WASHINGTON — The son of a 68-year-old Pakistani woman killed in an apparent errant U.S. drone strike pleaded on Capitol Hill Tuesday for an end to the campaign.
“I came here and I noticed during my first day that everyone lives peacefully here and it’s a nice life . . . no one lives in fear,” Rafiq ur Rehman said via a translator.
“And my hopes and my dreams are that my children too can live in a similar environment in North Waziristan,” said Rehman, whose mother, Mamana Bibi, was killed near her home last October.
The family’s story was highlighted in a recent Amnesty International report and is the subject of a documentary out Wednesday.
Reported civilian deaths in U.S. drone strikes fell from 70 in 2009 to just five last year, according to an analysis by the New America Foundation.
Joseph Straw
