US Drone Kills 10; Mahsud Threatens DC;

US Drone Kills 10;
Mahsud Threatens DC;

A US predator drone strike on a Pakistani village in Orakzai killed 10 persons on Wednesday morning. The US maintains that it struck at a Taliban compound.

The leader of the Pakistan Taliban Movement, Baitullah Mahsud, again threatened on Tuesday to strike at Washington DC. He has made a string of such threats for some time, however. The FBI said that it had not evidence for any imminent such action. While small groups of terrorists can often strike at will, and I would not want to rule the possibility out, I would nevertheless like to ask what practical ability ability rural landlocked, desperately poor Pashtun tribesmen have to touch the United States.

At the international conference at the Hague on Afghanistan, US special envoy Richard Holbrooke met and talked with the deputy of Iranian foreign minister Manuchehr Motakki. The Obama administration appears to realize that they need Iran for various purposes, including getting out of Iraq cleanly and defeating radicals in Afghanistan. (As a Shiite country, Iran despises the Sunni Muslim radicals.)

Even as the US is attempting to find a new footing with Iran, new Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu of the rightwing Likud Party appeared to threaten to bomb Iran unilaterally if Obama won't.

Aljazeera English reports on the poorest Afghans, to whom the development aid does not quite trickle down.



Riz Khan and guests discuss President Barack Obama's new Afghanistan strategy: