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Pakistan army stages UAV shoot-down exercise

ISLAMABAD — Pakistan’s army has conducted a military exercise to shoot down drones, the Defense Ministry said Friday in the wake of repeated incidents involving unmanned U.S. drones flying across the border from Afghanistan targeting militant hideouts.

The ministry, in a statement, said the army’s air defense wing used surface-to-air Anza missiles and radar-controlled guns in the exercise conducted at Khudai range at Muzaffar Garh, about 480 kilometers southwest of Islamabad in Punjab province, which concluded Friday.

”The elements of Army Air Defense demonstrated their shooting skills by targeting the drones flying at different altitudes. The aim of the exercise was to provide live fire experience on air defense guns and short-range missiles under near tactical environment and handling of weapons and equipment during firing,” it said.

The statement comes a day after U.S. Ambassador Anne Patterson was summoned to the Foreign Ministry to receive a strong protest over a missile attack carried out by U.S. drones Wednesday on a residential compound in Bannu district, well inside North-West Frontier Province, killing six people and injuring seven others.

”It was underscored to the U.S. Ambassador that such attacks were a violation of Pakistan’s sovereignty and territorial integrity,” the ministry said in a statement, adding that continued drone attacks would undermine public support for the government’s counterterrorism efforts.

Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani’s government is coming under increasing domestic pressure because of its inability to persuade the United States to stop drone attacks inside Pakistani territory.

On Thursday, Gillani denied a U.S. media report that the Pakistani government had given its tacit approval to the United States to carry out missile strikes by drones inside Pakistani territory.

”Being chief executive of this country, I want to assure you that there is no understanding with the United States (on drone attacks),” he declared in the National Assembly.

The Washington Post reported Tuesday that the United States and Pakistan had reached a tacit understanding in September on a ”don’t-ask-don’t-tell policy” that allowed unmanned drone attacks on suspected terrorist targets in northwestern Pakistan bordering Afghanistan.