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 The protest, which was led by Pakistani politician and cricket
star Imran Khan, likely had more symbolic value than practical
impact because there is normally very little NATO supply traffic on
the road on Saturdays. The blocked route in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa
province leads to one of two border crossings used to send supplies
overland from Pakistan to neighboring Afghanistan.
"We are here to give a clear message that now Pakistanis cannot
remain silent over drone attacks," Shah Mehmood Qureshi, a senior
member of Khan's Tehreek-e-Insaf party, said in a speech to the
protesters. The party runs the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provincial
government.
The U.S. Embassy in Islamabad declined to comment on the protest at
the present time. The U.S. leads the coalition of NATO troops
battling the Taliban in Afghanistan.
Drone strikes have been a growing source of friction between
Islamabad and Washington. Khan and other officials regularly
denounce the attacks as a violation of Pakistan's sovereignty,
although the country's government is known to have supported some of
the strikes in the past. The tension has further complicated a
relationship that Washington views as vital to fight al-Qaida and
the Taliban, as well as negotiate peace in Afghanistan.
The protest comes only two days after a rare U.S. drone strike
outside of Pakistan's remote tribal region killed five people,
including at least three Afghan militants, at an Islamic seminary in
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa's Hangu district.
The attack outraged Pakistani officials, as did one on Nov. 1 that
killed the former leader of the Pakistani Taliban, Hakimullah
Mehsud, a day before the Pakistani government said it was going to
invite him to hold peace talks.
Khan pushed the Pakistani government block all NATO supplies in the
country after the strike on Mehsud, but it has shown little interest
in doing so. Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has been a vocal
critic of drone strikes, but he has also said he values the
country's relationship with the U.S. and doesn't seem to want to
take extreme measures that could damage the alliance.
Sharif pushed President Barack Obama to end drone strikes in a visit
to Washington in October, but the U.S. government has shown no
indication that it intends to stop using a tool that it sees as
vital to battling al-Qaida and the Taliban.
When Khan failed to persuade the Pakistani government to block NATO
supplies earlier this month, he announced that he would hold a
protest to do so himself.
Around 10,000 people participated in Saturday's protest, which
blocked a road that leads to the Torkham border crossing in
Pakistan's Khyber tribal area. The protesters included members of
Khan's party and two other parties that are coalition partners in
the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government. They shouted anti-U.S. slogans,
such as "Down with America" and "Stop drone attacks."
"I am participating in today's sit-in to convey a message to America
that we hate them since they are killing our people in drone
attacks," said Hussain Shah, a 21-year-old university student.
"America must stop drone attacks for peace in our country."
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Drone strikes are widely unpopular with Pakistan's public, both
because they are seen as violating the nation's sovereignty and are
believed to kill too many innocent civilians. Human rights
organizations have said hundreds of civilians have died in the
attacks, although the U.S. insists the number is much lower.
There is normally little NATO supply traffic on Saturdays on the
road that the protesters blocked, said Tahir Khan, a government
official at Torkham. Most trucks try to arrive at the border by
Friday evening so they can clear customs the following morning, he
said. The crossing is closed to trucks carrying NATO supplies on
Sunday.
The land routes through Pakistan from the southern port city of
Karachi to Torkham and another border crossing in southwest
Baluchistan province have been key to getting supplies to NATO
troops in Afghanistan for the course of most of the war there. They
are now increasingly being used to ship equipment out of Afghanistan
as the U.S. seeks to withdraw most of its combat troops from the
country by the end of 2014.
The routes have not been immune to the often turbulent relationship
between Pakistan and the U.S. in the past. The Pakistani government
blocked the routes for over seven months following U.S. airstrikes
that accidentally killed two dozen soldiers on the Afghan border in
November 2011. Pakistan finally reopened the routes after the U.S.
apologized for the deaths of the Pakistani troops.
Also Saturday, militants kidnapped four school teachers who were
working on a polio vaccination drive in Khyber's Sipah village, said
local government official Khurshid Khan. Negotiations are underway
for their release, he said.
Militants have killed over a dozen polio workers and police
protecting them over the last year. They claim the workers are spies
and the vaccination is meant to make Muslim children sterile. [Associated
Press; RIAZ KHAN]
Associated Press writers
Munir Ahmed, Zarar Khan and Sebastian Abbot contributed to this
report from Islamabad.
Copyright 2013 The Associated
Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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