Datta Khel airstrike

Datta Khel airstrike
Part of Insurgency in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa
TypeUAV-strike
Location
33°09′N 70°26′E / 33.15°N 70.43°E / 33.15; 70.43
TargetTaliban fighters
Date17 March 2011
Executed by CIA[1]
Casualties44 killed
10 injured
Datta Khel airstrike is located in Pakistan
Datta Khel airstrike

The Datta Khel airstrike was an American airstrike carried out on 17 March 2011 in Datta Khel, North Waziristan that killed 44 people and led to widespread condemnation in Pakistan. Sherabat Khan Wazir, a top commander of Hafiz Gul Bahadur's Taliban faction, was killed in the strike, and in response Bahadur threatened to end the peace deal struck with the Pakistani government almost four years earlier.[2] The airstrike was part of a long series of drone attacks in Pakistan carried out by the CIA and United States military. It occurred just two days after diyya, a form of compensation paid to a victim's family under Islamic law, was paid for the release of U.S. CIA operative Raymond Allen Davis, signaling a resumption of U.S. activity after a several week hiatus while Davis' pardon on murder charges was being negotiated.

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  2. ^ Cite error: The named reference et20110321 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).