Pakistan halts protest convoy

Politician led 9-mile parade to oppose drone strikes

Supporters of opposition politician Imran Khan march Sunday on the outskirts of Tank, Pakistan, to protest U.S. drone attacks. The group was turned back near the border with Afghanistan by Pakistan’s military.

Supporters of opposition politician Imran Khan march Sunday on the outskirts of Tank, Pakistan, to protest U.S. drone attacks. The group was turned back near the border with Afghanistan by Pakistan’s military.

Monday, October 8, 2012

— The Pakistani military blocked a convoy carrying thousands of Pakistanis and a small contingent of U.S. anti-war activists from entering a lawless tribal region along the border with Afghanistan on Sunday to protest American drone strikes.

The group, led by cricket star turned politician Imran Khan and his political party, was turned back just miles from the border of South Waziristan. After an hour of fruitless negotiations, Khan announced that the caravan would backtrack to the city of Tank, about nine miles away. There, he delivered a speech to the crowd of about 10,000.

Khan has harshly criticized the Pakistani government’s cooperation with Washington in the fight against Islamist militants. He has been especially outspoken against U.S. drone strikes targeting militants and has argued that Islamabad’s alliance with Washington is the main reason Pakistan is facing a homegrown Taliban insurgency. He has suggested before that militant activity in Pakistan’s tribal areas will dissipate when the U.S. ends the war across the border in Afghanistan.

“We want to give a message to America that the more you carry out drone attacks, the more people will hate you,” Khan told the crowd.

The anti-American sentiment, always high in Pakistan, was evident in the crowd that waved banners saying “Down with America,” and “The friend of America is the traitor of the nation.”

Pakistan’s tribal regions, such as North and South Waziristan, border Afghanistan and serve as bases for militant groups such as the Taliban to stage raids across the border into Afghanistan.

The protest convoy of about 150 cars set out Saturday from the capital, Islamabad, traveled 250 miles and then stopped overnight in the city of Dera Ismail Khan. The plan for the second and final day was to travel another 70 miles to reach Kotkai in South Waziristan. But the military stopped the convoy in the town of Kawar.

Khan told the rally that they wanted to continue their journey to Kotkai, but the army said it was too late, and going inside South Waziristan at night was dangerous. Khan said he didn’t want to put his supporters in danger, so he turned the rally around to Tank.

A spokesman for Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, Umar Younus, said the army stopped the convoy at a checkpoint and, despite insistence by party leaders, they would not allow the convoy to go any farther.

Regardless of whether he was able to enter the tribal region, Khan portrayed the two day motorcade as a success.

“We have taken the voice of the people of Waziristan to the world,” he said.

Thousands of supporters had turned out along the route to cheer on the convoy, which stretched about 9 miles, including accompanying media.Some of those packed into the vehicles waved flags for Khan’s political group and chanted: “We want peace.”

Video on Pakistani media showed barricades with hundreds of police in riot gear, a sign of concerns that the motorcade would be attacked or become unruly.

About three dozen Americans from the U.S.-based antiwar group Codepink joined Khan for the march. The American protesters say the U.S. drone strikes, contrary to the claims of American officials, have terrorized peaceful tribes living along the border and killed many innocent civilians - not just Taliban and al-Qaida fighters.

The convoy aimed to throw a spotlight on the drone attacks, which many Pakistanis oppose as violations of the country’s sovereignty that often kill civilians. The U.S. says its drone strikes are necessary to battle militants that Pakistan has been unable or unwilling to control.

Critics denounced the rally as a piece of cheap theater designed to drum up votes for Khan’s political party ahead of next year’s elections.

The rally was originally intended for South Waziristan, a tribal region where the Pakistani military has been battling a violent uprising by the Taliban, and factions of the Taliban threatened to attack the march. On Saturday, a statement from a Taliban faction said to be based in eastern Punjab province warned that militants would target the protesters with suicide bombings.

In Islamabad, the U.S. Embassy warned its citizens about possible terrorist attacks Sunday in the city on key government installations and major hotels such as the Marriott and the Serena. The embassy said Pakistan’s Interior Ministry had issued an alert about the threats, and urged American citizens to avoid those areas.

The U.S. government already advises its citizens to avoid nonessential travel to Pakistan.

Information for this article was contributed by Zarar Khan, Rebecca Santana and Adil Jawad of The Associated Press.

Front Section, Pages 6 on 10/08/2012