Clinton Faces Pakistani Anger at Drone Attacks - NYTimes.com

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Clinton Faces Pakistani Anger at Drone Attacks

Filed at 10:40 a.m. ET

ISLAMABAD (AP) -- U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton came face-to-face Friday with simmering Pakistani anger over U.S. aerial drone attacks in their country and drew back slightly from her blunt remarks suggesting Pakistani officials know where terrorists are hiding.

In a series of public appearances on the final day of a three-day visit, Clinton was pressed repeatedly by Pakistani civilians and journalists about the secret U.S. program that uses drones to launch missiles to kill terrorists.

But she refused to discuss the drones strikes along the porous border area with Afghanistan that have killed key terror leaders but also scores of civilians.

Clinton's visit was rocked from the start by a devastating terrorist bombing in Peshawar that killed 105 people, many of them women and children. Her tour has proceeded tensely, revealing clear signs of strain between the two nations despite months of public insistence that they were on the same wavelength in the war on terror.

What is less apparent is what U.S. officials are aiming for with Clinton's tough new comments about Pakistani officials' failure to eliminate al-Qaida as a threat within their borders.

Pakistan's military recently launched a major offensive in the South Waziristan border area to clear out insurgent hideouts. But two earlier army efforts made little progress there -- leaving questions about the military's resolve to tackle al-Qaida head-on.

Clinton carefully scaled back her comments from a day earlier suggesting that some Pakistani officials knew where al-Qaida's upper echelon ...

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http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2009/10/30/world/AP-AS-Clinton.html?hp