Impotent rage

The public opinion in Pakistan is highly exercised these days because of the growing frequency of the attacks by the US forces in Afghanistan on the claimed militant targets in our tribal areas in violation of our sovereignty and territorial integrity. Most of these violations of our sovereignty have been in the form of missile attacks from pilotless predators or artillery shelling from across the border. However, on 3 September the US ground forces for the first time launched an assault at a village near Angoor Adda in South Waziristan leading to the death of 20 people most of them women and children.

In response to the Angoor Adda attack, the Pakistan army spokesman stressed that Pakistan reserved the "right of self-defence and retaliation to protect our citizens and soldiers against aggression." The Foreign Office lodged a strong protest with the US ambassador on the incident. The Senate and the National Assembly in a resolution adopted separately but unanimously asked the government to "repel such attacks in the future with full force" and warned that such attacks were "bound to force fundamental changes of foreign policy" by Pakistan. Asif Zardari in a statement issued on 4 September before his election as the President condemned the attack as an "outrageous and unacceptable violation of the territorial integrity of the country."

Perhaps the strongest response to the US attacks inside Pakistan was given by Chief of the Army Staff General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani who in a statement issued on 10 September rejected US claims that the rules of engagement gave the coalition forces in Afghanistan the right to conduct operations in Pakistan and declared that the country's sovereignty and territorial integrity would be defended at all costs. Significantly President Zardari and Prime Minister Gilani separately told the media the next day that General Kayani's statement reflected the policy of the present government thus sending a clear signal to Washington that that there was a unanimity of views on the issue among the various organs of state and power centres in Pakistan.