Earlier today, missiles fired by US drones killed at least seventeen people in a Pakistani village near the Afghan border. Local residents said the two drones fired three missiles at a house and a madrassa. Doctors said fifteen to twenty people were also wounded, most of them women and children. Last week, US commandos carried out a helicopter-borne ground assault in what was the first known incursion into Pakistan by US troops since the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. Hussain Haqqani, Pakistan’s ambassador to the United States, condemned the ground assault that killed twenty people.

Hussain Haqqani: “Pakistan and the United States are partners in the war against terror. It does not suit the United States to enrage Pakistani people by unilateral actions, especially when those unilateral actions do not yield anything by way of getting any significant terrorists or militants. It is much better to let Pakistan act on its side of the border and to continue the cooperative relationship between Pakistan, NATO and the United States.”