Victims of Suspected Drone Attack to Speak With Legislators

On Tuesday, a Pakistani family will tell members of Congress about the aerial attack they survived but their grandmother did not in the first meeting between legislators and the victims of an alleged U.S. drone strike.

“On Sunday, in their first interview with US media since arriving to the country and speaking through a translator, Rehman and his children described the day Momina Bibi was killed and their efforts since then to find justice,” writes Ryan Devereaux at The Guardian. “Zubair, now 13, said the sky was clear the day his grandmother died. He had just returned home from school. Everyone had been in high spirits for the holiday, Zubair said, though above their heads aircraft were circling. Not airplanes or helicopters, Zubair said. Drones.

” ‘I know the difference,’ Zubair said, explaining the different features and sounds the vehicles make. ‘I am certain that it was a drone.’ Zubair recalled a pair of ‘fireballs’ tearing through the clear blue sky, after he stepped outside. After the explosion there was darkness, he said, and a mix of smoke and debris.

” ‘When it first hit, it was like everyone was just going crazy. They didn’t know what to make of it,’ Zubair said. ‘There was madness.’ A piece of shrapnel ripped into the boy’s left leg, just above his kneecap. A scar approximately four inches in length remains. ‘I felt like I was on fire,’ he said. The injury would ultimately require a series of costly operations.”

Read the rest of the Rehman family’s story here.

— Posted by Alexander Reed Kelly.