Taliban warns of reprisals as Pakistan protests US drone attacks

A militant Taliban group warned Thursday of reprisals in Pakistan if there was another US drone attack, as the government condemned the latest missile strike in its territory. Top Pakistani Taliban leader Hafiz Gul Bahadur warned he would mount revenge attacks if the US carried out further strikes in tribal territory after missiles fired from a drone Wednesday killed six people, including a major Al-Qaeda operative. Bahadur's group has been accused by the United States of launching attacks across the border in Afghanistan, but it abstains from violence in Pakistani territory under an understanding with military authorities. "We will start revenge attacks across other districts if the US drone attacks do not stop after November 20," Taliban spokesman Ahmadullah Ahmadi said in a statement. Speaking in parliament, Pakistani premier Yousuf Raza Gilani denounced the latest drone attack, which occurred at Bannu district in northwest Pakistan. "These attacks are adding to our problems. They are intolerable and we do not support them," Gilani told the national assembly. The foreign ministry also summoned Anne Patterson, the American ambassador to Islamabad, to lodge a strong protest over the strikes that have fuelled public anger, foreign ministry spokesman Mohammad Sadiq said in the capital. Sadiq said the US diplomat was told that "continued drone attacks undermined public support for government counterterrorism efforts and stressed that these attacks must be stopped". "It was underscored to the US ambassador that such attacks were a violation of Pakistan's sovereignty and territorial integrity," he added. US spy drones have carried out more than 20 attacks in recent months but Wednesday's raid in Bannu was the first outside the lawless tribal regions bordering Afghanistan, a stronghold of Al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters. Security sources said the attack killed Abdullah Azam Al-Saudi, a senior member of Osama bin Laden's terror network. They said US intelligence officials identified him as the main link between Al-Qaeda's senior command and Taliban networks in the Pakistani border region. The Washington Post newspaper reported early this week that the US and Pakistani governments have reached a tacit agreement on drone strikes within Pakistani territory, but the premier told parliament this was not the case. "Being chief executive of this country I want to assure you that there is no (such) understanding," Gilani said. The prime minister said he hoped to resolve the issue with the American government through diplomatic measures and was optimistic the incursions would halt when Barack Obama's administration takes over in January. But opposition MPs criticised the government in the parliament for failing to put pressure on Washington to stop violation of the country's territory. "If we do not stop them, tomorrow they can attack Islamabad or Kahuta," MP Ahsan Iqbal said, referring to the country's main nuclear facility outside the capital. Elsewhere in Pakistan Thursday, a suicide bomber killed at least six people when he blew himself up at a mosque northwest of Khar, the main town in the troubled Bajaur tribal region. Separately, Pakistani jets and artillery killed 17 people, including up to four Uzbek commanders, as they pounded suspected Taliban and Al-Qaeda hideouts in Bajaur overnight and into Thursday morning. Pakistani jets also killed 20 militants in attacks on militant centres in the northwestern Swat valley, security officials said. Pakistan's northwestern tribal belt became a "safe haven" for countless extremists who fled Afghanistan after the US-led invasion toppled the hardline Taliban regime in autumn 2001. The Pakistani military is currently engaged against Taliban and Al-Qaeda-linked militants in Bajaur, where officials say more than 1,500 rebels have been killed and hundreds more captured since August.