Report: CIA runs secret bases in Pakistan

Press TV
Wednesday, February 18, 2009

The CIA has been secretly using airbases inside Pakistan to launch strikes on targets on the Pakistani side of the border with Afghanistan.

The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was covertly using the Shamsi airfield in Pakistan’s restive south-western province of Balochistan, The Times Online reported.

The base is located about 50 km (30 miles) from the Pakistan-Afghanistan border and allows the US forces to launch a drone ‘within minutes’ of receiving actionable intelligence.

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The Predator drone has a range of more than 2,000 miles and can fly for 29 hours reaching militants in Balochistan, southern Afghanistan and in Pakistan’s northwestern tribal areas, the paper says.

The chief military spokesman, Major General Athar Abbas, said that US forces were using Shamsi “only for logistics.”

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“The Americans were also using another airbase near Jacobabad, 300 miles north-east of Karachi, for logistics and military operations,” the report quoted Abbas as saying.

Full story here.

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