US has assured it won't repeat  Bajaur: Pak

   Islamabad: In a bid to refute the news reports claiming that the US had deployed dozens of drones along the Pak- Afghan border and had plans to carry out more Bajaur-like air strikes in future, Pakistan has said that Washington had assured it that such attacks would not be repeated in future.

    Pakistan Foreign Office spokeswoman, Tasnim Aslam said that the US administration had given an assurance to the country's President Pervez Musharraf to this effect. "President General Pervez Musharraf has been assured by the US administration that such incidents (Bajaur) will not be repeated," the Daily Times quoted Aslam as saying during a weekly press briefing yesterday. She added that the latest incursion by US helicopters into Pakistani airspace was "under investigation". Tasnim further said the Pakistan FO had not summoned the US ambassador to protest the Bajaur incident, but it would be incorrect to say that Pakistan had not lodged a protest with the US. "We didn't summon the US ambassador to the Foreign Office. The ambassador was accompanying Senator (John) Kerry to the prime minister's office where the foreign secretary met him and lodged the protest," she explained. Rejecting the recent editorials published in American newspapers accusing Pakistan of not doing enough to capture Al Qaeda operatives in the tribal areas, she said Pakistan was fighting terrorism in its own interest in cooperation with the international community. "We have deployed 80,000 troops on the Afghan border and a large number of Al Qaeda operatives have been captured," she added.

Previous experience led US to not inform Pak

    Lahore: The US missile strike on Damadola village in Bajaur tribal agency near the Pak-Afghan border without Pakistan's consent was apparently due to Washington's earlier bad experience at involving Islamabad in clandestine work. The Dawn quoted a CIA official as saying to the Sunday Times that earlier when the US got wind of Osama bin Laden's presence at a suspected hideout in Zhob in Balochistan, it asked the Pakistan government for permission to strike. However, the federal government for no apparent reason, delayed in giving the permission, and by the time US officials got the go ahead, the Al Qaeda leader had already left his hideout. "For unknown reasons, Pakistani officials delayed in giving permission ... which ultimately gave these militants time to move to an unknown location," the paper quoted the CIA official as saying. Pakistani intelligence officials also corroborated the CIA official's statement that US forces had picked up electronic intercepts suggesting Osama's presence at a temporary shelter in Zhob, a place dominated by Pathan and Baloch tribesmen "sympathetic to the Al Qaeda and Taliban" cause. Officials said that the US had then decided to launch a laser guided missile strike from a Predator drone, as a commando assault would involve massive casualties, with no guarantee of success. The near miss to eliminate Osama then, might be the real reason for the US to not consult Pakistan before the unilateral strike in Bajaur this time, an official said. "While Pakistan's President, Pervez Musharraf, has vowed to eliminate terrorists operating within his country, elements within Pakistan's ISI intelligence service may have sought to protect bin Laden," the paper quoted the CIA official as saying.

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