Soon you will be hearing them close to home:
"American killed by US drone in Pakistan; CIA unaware of hostages at site" by Peter Baker New York Times April 24, 2015
WASHINGTON — An American aid worker and another man held hostage by Al Qaeda were accidentally killed by a US drone strike in Pakistan in January, President Obama said Thursday, underscoring the perils of a long-distance war waged through video screens, joysticks, and sometimes incomplete intelligence.
Been going on for nearly 15 years now and other than a few blips when civilians have been slaughtered, not much concern. Why now?
Intending to wipe out a compound linked to the terrorist group, the CIA authorized the attack without knowing that the hostages were being held there, despite hundreds of hours of surveillance, government officials said.
Then, really, what good is all this wasted money $hit (sorry for the language, but come on!)
Afterward, they said, the agency did not immediately realize that it had killed an American it had long sought to rescue, with the wrenching news becoming clear only over time.
I'm tired of excuses, and since I'm reading CIA media I might as well see this for what it is: some sort of limited hangout.
The violent death of an American at the hands of his own government proved to be a searing moment in a drone war that has come to define the nation’s battle with Al Qaeda since Obama took office.
As for the violent deaths of innocent men, women, and children sacrificed on the altar of the 9/11 lie?
So who was this guy?
Shortly after his staff issued a statement announcing the deaths, a visibly upset Obama came to the White House briefing room to make a rare personal apology.
“As president and as commander in chief, I take full responsibility for all our counterterrorism operations,” the president said. “I profoundly regret what happened. On behalf of the United States government, I offer our deepest apologies to the families.”
That's good to know for it will make it easier to charge him with war crimes down the road.
The government is conducting two reviews of the drone strike to determine what went wrong, and the episode could force a broader rethinking of Obama’s approach to fighting Al Qaeda. Under the president’s policy, drone strikes are to be authorized only if there is a “near certainty” that there will not be civilian casualties.
The two hostages, Warren Weinstein, an American kidnapped in 2011, and Giovanni Lo Porto, an Italian seized in 2012, were killed on Jan. 14 in a remote area in Pakistan known as an Al Qaeda sanctuary, officials said.
OMG! Oh, no. That's what prompted all this. The death of a Jew. Some lives truly are more important than white, black, Muslim, anybody else. It's in the book.
Hey, it's all part of the drone wars and I guess they won't be wondering where he is anymore.
So what's his next role, 'er, assignment? Where is he off to now?
An American affiliated with Al Qaeda, Ahmed Farouq, was killed in the same strike. Another American member of Al Qaeda, Adam Gadahn, was killed in a separate strike in that region Jan. 19, according to the officials.
Oh, no! Adam Pearlman, 'er, Gadahn has been killed. So who will he be next?
Just as the CIA did not know the hostages were present, it did not know that the American Al Qaeda members were at the targets and they had not been specifically targeted, officials said. Farouq was the deputy of Al Qaeda’s new branch in India and was not publicly identified as an American until Thursday. Gadahn was better known as an Al Qaeda spokesman.
Straight from CIA studios at Langley!!
Officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity said it took weeks to piece together what happened.
It's the same guys!
Intelligence agencies picked up information soon after the January strikes that Weinstein was dead, but it was not clear how that happened. They pursued theories that he could have died in a US strike, during a Pakistani military operation, or at the hands of his captors.
Oh, look at 'em. Pursuing theories!
I'm sick of hearing this sh**.
It took weeks to correlate the deaths of Weinstein and Lo Porto to the January drone strike, the officials said, and only last week did intelligence officials report to Obama that they had what they called the highest level of confidence. Obama ordered that the episode be declassified but said nothing to Prime Minister Matteo Renzi of Italy when he visited the White House last Friday.
Ooooooh.
Instead, Obama called Renzi on Wednesday to inform him what had happened and also called Weinstein’s wife, Elaine. Aides described it as one of the most painful moments of his presidency.
So when does he start calling hundreds if not thousands all across Africa and Asia over there?
In a written statement, Weinstein said the family was “devastated” by the news and added that it looked forward to learning more about what happened.
Yeah, it's another Holocaust™ and....
But she said his captors bore responsibility. “The cowardly actions of those who took Warren captive and ultimately to the place and time of his death are not in keeping with Islam, and they will have to face their God to answer for their actions,” she said.
