Fawad questions Pakistan’s permission to use airspace for Afghanistan drone attack

ISLAMABAD: Senior Vice President of Pakistan Tehreek e Insaf (PTI) Fawad Chaudhry questioned on Saturday if the government permitted the US to utilize Pakistani airspace to perform a drone operation in Afghanistan that killed Al Qaeda leader Ayman al Zawahiri.

“The question is not whether Pakistan’s soil was utilized for the Afghanistan drone assault, but if authorization was provided for Pakistan’s airspace to be used,” the ex-information minister tweeted.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Major General Babar Iftikhar, Director-General Inter-Services Public Relations, have stated that the country’s airspace was not used for the Kabul drone strike.

According to US sources, Zawahiri was killed by a missile fired from a drone while standing on a balcony at his Kabul hideaway on Sunday, in the heaviest blow to the terrorists since US Navy SEALS assassinated Osama bin Laden more than a decade ago.

However, the top PTI leader urged that relevant departments offer an official response to his inquiry because their existing views were “unclear.” The DG ISPR told Geo News a day earlier that there was “no doubt” that Zawahiri was murdered on Pakistani territory.

“The Foreign Ministry has made a clear declaration about Ayman Al-Zawahiri.” “It is unthinkable that Pakistani land was utilized for this,” he added, adding that irrelevant remarks were made without evidence. Foreign Office spokesperson Asim Iftikhar Ahmad firmly denied claims that Pakistan’s airspace was utilized for the US drone strike during his weekly news conference in Islamabad.

“There is no proof that this attack was carried out utilizing Pakistani airspace, therefore this is something I can [state],” he said during a press conference. The Taliban declared earlier this week that the government had no knowledge of the al-Qaeda head “coming and residing” in Kabul and cautioned the US not to carry out another strike on Afghan soil.

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“The government and the leadership were unaware of what was being stated, nor was there any trace there,” said Suhail Shaheen, the designated Taliban representative to the United Nations headquartered in Doha, in a statement.

“Investigation is currently ongoing to determine the authenticity of the claim,” he added, adding that the findings will be made public.