Beg for shooting down intruding ISAF copters, drones

LAHORE - Former army chief Gen Mirza Aslam Beg on Tuesday bitterly criticised the government for involving Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani in the conflict between the executive and the judiciary, and demanded that the Pakistan Air Force should be tasked to shoot down the helicopters and drones involved in attacks on Pakistan’s territories. Talking to TheNation, he said while the troika meeting was a routine in normal circumstances, the one that took place on Monday had quite different implications.
He said it took place on a day when the Supreme Court was hearing a case of the government’s failure to write a letter to the Swiss authorities to request them to reopen cases against President Zardari, which had earlier been closed on the basis of an unauthorised communication sent by the previous government.
He said the army chief was not supposed to be part of the statement issued after the meeting. “This was a prohibited area for him”. The president and the prime minister, Gen Beg said, had involved the army chief in a matter from which he was supposed to keep away.
The implementation of the Supreme Court’s verdict on the National Reconciliation Ordinance was a matter between the judiciary and the government. “The government has set a very bad precedent - in fact done a disservice - by sucking in the army chief in a filed which was not his domain”. He said it appeared that the government was trying to make the army a party to the dispute.