LAHORE: Cobra helicopter gunships and surveillance aircraft, supplied by the US to help hunt down Qaeda operatives hiding along the rugged Pakistan-Afghanistan border, were used in Saturday’s military operation to kill Baluch rebel leader Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti.
According to an intelligence source in Islamabad, three Cessna aircraft, given to Pakistan last year to help catch heroin smugglers, have also been drafted into service against the rebels.
The Bush administration is aware the weaponry is being used against the insurgents, the source said. He referred to a June 26 Time magazine report in which a US official was quoted saying there was nothing in the agreement with Pakistan to prevent it from using the US equipment against the Baluchis.
“The equipment is meant for internal security,” he had said.
But a Baluch rebel source in Quetta claimed the strike was carried out with US assistance. According to him, Bugti was a major critic of the US, which, he felt, wants to take control of Pakistan’s 700 mile coastal belt in the garb of building Gwadar port.
