US appears to wind down drone campaign in Pakistan

WASHINGTON: The Central Intelligence Agency’s (CIA) drone campaign in Pakistan, under which more than 300 strikes were carried out since 2004, is winding down, Express News reported on Friday. Quoting an Associated Press report, Express News stated that the shrinking of the remote killing program was a result of “stricter rules, diplomatic sensitivities and the changing nature of the al Qaeda threat.” Missiles once rained down in Pakistan at a rate of two per week but there has not been a single strike since December 2013. “The programme (in Pakistan) appears to have ended,” AP report quoted journalist Peter Bergen as saying. Bergen has closely studied drone strikes for the New America Foundation, a Washington think tank. The CIA and the White House, however, declined to comment. In a major foreign policy speech at the US Military Academy on May 28, Obama had said the US would continue to carry out occasional drone strikes against terrorist targets, but he cited Yemen and Somalia, not Pakistan. Source : newsonepk