Pakistan - Imran Khan: "I will order air force to shoot down drones."

Pakistan - Imran Khan: "I will order air force to shoot down drones."(Telegraph). The former cricket captain is to lead peace activists into the country’s lawless tribal belt on Saturday to publicise the human toll of the CIA’s covert programme of missile strikes. He has emerged as a serious contender for power after a decade and a half in the political wilderness since retiring from cricket and is now one of the country’s most outspoken critics of America’s use of unmanned aircraft. In an interview with BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, he said the attacks were pushing young men in the arms of Taliban recruiters. “It is totally counterproductive,” he said. “The [idea] that it is only killing al-Qaeda is a myth,” he said. “The people will tell you that the vast majority of people killed are either innocent civilians or some sort of low-level militants.” And he accused the government of Pakistan of condemning the attacks in public, while privately giving American commanders the go-ahead to launch strikes in the country’s tribal belt. “This government is completely complicit in it,” he said.Read the full story here.