EIGHTEEN people were killed on 13 January, when missiles were fired by an American CIA drone aircraft into three houses in Damadola, in the Bajaur Agency region in Pakistan.
‘Hellfire’ missiles were fired from an unmanned Predator drone, probably operated by the CIA, Amnesty International reported on Tuesday.
The intended target appears to have been Ayman al-Zawahiri, who is said to be a high ranking al-Qaeda operative, and who was not amongst the dead.
In a letter sent to US President George Bush on Tuesday, Amnesty said it was concerned that a pattern of killings carried out with these weapons appeared to reflect a US government policy condoning extrajudicial executions.
Amnesty reiterated to Bush that extrajudicial executions are strictly prohibited under international human rights law.
The fact that Pakistan and the USA closely cooperate on security issues and that the USA believed they knew the location of suspects, suggests that it may have been possible to attempt to arrest the suspects in order to bring them to trial, said Amnesty.
The failure to attempt such arrest points to a policy of elimination of suspects and a deliberate disregard of the duty to prosecute in a fair process, Amnesty continued.
In addition, the fact that air surveillance, witnessed by local people, took place for several days before the attack indicates that those ordering the attack on the basis of this information were very likely to have been aware of the presence of women and children and others unconnected with political violence in the area of the attack.
Pakistani journalists who interviewed local people said that the victims were all civilians, including five women, five children and eight men and that reports of militants killed in the attack were intended to justify an attack based on faulty intelligence.
Member of the National Assembly for Bajaur, Haroon ur-Rashid, who was in the area at the time of the attack, said he had known all the victims personally and categorically denied reports of bodies of militants being taken away.
On 22 January Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz said there was ‘no tangible physical evidence’ of militants having been killed in the attack.
Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz categorically stated that the US authorities had not informed the Pakistani government before the 13 January attack.
However, residents in the tribal areas expressed their doubt that US forces could have carried out the attack without the knowledge and agreement of Pakistani intelligence. This suspicion has also been expressed in Pakistani and US media.
For instance, the Washington Post on 14 January said that ‘this could not have happened without Pakistani involvement’; on 18 January the paper further reported that an official source in Pakistan had admitted that Pakistan intelligence officials knew of the strike in advance and that a US military source in Afghanistan had confirmed US-Pakistani cooperation in anti-terrorist operations, including in the 13 January attack.
Local people, including the parliamentarian for the area, Member of National Assembly (MLA) Haroon ur-Rashid, have said US drones were circling the area for at least three days prior to the missile attack.
Such incursions into Pakistan airspace would have been observed by Pakistani forces who would have been obligated to ascertain and approve their mission or to ask them to stop. Pakistan officials deny being informed of the attacks in advance.
But these denials are undermined by repeated official admissions of regular intelligence sharing between the two countries and local observers reports of a US presence on the ground, including in the tribal areas of Pakistan.
Local reports also note the presence of US intelligence agents during operations against terrorist suspects.
Government and military prohibition of journalists’ investigations in these areas and the lack of public protest from the government of Pakistan about earlier attacks by the US within its territory leave unanswered important questions about the prior knowledge of the Pakistani government about the attack on the 13th January and their acquiescence or possible complicity in its commission.
Amnesty International said it is also concerned that journalists seeking to investigate attacks are increasingly harassed or detained for their legitimate journalistic activities in the region.
Two journalists, Haroon Rashid of the BBC World Service Urdu service, and Iqbal Khattak of the Peshawar-based Daily Times, were detained for two hours on 14 January 2006 as they were about to file their stories from Khar, the central city of the Bajaur Agency region.
They had earlier visited houses destroyed by the missile and covered a demonstration in Khar against the US attacks.
The two journalists were taken to the Bajaur Agency local administration office and told to hand over their materials.
The political administrator told them that the media were exploiting the local situation and working against the national interest. The two men were released in the evening.
Authorities on the same day confiscated the film cassette of a cameraman working for US television news agency APTN, after he filmed the destroyed houses.
When BBC correspondent Haroon Rashid wanted to return to the area on 16 January for further work, the crew was stopped at the entry point to the Bajaur Agency.
Personnel at the checkpoint told them that there were clear orders that no journalists were to be allowed into the area.
On contacting the Federal Information Minister on 17 January a journalist was told to ‘talk to the military’ about access to the region.
Of particular concern is the possible ‘disappearance’ of a journalist reporting on the killing of Abu Hamza Rabia.
Hayatullah Khan of the daily The Nation and the Urdu daily Ausaf, was abducted on 4 December 2005 near Mirali in North Waziristan.
He had expressed fears that he might be arrested by intelligence agencies after he photographed pieces of shrapnel with US markings which local villagers found in the rubble of a house where Abu Hamza Rabia was killed on 1 December.
This photographic evidence contradicted the Pakistani official version which claimed that the house blew up when explosives were accidentally ignited.
Local journalists believe that the official account that Hayatullah Khan was abducted by local Taleban is not correct and that security forces may be holding him.
