(Ahlul Bayt News Agency) - The tribesmen arrived in the capital from North Waziristan region in coaches and set up a camp near the Presidency and parliament house to convey their resentments at the U.S. strikes.
President Barrack Obama confirmed for the first time earlier this month the use of spy aircraft in the Pakistani tribal regions.
U.S. officials claim the drones are only targeting al-Qaeda and Taliban militants in the Pakistani tribal regions.
An anti-drone attack campaigner from North Waziristan Karim Khan, who lost his son in one of U.S. drone attacks, said that the tribesmen want to convey their voice to the Americans and to the Pakistani government.
“I have also filed a case in a police station in Islamabad against the American officials including a former CIA station chief in Pakistan for the killing of my son,” Karim Khan said at the protest camp near the parliament house.
Political leaders and activities from several opposition parties also joined the protest camp to show solidarity with the tribesmen.
The protesters were holding banners and placards, inscribed with slogans against the drone strikes and demanding immediate halt to the attacks.
They were also carrying pictures of those killed in the U.S. attacks. They include photographs of minor children.
They were chanting slogans like ‘the friend of America is treacherous’.
Former chief of Jamaat-e-Islami party, Qazi Hussain Ahmad, joined the camp and demanded the government take steps to stop the drone strikes.
The sit-in would continue for two days but as a campaigner said that protests would continue across the country till end of the attacks.
On Thursday, thousands rallied against the drone strikes in Miranshah, the center of North Waziristan.
Drone strikes were halted in November 2011 after NATO fighter jets and helicopters struck two Pakistani posts and killed 24 Pakistani soldiers.
The U.S. resumed strikes in mid-January after a two-month lull. Pakistan is calling upon the U.S. to stop these strikes. However, the CIA controlled attacks are going on unabated.
The issue of drone attacks was raised by Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar in her meetings in London with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Thursday.
End item/ 149
