Word: waziristan
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...Exasperated by Pakistan's failure to wipe out the militant sanctuaries on its soil, Washington decided earlier this month to take matters into its own hands. The first known ground assault of the campaign, staged by U.S. Special Operations troops in Angoor Adda, a village in South Waziristan, was followed by stepped up air strikes on suspected militants by pilotless drones. Pentagon officials had suggested in recent weeks that the U.S. would be "testing" the new Pakistani government by stepping up its attacks in western Pakistan to gauge Islamabad's reaction. Previously, U.S. actions had been been limited to launching...
...fruitless, and believes that its own efforts are undermined by U.S. operations. "The [Pakistani counterinsurgency] operation in Bajaur is the most intense for many years. It is not popular with the public, but we are doing it," says the Zardari aide, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "And in Waziristan, after a lot of effort we got the Waziri tribes to unite against [Taliban commander] Baitullah Mehsud. But after all these drone strikes, they got dejected...
...Predator attacks in Pakistan are hardly new. The first high-profile strike took place in January 2006, targeting al-Qaeda's deputy leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, in the South Waziristan village of Damadola. The missile missed al-Zawahiri but killed dozens of villagers, unleashing violent protests across the country...
...strikes began yielding more results. In January, al-Qaeda commander Abu Laith al-Libi was killed, along with a dozen purported militants. But a May attack in Damadola, said to be targeting Algerian al-Qaeda operative Abu Sulaymen Jazairi, killed more civilians, while a July strike in South Waziristan killed leading al-Qaeda bomb expert Abu Khabab al-Masri...
...predator drones have also attacked high value targets in the tribal areas, most notably in 2006 when a missile aimed at Ayman al-Zawahiri killed 18 civilians in Damadola, a border village in Bajaur agency instead. Pakistan's foreign ministry released a statement calling the U.S. attack in South Waziristan "a gross violation of Pakistani territory" and said that it caused an "immense loss of civilian life" and that "Such actions are counter-productive and certainly do not help our joint efforts to fight terrorism. On the contrary, they undermine the very basis of cooperation and may fuel the fire...