| Summary/Abstract |
In May 2016, the United States killed Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Mansour in the first drone strike ever in Pakistan's Baluchistan province. The Taliban has long used Baluchistan as a sanctuary, with top Taliban leaders based in the provincial capital of Quetta. Although Pakistan allowed drone strikes in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), it did not permit them in Baluchistan. Since repairing relations after they cratered in 2011—following the May raid that eliminated Osama bin Laden, as well as a November border skirmish in which U.S.-led NATO forces operating in Afghanistan killed 24 Pakistani soldiers—U.S. and Pakistani officials have repeatedly claimed the bilateral relationship was on solid footing. The 2016 drone strike exploded this fiction.
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