US drone strikes kill seven in Pakistan Taliban stronghold

Despite the public backlash, the US considers drone strikes an effective tool against militants. Several top Taliban leaders have been killed in drone strikes in the past seven months. The Monitor reported Monday that the recent onslaught of strikes, together with Pakistan’s offensive against the Taliban, has driven the group underground and in some cases created fractures within it:

The Taliban themselves admit they fear the drones not just as dealers of death but also of dissension.

"Drone attacks have created a rift in the Taliban ranks as people are suspecting each other of spying," says a member of a Taliban faction that split from the main group after death of Baitullah Mehsud, the founder of the Pakistan Taliban. The militant, who spoke on condition of anonymity, says that such suspicions have led to fratricide within the group.

But the Taliban was not weakened enough to prevent it from launching attacks in Lahore and the northwest last week that killed at least 70 people, and threatened to continue those suicide attacks as long as the drone strikes continue.

In a separate incident in northwest Pakistan Wednesday, militants attacked a police checkpoint on the outskirts of Peshawar, on the border with the Khyber tribal region, reports the BBC. More than a dozen militants launched the attack, which killed five policemen. The BBC reports that attacks on the checkpoint were common, though they have declined in number in the past year.

Agence France-Presse reported that no group had taken responsibility for the attack, although a senior police official blamed Lashkar-e-Islam, a group with ties to the Taliban. AFP also reports that militants in Khyber blew up a truck carrying fuel for NATO forces in Afghanistan. No one was killed in the attack.

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