That is if you believe any of this, and I do not.
The issue of killing Americans through drone strikes has been an acutely delicate one for Obama, who two years ago announced in a speech at National Defense University that he was beginning to scale back the aerial campaign and restrict it to cases of genuine threat to the United States and its people.
Meaning they were not before? Do you know how many strikes were carried out on the basis of bogus tips to collect reward money and settle grudges?
His administration has concluded that the federal government has the right to use deadly force against Americans tied to Al Qaeda if capture is not feasible.
Isn't that classic? They confer onto themselves the right to wage war and commit mass murder. Not even the big H had it so good.
In the case of the two Al Qaeda figures killed in January, no legal determination would have been needed because it was not known that they were at the bombed sites.
Some members of Congress criticized the administration or called for more oversight. “Warren Weinstein did not have to die,” said Representative Duncan Hunter, a California Republican. “His death is further evidence of the failures in communication and coordination between government agencies tasked with recovering Americans in captivity — and the fact that he’s dead, as a result, is absolutely tragic.”
Josh Earnest, the White House press secretary, rejected Hunter’s criticism, saying there was no evidence that the strikes deviated from normal practice. He added that the families would receive financial compensation.
Obama said a full review would identify any changes that should be made to avoid similar errors. “We will do our utmost to ensure it is not repeated,” Obama said.
How about stopping them completely?
Weinstein, 73, a resident of Rockville, Md., was a business development expert working on contract for the US Agency for International Development when he was kidnapped in August 2011 in Lahore, Pakistan, just four days before he was scheduled to return to the United States.
Oooooooooooh!
He was CIA, because the WORLD KNOWS that AID = CIA! It's a cover!
Al Qaeda had released videos of Weinstein, and news reports as recently as last week indicated that he was assumed to be alive.
I'm not going to say what assuming things does; however, how can you dismiss propaganda pre$$ claims of videos and reports? Gimme a break.
Lo Porto was a humanitarian aid worker in Pakistan and disappeared in January 2012. Italy’s foreign minister said this year that the government was working to secure the release of Lo Porto and an Italian who has been missing in Syria.
The print copy ended it there.
He studied at London Metropolitan University and worked on projects in the Central African Republic and Haiti before traveling to Pakistan to help rebuild an area hit by flooding, according to news media reports. Shortly after arriving, he and a German colleague were abducted. US officials said they do not know where the German is now but expressed confidence he was not at the compound where Lo Porto died.
The jew$paper version didn't care and exterminated the German! This is over-the-top, full board supremacist sh** hey!
Farouq had been named deputy leader of Al Qaeda’s South Asia faction, known as Al Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent. An Al Qaeda spokesman told reporters in Pakistan in a statement released this month that Farouq had been killed in a drone strike in Shawal, a thickly forested mountainous valley that spans the border between North Waziristan and South Waziristan tribal districts and a longstanding Al Qaeda sanctuary.
CIA-Duh said that, huh?
Gadahn, who was killed separately, was one of the better known Americans tied to Al Qaeda.
Yeah, I know.
He grew up in Southern California, converted to Islam at 17 and was said to have left the US in the late 1990s during a period when he was questioning his family’s religious beliefs and the US political system.
What beliefs would those be? I think you know why they are not saying.
He was indicted on treason charges in 2006 for appearing in Al Qaeda propaganda videos calling for attacks on US targets, the first American charged with that in decades. He filmed a 2011 video urging Muslims in the West to carry out terrorist strikes, specifically citing loopholes in American gun laws.
OMG, he was also pushing the gun control agenda!
“You can go down to a gun show at the local convention center and come away with a fully automatic assault rifle, without a background check, and most likely without having to show an identification card,” he said in the video. “So what are you waiting for?”
Human rights groups that have criticized the Obama administration’s aggressive use of drone strikes said the deaths of the hostages underscored the flaws in the policy.
“Today’s demonstration of transparency is a welcome step, but apology and redress should be available for all civilians killed in US drone strikes, not just Americans and Europeans,” Naureen Shah, director of Amnesty International USA’s program on security and human rights.
Did I see that right?
On behalf of my fellow citizens, I ashamedly offer apologies and beg those victims' souls and their related survivors for their forgiveness for the actions of a government I despise.
Jameel Jaffer, deputy legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union, said the fact that the government did not know that the hostages or US Al Qaeda figures were present showed the problems in the drone war.
