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U.S. drone crashes in Pakistan

Xinhua, August 26, 2011

• A U.S. unmanned aircraft crashed Thursday night near Chaman, a city in Pakistan's southwest Balochistan province, which borders Afghanistan, reported local Urdu TV channel Duniya.

  According to the report, the U.S. drone fell down while it was monitoring over the Pakistan-Afghanistan area. It fell down because of technical fault, the report said.

  U.S. drones are pilotless precise strike weapons often employed by the U.S. army in fight against the militants hiding along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border area.

  Though most of the people killed by the U.S. drones in Pakistan are suspected militants hiding in the northwest tribal regions of the country, which border Afghanistan, they do sometimes mistakenly kill innocent people in such strikes.

  There are local reports saying that about 30 percent of the people killed in U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan are civilians. However, there is no official confirmation about the figures.

  Earlier this year, the U.S drones launched a strike in Pakistan, killing dozens of tribesmen who were attending a jirga meeting, sparking a nation-wide protest against the U.S. drone strikes on Pakistan's soil.

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