To show solidarity with the people of Waziristan in Pakistan, who have experienced and been victims of US drone strikes, thousands of Pakistanis marched in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). Pakistan Tehrik-i-Insaf (PTI) chief Imran Khan led the march. Thirty-one American peace activists affiliated with CODEPINK participated in the march as well.

The motorcade, which left Islamabad on October 6, took a route that ended in Dera Ismail Khan (DIK) on the first day. There was a rally in DIK at the end of this phase of the march. Then, on October 7, the motorcade continued onward and passed through Tank, a city nearby Waziristan, where tens of thousands of people met the march as it arrived.

A delegation of around thirty-five people from the United States is in Pakistan for a week of action in opposition to drone strikes by the United States. The group of delegates, organized by CODEPINK, has had a positive and welcoming response so far. They met with Acting US Ambassador to Pakistan Richard Hoagland and had a breakthrough by getting him to talk specifically about US policy on the record. And the group is preparing for a protest in South Waziristan on October 7.

Clinics at the law schools of Stanford and New York University released a ground-breaking report on September 25 that challenged the “dominant narrative” that United States drones in Pakistan are a “surgically precise and effective tool,” which “makes the US safer by enabling ‘targeted killings’ of terrorists, with minimal downsides or collateral impacts.” The report, which included firsthand accounts from Pakistanis to bolster the study’s conclusions, called this narrative “false” and stated civilian casualties are “rarely acknowledged by the US government, there is significant evidence that US drone strikes have injured and killed civilians.” And it stated publicly available evidence that strikes make the US safer is “ambiguous at best” and considers the legality of the strikes to be “doubtful.”

But, for some commentators and pundits the findings of the report, “Living Under Drones,” were frustrating.