Victims of U.S. drone attacks in Pakistan took to the streets for the first time here Friday, as a new report claims that there are significant numbers of civilian casualties from the strikes and a lawsuit seeks hundreds of millions of dollars in damages from the CIA for those mistakenly injured or killed.
Fifteen people injured in the attacks or who claimed to have had family members killed in the bombardment appeared in public Friday and officially joined the $500 million lawsuit that began last month with just one claimant in the Pakistani courts.
"Muslim blood has become a business," said Samiullah, a 21-year-old student who goes by one name and is from a village near Mir Ali, in North Waziristan, part of the militant-plagued tribal area. "If they really were killing extremists, the deaths from drone strikes would be lessening the insurgency, which it isn't."
Samiullah's house was hit on Aug. 11, 2009, as the family ate breakfast. Three of his young cousins were killed and part of the home and two cars were destroyed, he said.
Friday's small but fiery protest was hijacked by hard-line mullahs and other religious hotheads, who denounced the CIA and the Pakistani government and demanded an immediate end to the drone strikes. Those who addressed the rally included Abdul Aziz Ghazi, the cleric from Islamabad's radical Red Mosque, who's voiced support for al Qaida in the past, and Hameed Gul, a former Pakistani spymaster who gives strong vocal support to the Afghan Taliban. Some 300 people attended the rally.
"Today the spirit of jihad is alive in the people. We should not be afraid of dying," said Ghazi, who was released from a Pakistani jail in 2009 after two years in custody for trying to establish an Islamic state inside the mosque compound.