Friday, August 26, 2011

US surveillance drone crashes in Chaman

QUETTA: An American surveillance drone crashed in southwestern Pakistan on Thursday near a paramilitary base close to the Afghan border, Pakistani officials said. “It was an American surveillance unmanned aerial vehicle. It crashed on this side of the border,” a security official in the area told AFP. He said the drone had come down - apparently due to a technical fault - some two kilometres inside Pakistani territory in Chaman town in insurgency-hit Balochistan province, but had caused no damage. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the wreckage of the aircraft had been recovered. An official from Frontier Corps in Quetta, the province’s main town, confirmed the incident. “Some spare parts and a camera were also found with it,” that official said. “It crashed near a Frontier Corps fort in Chaman but caused no damage.” Such crashes of US aircraft are rare in Pakistan but one of the country’s own surveillance drones crashed in the city of Karachi in July after hitting a bird on a routine flight. The Pakistani army said it was investigating. Relations between Pakistan and the United States are at a low point, strained by the covert American raid that killed bin Laden near Pakistan’s main military academy and Pakistan’s earlier detention of a CIA contractor. afp

Courtesy www.dailytimes.com.pk

Back to Top