Yeah, but it's only a problem when some you-know-who (rhymes with) loses his life (allegedly). I mean, I didn't see a whole lot of hand-wringing soul searching for the 52 civilians recently slaughtered in Syria (nice little article at the bottom of page A9 or whatever).
“These and other recent strikes in which civilians were killed make clear that there is a significant gap between the relatively stringent standards the government says it’s using and the standards that are actually being used,” he said.
Oh, this GOVERNMENT is engaging in DECEIT again? Imagine my shock.
Obama did not sign off on this specific strike, aides said, because he has authorized the CIA and military to carry out drone attacks without further consultation if they fit certain criteria. Obama said the operation was conducted “fully consistent with the guidelines” for such missions.
Oh, so he isn't even going over the kill list anymore. He put the drone program on autopilot -- literally.
“It is a cruel and bitter truth that in the fog of war generally, and our fight against terrorists specifically, mistakes, sometimes deadly mistakes, can occur,” he said.
:-(
Even though Obama announced that the two counterterrorism operations had been declassified, there were limits to the White House’s transparency.
Remember when he first came in and was going to be the transparent president? Well, six-plus years later and we can see right through him now.
Obama did not say that the CIA had carried out the strikes, or even that they involved drones, nor did he say that they occurred in Pakistan.
Well, then what did he say?
Under the terms of a secret arrangement brokered in 2004, the CIA was allowed to conduct lethal strikes inside the tribal areas of Pakistan, but neither the US nor the Pakistani government could acknowledge their existence.
Yeah, but BELIEVE YOUR GOVERNMENT when they are NOT TELLING YOU THINGS!!!
The pace of drone operations in Pakistan has declined sharply in recent years. But even as the US military withdraws from Afghanistan, the CIA has pushed to keep several of its bases in that country open so operatives can run missions across the border in order to gather intelligence for drone strikes.
Where are we withdrawing from?
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Gotta go over those rules:
"2 drone deaths add to scrutiny of hostage rules" by Matthew Lee Associated Press April 25, 2015
WASHINGTON — The accidental killing of two hostages in a US operation against Al Qaeda has put a new spotlight on the Obama administration’s reliance on drones in the battle against terrorism — and has also raised pressure on the White House to revise the nation’s oft-criticized strategy for dealing with abducted Americans and their families.
Look how quickly the tone has shifted and the dead been buried!!
A day after President Obama apologized and took responsibility for the deaths of American Warren Weinstein and Italian Giovanni Lo Porto in a January strike along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, officials said Friday that a nearly yearlong, interagency review of the hostage policy is set to be completed this spring.
White House press secretary Josh Earnest said the Obama administration is considering whether to create a ‘‘fusion cell’’ consisting of the FBI, Pentagon, State Department, and the intelligence community to ensure they are closely coordinating on rescue efforts and communication with families.
OMG! More bureaucracy with requisite databases, blah, blah, and now we know the point of this whole psyop.
The administration is seeking reaction to the idea from relatives of hostages, after several have complained about the government’s response in the past.
Weinstein's wife didn't.
‘‘These families are in a terrible situation — unthinkable to imagine what it would be like to have a loved one, a family member, being held against their will by a terrorist organization,’’ Earnest said.
Or someone anyway. We don't know who. We just know what government and their ma$$ media mouthpiece say it is.
************
The families’ anguish has been made worse by the fact that European governments routinely pay ransoms and their hostages are released unharmed. Meanwhile, kidnappers have killed several Americans, including Luke Somers, who was shot just as a US rescue team was rushing to him.
Where was that?
Thursday, Elaine Weinstein thanked her congressional delegation from Maryland and some in the FBI for their ‘‘relentless efforts to free my husband.’’ But she also said, in a statement, ‘‘Unfortunately, the assistance we received from other elements of the US government was inconsistent and disappointing over the course of three and a half years.’’
That's the way Israel feels, and the psyop purpose becomes clearer and clearer.
‘‘We hope that my husband’s death and the others who have faced similar tragedies in recent months will finally prompt the US government to take its responsibilities seriously and establish a coordinated and consistent approach to supporting hostages and their families.’’
This will fuse them into action.
The administration review has involved consulting hostage experts from the United States and other nations as well as interviews with two dozen former hostages and family members who have gotten updates and provided feedback on initial proposals, according to a senior official. The National Counter Terrorism Center is leading the review.
