Pakistan rejects any challenge to its sovereignty in the fight against terrorism, Interior Minister Rehman Malik said after Parliament condemned the U.S. raid that killed al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and drone attacks in tribal areas.

“Aggression in any shape will not be tolerated,” the state-run Associated Press of Pakistan cited Malik as saying in Karachi Saturday. “The U.S. should listen to the voice of the people of Pakistan and stop drone attacks. We have to work together, even with our neighbors.”
The resolution passed Saturday by Pakistan’s upper and lower houses of Parliament asked the government to consider ending a transit route used by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to supply forces in Afghanistan, and to review the terms of engagement with the U.S. over the fight against terrorism.
Ties between the U.S. and Pakistan became strained after President Barack Obama kept the May 2 raid against bin Laden a secret and didn’t inform the Pakistanis. Pakistan’s military has been criticized by politicians, media and the public for failing to detect either bin Laden or the U.S. commando force that killed him as he hid in Abbottabad 48 kilometers (30 miles) from the capital, Islamabad.
Obama said on CBS television on May 8 that the Pakistani government must investigate whether any of its officials helped shelter the al-Qaeda leader.
Victim of terrorism
Allegations against the military “are based on miscommunication” and the army is doing a good job serving the nation, APP cited Malik as saying. “Pakistan is itself a victim of terrorism, we lost over 30,000 people, including 5,000 personnel of the Army and Frontier Corps, in operations against terrorists, miscreants and militants.”
At least six people were killed when a roadside bomb exploded Saturday near a passenger bus in Kharian, a garrison town about 125 kilometers (75 miles) southeast of the capital, Islamabad, the Dawn newspaper reported, citing police.
Pakistan’s Taliban two days ago carried out its deadliest bombing this year, killing 80 cadets in the northwest in an attack it said was part of a campaign to avenge the death of bin Laden.
A missile strike by an unmanned U.S. spy plane killed five people in Pakistan’s tribal area of North Waziristan on May 13, Aaj Television reported.
Blocked supplies
The U.S. unilateral action in Abbottabad and continued drone attacks are “unacceptable” and must be stopped forthwith, the lawmakers said in their statement. The government will be obliged to “consider taking necessary steps, including withdrawal of transit facility” allowed to NATO forces if such missions don’t cease, they said.
Pakistan in September blocked the passage of supplies for NATO troops fighting in Afghanistan after an air strike killed three Pakistani soldiers. Half of all war supplies to Afghanistan pass through Pakistan, according to the U.S. military’s Transportation Command, at a rate of 580 truckloads per day.
The lawmakers also asked the government “to revisit and review its terms of engagement with the U.S., with a view to ensuring that Pakistan’s national interests are fully respected,” according to the statement.
Pakistan is a main U.S. ally in the fight against al-Qaeda- linked militants, and the Obama administration is pressing it to cooperate more fully in the war against the Taliban in neighboring Afghanistan.
U.S. aid
Pakistan has received $14.6 billion in economic and military assistance from the U.S. since 2005 to help revive growth and assist allied forces fighting Taliban and al-Qaeda militants.
President Asif Ali Zardari’s cooperation with Obama hasn’t been popular with Pakistanis, particularly his tolerance of U.S. drone missile attacks on tribal areas on the Pakistani side of the border.
Pakistan’s military offensives against the Taliban and allied guerrillas have sparked retaliatory attacks in cities nationwide that killed more than 2,000 civilians and security personnel last year, according to the South Asian terrorism database of the New Delhi-based Institute for Conflict Management.
(Source: Bloomberg)