CIA drone strikes Militant Seminary in Pakistan Proper, Killing 6 (Ross)

[unhappycamper]

http://www.juancole.com/2013/11/militant-seminary-pakistan.html

CIA drone strikes Militant Seminary in Pakistan Proper, Killing 6 (Ross)
Posted on 11/22/2013
by Juan Cole

A CIA drone strike hit a religious school in Hangu, Pakistan [on Thursday], killing at least six and injuring several more. It is believed to be the first time a strike has taken place in the ‘settled’ areas beyond Pakistan’s tribal regions.

The Bureau has logged reports of over 370 drone strikes in Pakistan since 2004. Almost every one of these has taken place in the Federally Administered Tribal Area (FATA), the semi-autonomous mountainous region bordering Afghanistan where large numbers of militant groups shelter alongside a civilian population.

According to the Bureau’s research, three drone strikes have previously hit outside the main body of FATA, in Frontier Region Bannu. The frontier regions are a ‘buffer’ area between the fully tribal regions and the ‘settled’ regions – the phrase used to describe the sections of Pakistan that are under provincial control. The most recent of these attacks took place in Jani Khel in March 2009, two months into Barack Obama’s presidency. Previous strikes took place in the same area in November 2008 and, according to less comprehensive reports, December 2007.

Today’s strike hit a madrassa (religious school) in a village named Tal near the town of Hangu, in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Province (KPK), close to FATA. Residents described seeing drones circling in the area for days beforehand.