Pakistan : Terrorist Wahabi Islamic Rep Pakistan 6

[Naresh]

[size="7"][color="#006400"][center]US justifies drone strikes in Pakistan[/center][/color][/size]



WASHINGTON : The US government for the first time has offered a legal justification of its drone strikes against al-Qaeda and the Taliban militants, [color="#FF0000"]citing the right to “self-defence” under the international law.[/color]



The CIA attacks by unmanned aircraft in Pakistan, Somalia and elsewhere have sharply increased under President Barack Obama’s administration but have remained shrouded in secrecy, with some human rights groups charging the bombing raids amount to illegal assassinations.



Broaching a subject that has been off-limits for official comment, State Department legal adviser Harold Koh laid out the legal argument for the strikes in a speech late on Thursday, referring to “targeting” of al-Qaeda and the Taliban figures without mentioning Pakistan or where the raids were carried out.



[color="#FF0000"]The United States was in “an armed conflict” with al-Qaeda, the Taliban and its affiliates[/color] as a result of the September 11 attacks, Koh said, “and may use force consistent with its inherent right to self-defence under the international law.”



“With respect to the subject of targeting, which has been much commented upon in the media and international legal circles, there are obviously limits to what I can say publicly,” he told a conference of the American Society of International Law.



“What I can say is that it is the considered view of this administration — and it has certainly been my experience during my time as legal adviser — that the US targeting practices, including lethal operations conducted with the use of unmanned aerial vehicles, comply with all applicable law, including the laws of war.”



The CIA would not comment on the speech, posted on the State Department website, but told media: “The Agency’s counter-terrorism operations are conducted in strict accord with the law.” Rights activists and some legal experts charge the drone strikes in Pakistan and other countries, outside of a traditional battlefield, amount to extrajudicial executions that violate both international and the US law.



Koh, a fierce critic of former president George W Bush’s policies before he took his post, disagreed — saying a US ban on government sanctioned assassinations did not apply. Under the US law, [color="#FF0000"]“the use of lawful weapons systems — consistent with the applicable laws of war — for precision targeting of specific high-level belligerent leaders when acting in self-defence or during an armed conflict is not unlawful, and hence does not constitute assassination,”[/color] he said.



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