Representative Duncan Hunter, a California Republican, told of a lack of coordination between US agencies.
‘‘Warren Weinstein did not have to die — and the fact that he’s dead is absolutely tragic,’’ he said in a statement. He said that in the lead-up to the trade of Taliban commanders for Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl, a Pentagon official was developing plans to recover not just Bergdahl but all Western hostages believed held in the Afghanistan-Pakistan area, including Weinstein. Bergdahl was traded in May 2014 for five former Taliban figures held at the US military prison at Guantanamo Bay.
Yeah, what's he been up to lately?
‘‘Their planning did not include a 5-for-1 trade, as occurred, but rather a 1-for-7 exchange,’’ Hunter said.
The complaints echo those of the parents of James Foley, a freelance journalist kidnapped in Syria in November 2012 who last August was the first American to be executed by Islamic State militants.
The first fake out of the blocks, and production has pretty much stopped for that reason. Hope you can see why I'm cutting things off.
Foley’s parents, John and Diane Foley of New Hampshire, have said the government uses its policy of not paying ransom or negotiating with terrorists to avoid answering families’ questions on the state of their loved ones. They said officials kept families in the dark.
They always have, and they treat the public the same way.
‘‘For one year, we didn’t really know where he was or whether he was alive,’’ John Foley said at a forum at the University of Arizona in February. ‘‘We had no one who was accountable for Jim, if you will,’’ his wife added.
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CIA just passed the buck:
"CIA won backing from lawmakers for drone attacks; But some see gaps in details about operations" by Mark Mazzetti New York Times April 26, 2015
WASHINGTON — About once a month, staff members of the congressional intelligence committees drive across the Potomac River to CIA headquarters in Langley, Va., and watch videos of people being blown up.
As part of the macabre ritual the staff members look at the footage of drone strikes in Pakistan and other countries and a sampling of the intelligence buttressing each strike, but not the CIA cables discussing the attacks and their aftermath.
(That's what doing this blog has become)
The screenings have provided a veneer of congressional oversight and have led lawmakers to claim that the targeted killing program is subject to rigorous review, to defend it vigorously in public and to authorize its sizable budget each year.
That support from Capitol Hill is but one reason the CIA’s killing missions are embedded in US warfare and unlikely to change significantly despite President Obama’s announcement Thursday that a drone strike accidentally killed two innocent hostages, an American and an Italian.
They will probably increase with the next president, and now we know what other names to add to the list of U.S. war criminals.
The program is under fire like never before, but the White House continues to champion it, and CIA officers who built the program more than a decade ago — some of whom also led the CIA detention program that used torture in secret prisons — have ascended to the agency’s powerful senior ranks.
(Blog editor reads that and realizes along with you, it's a whole coterie of war criminals in the entire government!)
Although lawmakers insist there is accountability, interviews with administration and congressional officials show that Congress holds the program to less careful scrutiny than many members assert.
Oh, there is. ME! I'm holding you even no one else is, bastards!
Top CIA officials, who learned the importance of cultivating Congress after the resistance they ran into on the detention program, have dug in to protect the agency’s drone operations, frustrating a pledge by Obama two years ago to overhaul the program and pull it from the shadows.
I that why they spied on 'em?
Perhaps no single CIA officer has been more central to the effort than Michael D’Andrea, a gaunt, chain-smoking convert to Islam who was chief of operations during the birth of the agency’s detention and interrogation program and then, as head of the CIA Counterterrorism Center, became an architect of the targeted killing program.
The smoking man from the X-Files?
Until last month, when D’Andrea was quietly shifted to another job, he presided over the growth of CIA drone operations and hundreds of strikes in Pakistan and Yemen during nine years in the position.
War criminal.
In secret meetings on Capitol Hill, D’Andrea was an advocate for the drone program and won supporters among both Republicans and Democrats.
They BOTH have BLOOD on their HANDS!
Congressional staff members said that he was particularly effective in winning the support of Senator Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat, who was chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee until January, when Republicans assumed control of the chamber.
(Blog editor exhales "Oh!" as he dejectedly reads such a thing. Feinstein killed Weinstein)
Feinstein for years has tried to beat back criticism of the program from some liberal Democrats and human rights groups who have raised questions about civilian casualties.
About what, I mean who?
