Pakistan may shoot down US drones if allowed: Air force chief
May 14th, 2011 - 2:23 pm ICT by IANSIslamabad, May 14 (IANS) If necessary orders are given, the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) may shoot down US drones that enter the country’s airspace to bombard the northwestern region bordering Afghanistan, Air Chief Marshal Rao Qamar Suleman, who heads the air force, has said.
Suleman said this in reply to a question during an in-camera briefing by the country’s military officials to a joint sitting of parliament Friday, Geo News reported Saturday.
The joint sitting was held against the backdrop of the US Special Forces mission in Abbottabad May 2 that killed Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden.
On Friday, Lt. Gen. Ahmed Shuja Pasha, chief of the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI), admitted there was “intelligence failure” during the US raid.
The US made its position clear when Leon Panetta, director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), said that intelligence on the operation to take out bin Laden was not shared with Pakistan out of fear that it would “jeopardise the mission”, according to Al Jazeera.
The ISI director general Friday accepted full responsibility for the Abbottabad incident during an in-camera joint sitting of parliament.
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