Washington—Hours after US missiles killed 20 people in FATA, President Barack Obama convened a meeting of his top national security advisers and endorsed the decision to continue drone strikes into Pakistan.

The US media, quoting unidentified official sources, reported that the first meeting of Mr Obama’s National Security Council focused on Pakistan and Afghanistan.

The New York Times reported on Saturday that the decision to attack alleged terrorist targets in FATA on Friday ‘dispelled for the moment any notion that Mr Obama would rein in the Predator attacks.’

The Washington Post noted that the strikes ‘offered the first tangible sign of President Obama’s commitment to sustained military pressure on the terrorist groups’ in FATA.

At his daily White House briefing, press secretary Robert Gibbs declined to answer questions about the strikes, saying, ‘I’m not going to get into these matters.’

Remotely piloted Predator drones operated by the Central Intelligence Agency have carried out 28 missile attacks in Fata since last summer, killing At least 132 people.

The NYT, quoting Pakistani officials, reported that as many as 100 of them were civilians.

Although US and Pakistani officials insist that the missiles targeted al-Qaeda and Taliban suspects, many civilians were also killed in the attacks, making it harder for the country’s shaky government to win support for its decision to join the US-led war against terror. After Friday’s strikes, a Pakistani security official said in Islamabad that at least 10 insurgents, including five foreign nationals and possibly ‘a high-value target’ such as a senior al-Qaeda or Taliban official, were among the 20 killed.

But US officials told NYT in Washington that ‘there were no immediate signs that the strikes had killed any senior Qaeda leaders.’

Husain Haqqani, Pakistan’s ambassador to Washington, however, said that Islamabad ‘hopes President Obama will be more patient while dealing with Pakistan,’ Husain Haqqani.

Appealing to the new US administration to ‘hear us out,’ Mr Haqqani said: ‘We will review all options if Obama does not adopt a positive policy towards us.’

Meanwhile, the US media reported that President Obama and his top national security are likely in the coming days to review other counterterrorism measures put in place by the Bush administration. These include former President George W. Bush’s decision to send US Special Operations forces to Fata in July to carry out ground attacks without the approval of the Pakistani government.—AP

pakobserver.net/200901/25/news/topstories17.asp