| Description |
1 online resource (v, 42 pages) : map |
| Series |
Asia report ; no. 247 |
|
ICG Asia report ; no. 247.
|
| Contents |
Executive summary -- Recommendations -- I. Introduction -- II. Challenging conventional wisdom -- III. The legal ground -- IV. Drones and counter-terrorism in Pakistan -- V. Pakistan's responsibility -- VI. The best counter-terrorism strategy in FATA : rule of law -- VII. Conclusion |
| Summary |
Nine years after the first U.S. drone strike in Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) in 2004, the U.S. refuses to officially acknowledge the CIA-run program, while Pakistan denies consenting to it. This secrecy undermines efforts to assess the program's legality or its full impact on FATA's population. It also diverts attention from a candid examination of the roots of militancy in the poorly governed tribal belt bordering southern and eastern Afghanistan and how best to address them. Drone strikes may disrupt FATA-based militant groups' capacity to plan and execute cross-border attacks on NATO troops and to plot attacks against the U.S. homeland, but they cannot solve the fundamental problem. The ability of those groups to regroup, rearm and recruit will remain intact so long as they enjoy safe havens on Pakistani territory and efforts to incorporate FATA into the constitutional mainstream are stifled. Distorted through hyper-nationalistic segments of the Pakistani media and hi-jacked by political hardliners, the domestic Pakistani debate on the impact of drone operations has overshadowed a more urgent discussion about the state's obligation to its citizens in FATA, who are denied constitutional rights and protections. In the absence of formal courts and law enforcement institutions, the state fails to protect FATA's residents from jihadi and other criminal groups. While the U.S. and international debate over legitimacy and control of drone strikes is highly important, drones are not a long-term solution to the problem they are being deployed to solve -- destruction of local, regional and wider transnational jihadis who operate out of Pakistan's tribal belt. The U.S. policy should be two-fold: pressuring the Pakistan military to abandon any logistical or other support to violent extremists, including by more rigorously applying existing conditions on security assistance; and encouraging and supporting efforts by the elected leadership in Islamabad to extend the state's writ to FATA. Similarly, if Pakistan is genuinely committed to ending strikes on its territory, it should realise that its strongest case against the U.S. drone program lies in overhauling an anachronistic governance system so as to establish fundamental constitutional rights and genuine political enfranchisement in FATA, along with a state apparatus capable of upholding the rule of law and bringing violent extremists to justice |
| Notes |
"21 May 2013." |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references |
| Notes |
Online resource; title from PDF title page (ICG, viewed May 29, 2013) |
| Subject |
Drone aircraft -- Law and legislation -- Pakistan
|
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Drone aircraft -- Law and legislation -- United States
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Drone aircraft -- Government policy -- Pakistan
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Drone aircraft -- Government policy -- United States
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Terrorism -- Pakistan -- Federally Administered Tribal Areas -- Prevention
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Drone aircraft -- Law and legislation.
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Terrorism -- Prevention.
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Pakistan.
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Pakistan -- Federally Administered Tribal Areas.
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United States.
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| Form |
Electronic book
|
| Author |
International Crisis Group.
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