THE effectiveness of the US drone attacks in taking out militants has been causing much controversy since 2007 when the strikes first began. Many doubt the utility of the tactic and suspect that the majority of the deaths are civilian. Publicly, the army and the government administration have so far condemned the drone attacks as a violation of Pakistan's airspace — a position that has found echoes in the public's resentment against the attacks and that has turned the issue into a politically divisive one. But is the line to which the politico-military administration has clung about to change? Some indication of that may be found in the statement made by the military on Wednesday, that most of those killed in drone strikes were Al Qaeda and Taliban terrorists. Briefing journalists in Miramshah, General Officer Commanding 7 Division, Maj-Gen Ghayur Mehmood, who is in charge of the troops in North Waziristan, said that “many of those being killed in these strikes are hard-core elements, a sizeable number of them foreigners”. Conceding that there have been a few civilian casualties, he added that drone attacks also had social and political repercussions.

Is the army hinting that the strikes are a useful and precise tactic in neutralising identified militants and terrorists? If that is the case, then the military and political leaders should publicly change their stated position and matters should move on — the battle against local and foreign terrorists hiding in the country's north-western regions is far from over. Some of the social and political repercussions to which Maj-Gen Mehmood referred would be reduced if the drone strikes were acknowledged as an effective technique and thus legitimised in the public discourse. More importantly, if the army is recognising the utility of such strikes, greater cooperation between Pakistani and US forces could yield success in the long term.