The buzz along the Afghan Pakistan border
Pilotless U.S. drones armed with missiles have stepped up patrols over Pashtun villages on the Afghan-Pakistan border, hunting for Taliban and al Qaeda militants and fraying nerves below.Hopefully the Taliban are losing sleep from the buzzing. Before this war is over they may not be able to tell a predator from their tennitus.Pashtun villagers living on the frontier call them "buzzers", and the aircraft have increasingly taken to the skies, causing sleepless nights and occasionally raining down death.
"We're sick of these drones, they're driving us crazy," said Sher Shah, a government official in the town of Wana in the South Waziristan region, a hot bed of militancy in northwest Pakistan.
"They fly so low at night we can't sleep!"
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Sometimes villagers can spot the drones -- a tiny speck in the sky -- and even fire at them with rifles. At other times the drones are too high to see, but you know they're there from the distinctive and incessant buzz given off by their rear-mounted propeller engines.
The buzzing often gets louder at night as the drones patrol at lower altitudes in the darkness, villagers say.
Residents of Bajaur, another militant-plagued region on the Afghan border, to the northeast of Waziristan, said drones flew overhead all night on Thursday.
"The sky is not safe, the earth is not safe, where should we go?" asked Jabbar Shah, a resident of Inayat Kalay village, about 10 km (6 miles) from the border.
"We don't know when will they strike and who will they hit. It's very worrying," he said.
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This is a good thing. Those losing sleep are Taliban, al Qaeda or their enablers.
ReplyDeleteI wonder how long it will take until the socialist Pelosi and Reed deem this torture from sleep deprivation. This could also harm our image with our international enemies like Putin and Chaves.