Posted on 12/04/2011 6:22:19 AM PST by nuconvert
QUETTA: An American aircraft reached Pakistan on Sunday to carry US nationals who are vacating the Shamsi airbase in Balochistan.
Sources said that the aircraft landed in Pakistan today (Sunday), and the passengers were shifted to the aircraft amongst strict security. Officials from the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) were also present at the site.
Residents living around the area were told not to leave their homes while the American nationals were being shifted to the aircraft.
Pakistan demanded that the US leave the remote airbase used for drone flights within 15 days and blocked ground supply routes to US forces in Afghanistan, following the Nato attack on a military outpost on November 26 that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers.
The controversial airbase, located about 300 kilometres from Quetta, has been used as a key launch pad for drone strikes in Afghanistan and allegedly also for those carried out in Pakistan’s own tribal areas. This is the third time Pakistan has demanded the US to vacate the base. Similar demands were made after CIA operative Raymond Davis killed two Pakistanis in Lahore and in the aftermath of the unilateral US raid that killed Osama bin Laden.
One US government source earlier told The Express Tribune that the US has spent months preparing for a possible eviction from the airbase by building up other drone launching and staging capability.
Earlier this year, after the US raid that killed bin Laden, some Pakistani officials demanded that Washington vacate the Shamsi facility.
At the time, however, US officials said that American personnel would remain at the base and would continue to conduct drone flights.
US officials had acknowledged that this time Pakistan appears much more resolute about carrying out the eviction threat.
Vacating the airbase was seen more as an inconvenience rather than a critical blow to drone operations, which the US also conducts from Afghanistan and possibly elsewhere.
You're right. My concern is they've moved 'stuff' around in the last few months - might not be as easy to secure them.
The history of protecting Western Civilization has varied from hard to easy. It’s going to get hard again.
Yes, that's true.
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