CIA officials have assured her that there are hardly any civilian deaths in the strikes.
Oh, I'm assured and feel much better now. CIA would never lie or anything.
“The figures we have obtained from the executive branch, which we have done our utmost to verify, confirm that the number of civilian casualties that have resulted from such strikes each year has typically been in the single digits,” Feinstein said in 2013.
But the recent accidental deaths of the hostages are only the latest example of how difficult it is for the CIA to know exactly whom it is killing.
But, you know, hardly any civilians, etc, etc, etc, etc,m etc....
The White House provided a public accounting of the deaths only because the victims were Westerners. The government has not offered a detailed explanations of other attacks.
:-(
Organizations that track drone strikes, like the New America Foundation, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, and The Long War Journal, estimate that drones have killed some 4,000 people, about 500 of them civilians. But these numbers, based on news accounts and some on-the-ground interviews, are considered very rough.
All murder based on that abomination of a lie regarding what happened on 9/11 and the events surrounding that false flag inside job.
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Related: Congressman pushes for hostage czar to ensure coordination
Once again, the ‘‘tragic loss of Dr. Warren Weinstein should be a call to action,’’ even though the ransom payment didn't work(???).
So who has there hands on the joystick now?
"Push renewed to let Pentagon run drone strikes; Effort gets boost after 2 hostages killed in Pakistan" by Ken Dilanian Associated Press May 09, 2015
WASHINGTON — The deaths of an Italian and an American in a covert CIA drone strike in Pakistan — and the rhetorical contortions required of the president when he informed the world — have breathed new urgency into a plan to give the Pentagon primacy over targeted killing of terrorists overseas.
Everything you are presented with is for some pre-determined agenda!
President Obama announced two years ago that he wanted the armed forces, not a civilian intelligence agency, to be in charge of killing militants abroad who pose a threat to the United States.
One reason he cited was transparency: The military can talk about its activities, while the CIA usually cannot.
But the effort soon slowed to a crawl amid bureaucratic rivalries, intelligence sharing dilemmas, and congressional turf battles. The vast majority of drone strikes since Obama’s May 2013 speech have been carried out in Yemen and Pakistan by the CIA.
Now, administration officials and their allies in Congress want to get the transition moving again, US officials said this week.
The catalyst was Obama’s struggle last month to explain how two hostages held by Al Qaeda, American Warren Weinstein and Italian Giovanni Lo Porto, were accidentally killed in an American drone missile attack in January.
He had to do so without acknowledging that the CIA routinely conducts attacks in Pakistan, a ‘‘secret’’ in US law but a known fact throughout the world.
Yeah, the people under those missiles understand what is going on; here in the United States we have obfuscation and censorship!
The CIA also conducts targeted strikes in Yemen. The military does so in Somalia, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria.
Still in IRAQ, too!
Proponents of moving the drone program to the military worry that the CIA’s focus on hunting and killing has allowed its spying muscles to atrophy. And they argue that the military is able to discuss its operations, adding a layer of public accountability.
On the other side are those who believe the CIA has become extremely proficient at targeted killing, which relies more on precise intelligence than traditional bombing.
Much of the debate about whether the CIA should exit the killing business is taking place behind the scenes.
Nice to know they admit they are in that business, and I'm sure the assassinations and such will continue.
In public, Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, who chairs the Armed Services Committee, says he intends to insert a provision in a defense bill requiring the military to take over the drone program. And last week, Reprepresentative Adam Schiff of California, the ranking Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, reiterated his previous support for the proposal.
‘‘Our intelligence agencies should focus on their core mission’’ of espionage, Schiff said.
What, turn them on the American people now?
I'm so sick of self-justifying spies and spying and the whole racket. Can't find anyone, can't stop anything, but playing their games.
Schiff’s stance puts him at odds with other intelligence committee leaders, including the panel’s senior Democrat, California Senator Dianne Feinstein, who has argued that the CIA should continue its targeted killing. Feinstein says the CIA is more judicious than the military when conducting drone strikes.
‘‘The CIA takes its time,’’ Feinstein told the Associated Press in February. ‘‘They are not hot dogs on a mission.’’
OMG, what does the CIA have on HER! Publicly announced strikes with a military commander talking responsibility much less prone to "hot dogging" than some secret shop of slaughterers.
Is she ever disgusting or what?
