The News, October 05, 2009

MIRAMSHAH: A tribal Jirga of North Waziristan on Sunday threatened to support the Afghanistan-based anti-US groups, including the Taliban, if the US drone attacks were not stopped.

Addressing a grand Jirga here, the tribal elders, including Malik Jalal Manzarkhel, Malik Inayat Khan Dawar, Malik Muhammad Nawaz Muhammadkhel and Malik Faridullah, unanimously decided the Jirga would support the Afghanistan-based Taliban if the US did not stop killing "innocent people" in North Waziristan through drone attacks.

The elders said they would send volunteers and suicide bombers to Afghanistan to intensify the attacks on the US troops if the Americans did not change their policy of using drones to target the tribal people.

Lashing out at the Pakistani authorities, they alleged the drones were flying all the time in North Waziristan at the behest and with the cooperation of the government. They alleged the drone attacks, meant to dismantle the network of Al-Qaeda and Taliban, were killing innocent people and provoking them to support the militants.

They said the tribal people were peaceful and patriotic Pakistanis and it was the US who was involved in fanning terrorism in the agency. Regarding the media’s role, they alleged that a handful of journalists had been bribed by the Jewish lobby for writing against the so-called terrorism in the agency.