Pak finally admits US using Shamsi airbase in Balochistan - India News and Travel Times Provides India-centric and other News and Features

Pakistan, for the first time, has admitted that the Shamsi airbase in Balochistan is being used by the US forces for logistical purposes. Defence Minister Ahmed Mukhtar said the US is using the Shamsi airbase, but the government is not satisfied with payments for its use, The Dawn reports. It may be noted that the US forces were also operating from the Jacobabad and Pasni airbases for carrying out operations in Afghanistan. Mukhtar’s statements comes a day after he admitted the presence of ‘Quetta Shura’ in Pakistan, a fact which was being vehemently denied by Islamabad so far. On Saturday, Mukhtar had said that there is no threat from the ‘shura’ (Quetta based union council of the Taliban), as it has been “significantly damaged” by the security forces. “Security forces have taken on the ‘Quetta Shura’, damaged it to such an extent that it no longer pose any threat to the country,” Mukhtar had said. While Pakistan has been fervently denying reports about the presence of the Talibani leadership inside its boundaries, particularly in Balochistan, the United States, time and again, has stressed that key Taliban and Al-Qaeda commanders have taken refuge in that region and were planning attacks from there. A recent report by General Stanley McChrystal, the top US commander in Afghanistan, also claimed that the Taliban leadership was in Quetta, Balochistan’s capital, and that it was plotting attacks on international forces in Afghanistan.