area after the claim found no wreckage.
Unconfirmed reports also said the drone had gone missing in an area near the Afghan border.
Locals said they had seen a small plane flying over the area at low altitude, adding that militants resorted to heavy firing when they saw it. But they were unaware whether the plane was struck or not.
Residents and a local police official said two drones were flying low over a village in South Waziristan when one of them was hit by militant fire.
‘We heard the firing by the Taliban and then a drone fell down,’ police official Israr Khan said.
A security official said the drone crashed in a forest near a post on the Afghan border. ‘Apparently a drone has crashed in the nearby forest, we are searching for its wreckage,’ he added.
An Army spokesman said reports of a drone crash were being investigated.
‘We have come to know that something has happened there, but we do not have any confirmation,’ Maj-Gen Athar Abbas said in Islamabad.
‘We are further investigating and trying to find out.’
More than two dozen suspected US drone attacks have been carried out in Pakistan since August last year, killing more than 200 people, most of them militants.
Dawn (Pakistan)
A few months ago, I wrote about the early stages of the conflict in Ukraine through the lens of Sun Tzu’s The Art of War. While it appears likely that the war will carry on into the foreseeable future, enough time has passed for us to make an honest assessment of each side’s relative […]
The Ukrainian Army has made dramatic strides in the last few weeks. Ukraine’s tactical commanders have outfoxed their Russian counterparts, and by issuing a feint towards the south the UA has been able to earn substantial gains in the north of their country. The impact of these efforts have been compounded by the steady stream […]
In mid-May the Irish political party, Sinn Féin, won the plurality of seats in the Northern Ireland Assembly. Many American readers might not fully understand the significance of Sinn Féin’s political victory- but rest assured that subjects of the United Kingdom and a wide range of political movements the world over have heard the message […]
The first wave of the Russian offensive in Ukraine has fallen short of Russian autocrat Vladmir Putin’s ambitions. Most analysts deduced that Putin had hoped to achieve a decapitation strike of the Ukrainian government- taking Kiev and replacing Ukrainian President Vladimir Zolinski with a pro-Kremlin voice. Kiev has been threatened repeatedly through the course of […]
On the weekend of March 26th, the notorious MS-13 gang went on a massive killing spree in El Salvador which left more than 70 people dead by Sunday. Even for a country where powerful gangs hold massive sway, this recent tragedy stands out considering that it was the bloodiest day on record since the civil […]