In the military, Feinstein said, there are short tours of duty and therefore, ‘‘constant turnover. There is no turnover in the [CIA] program. They’re very careful about the identification of the individual. Sometimes the intelligence gathering goes on for months.’’
A Pentagon spokeswoman did not respond to a request for comment on Feinstein’s remarks.
Many other Intelligence Committee members agree with Feinstein, and they inserted a classified provision in a spending bill last year that blocked the Obama administration from spending money on its plan to move drone strikes away from the CIA.
Nice to see the bipartisanship, 'eh?
So this announcement by Obama a clever ruse to make the switch before he leaves? They have done such things before, like the false claim of killing bin Laden.
There is also a matter of turf: Intelligence Committee members want to maintain their jurisdiction over a high-impact counterterrorism program.
Aaaaaah!
We were told 9/11 washed all that away as intelligence agencies felt terrible that they let the nation down. Remember?
They argue that their oversight of the CIA is better than the oversight conducted by the Armed Services committees over military strikes.
US officials say the goal is to create an integrated system in which the CIA hunts targets, and the military runs the drone missions, but that may take time because the CIA uses different systems and databases. Another factor is limits on intelligence sharing.
Tired of excuses?
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Whatever you do, don't take a helicopter:
"Two ambassadors among seven killed in Pakistan helicopter crash" by Salman Masood New York Times May 09, 2015
ISLAMABAD — An international tour of a scenic corner of northern Pakistan ended in tragedy Friday when a Pakistani military helicopter carrying foreign diplomats went down in a fiery crash that killed seven people aboard, including the ambassadors from Norway and the Philippines.
Who would want them dead and why? Military craft, you say?
The helicopter, which officials said was carrying 19 people, crashed into a school while making a landing in Naltar, a valley in the Gilgit district of northern Pakistan.
In a briefing Friday night, Foreign Secretary Aizaz Ahmad Chaudhry, said that initial investigation suggested that the engine of the helicopter failed while it was approaching the landing site. He dismissed a claim by the Pakistani Taliban that they had shot the helicopter down with a shoulder-fired missile. ”
Okay, the initial cover story is up, and maybe it was shot down.
The dead included Ambassador Leif H. Larsen of Norway and Ambassador Domingo D. Lucenario Jr. of the Philippines, the wives of the Malaysian and Indonesian ambassadors, and the helicopter’s two pilots and a crew member, the Pakistani military said.
Now why would anyone want them dead?
Let's see, Norway is one of the European leaders in calling for a Palestinian state and documenting Israeli war crimes while assisting Palestinians. The Philippines just signed a peace truce deal with their Islamic militant rebellions.
In addition, the Polish ambassador, Andrzej Ananicz, and the Dutch ambassador, Marcel de Vink, were among the injured, said Major General Asim Saleem Bajwa, a spokesman for the Pakistani military.
In a phone interview, Piar Ali, a tourist who was staying at a hotel near the site, said the sound of the helicopter crashing into the back end of the Army Public School in Naltar sent him running to view the scene. “I came out and started making a video,” he said. “I saw the helicopter in flames, and soon afterward the school building also caught fire.”
The helicopter was one of several aircraft flying in to celebrate the inauguration of a tourism project in Gilgit-Baltistan, the Pakistani-controlled part of the Kashmir region.
Kashmir, huh? I'm glad the elites are celebrating tourist projects while average Pakistanis deal with power shutdowns every damn day.
I know, I know, they are there to help.
A statement by the Pakistani Ministry of Foreign Affairs said, the heads of diplomatic missions of more than 30 countries and family members, as well as some Pakistani dignitaries, had been flown in a C-130 aircraft Friday morning from Islamabad, the capital, to Gilgit.
From there, they were being taken to Naltar in Russian-made Mi-17 transport helicopters for a three-day excursion, the statement said.
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif of Pakistan was en route to the ceremony in his own plane when he was told about the crash.
Sharif then turned back to Islamabad and later expressed deep grief and sorrow over the crash, his office said.
The prime minister also announced a day of mourning.
“The government and people of Pakistan are deeply saddened over the tragic death of foreigners in the unfortunate incident and equally share the grief of the affected families,” President Mamnoon Hussain said.
Any drone strikes yesterday?
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That makes me reflect upon the Malaysian chopper crash. With all due respect, accidents to important people are not accidents at all.
