(AP)
US drone attacks have been incredibly successful in the war on terrorists in Pakistan, killing more than 300 people, including several high-ranking Taliban leaders.
The unmanned weapons, launched from secret bases and guided by remote control, strike at their targets with GPS and laser-guided bombs from as high as 2,000 feet.
The killing that most infuriated Faisal Shahzad, who was arrested for attempting to detonate a car bomb in Times Square, was that of Pakistan’s Taliban chief, Baitullah Mehsud. He was killed in August.
Mehsud, his wife and his wife’s parents were among 12 people blown up by a missile fired by a drone in the lawless South Waziristan region. It took weeks before Mehsud’s body could be recovered and his death confirmed.
Mehsud was at the top of Pakistan’s most-wanted list for crimes that included the assassination of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto in 2007 and the killing of 54 people in a Marriott Hotel bombing in Islamabad in 2008.
There have been at least 50 drone attacks since then in a campaign waged by the CIA along the terrorist-infested Pakistan-Afghanistan border.
Among the other drone strikes:
* On Sept. 29, 2009, missiles from drones killed 13 militants including Taliban commander Irfan Mehsud in separate attacks in North and South Waziristan.
* On Dec. 31, 2009, senior Taliban commander Haji Omar Khan was reported blown up along with three others in the North Waziristan village of Machi Khel.
* On Jan. 8, five terrorists working for Taliban commander Hafiz Gul Buhadur were reported killed in the North Waziristan village of Tappi.
* On Feb. 8, Mohammed Haqqani, brother of Afghanistan Taliban leader Siraj Haqqani, was killed in North Waziristan.
Both Haqqanis were attending the funeral of a militant killed by a drone the day before.
The drone campaign, which has never been officially acknowledged by US authorities, is believed to have been intensified after the Haqqani family network was identified as playing a key role in the Dec. 30, 2009, suicide-bombing attack that killed seven CIA officers at a CIA base, Camp Chapman, in Afghanistan.