Pakistani protesters rally against recent US drone attack in Pakistani territory, in Lahore, Pakistan on June 10. Pakistan’s government met senior US officials Friday to discuss the fallout from a May 21 drone attack that killed Taleban chief Mullah Akhtar Mansour, while the family of the taxi driver who died alongside Mansour demanded justice. Placard in center reads ‘US drone attacks, unacceptable’. (Inset) Saeed(AP)

ISLAMABAD, June 11, (Agencies): Pakistan’s government met senior US officials Friday to discuss the fallout from a May 21 drone attack that killed Taleban chief Mullah Akhtar Mansour, while the family of the taxi driver who died alongside Mansour demanded justice. Peter Lavoy, head of Washington’s South Asia desk at the National Security Council and Richard Olson, the US Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, met with Pakistani civilian and military leaders in the first high level exchange since the drone strike, according to Pakistan’s foreign ministry.

In a statement following their meeting, Sartaj Aziz, Pakistan’s special adviser on foreign affairs, said the discussions were candid. According to the statement, the two sides restated their positions. Pakistan affirmed that the drone strike breached its sovereignty and compromised an already stalled Afghan peace process; and the United States reiterated its accusation that Pakistan is providing safe havens for the Taleban in Pakistan.

At the time of the drone a t t a c k , Mansour was trave l l i n g with a Pakistani passport and identity card, infuriating the US and Afghanistan who said this was proof of the ease with which Taleban fighters are travelling throughout Pakistan. Mansour’s taxi driver, Mohammed Azam, was also killed in the attack. His family said they were outraged that they have not yet received an apology from the United States or recognition of Azam’s innocence. As a result, they have gone to the police, demanding justice. In the police report, a copy of which The Associated Press acquired, his elder brother Qasim said Mohammad Azam was innocent of any crime. He said Mohammad was not aware of the identity of his passenger and demanded that the police and local Baluchistan provincial government officials conduct an investigation to identify the culprits. He called for “justice.”ComplaintThe police complaint doesn’t define what form that justice should take, but in a handwritten note at the bottom of the complaint one local official wrote that he had begun an investigation. In a telephone interview with AP from his home in the town of Taftan, close to the Iranian border, Qasim said his 33-year-old brother had worked as a taxi driver for most of his adult life, earning roughly 20,000 rupees (about $200) a month. It was just his bad luck that his final passenger turned out to be the Taleban chief, Qasim said. It had been a morning like every other for Azam, recalled his brother. He showed up for work at the only taxi company in Taftan, his arid, dustclogged hometown, shortly after 8 a.m. His first passenger of the day had just walked across the border from Iran — which wasn’t unusual.

Hundreds of people cross daily between Iran and Pakistan at Taftan. He was told to take the bushy bearded Pashtun to Quetta, the capital of Pakistan’s largest and least populated province of Baluchistan, some 650 kilometers (380 miles) away. What Azam wasn’t told, and what he didn’t know, was that his passenger was the Taleban chief and that US drones had been tracking him. They had just reached Ahmadwal, about 25 kilometers (13 miles) from Quetta, when the US drone slammed into his vehicle. Azam and his Taleban passenger died instantly. His car was reduced to a smoldering wreck. Qasim said he received a call from local police forces in the afternoon informing him that his brother was dead and telling him to come and collect the body. It wasn’t until he arrived at the hospital in Quetta that he was told how his brother died. Azam has four young children. His eldest, a daughter, is seven and his youngest is three years old. Like many people in Pakistan, Azam lived in a single compound with his parents and brothers, their wives and children.Health

Qasim said that he too had driven a taxi until 2012, when ill health forced him to quit. “After the death of my brother life for our family is very difficult,” he said. “My mother is sick and one brother is disabled.” Azam’s two eldest children are in primary school but the family is deciding whether they can afford to keep them enrolled. Qasim said his brother had never had any affiliation with the Taleban. “Our family members have no sympathy with Pakistani or Afghan Taleban. Even we don’t support religious parties in the elections,” he said. Qasim’s family has always voted for the left-of-center Pakistan People’s Party because “we are living in a tribal society and our tribal chief” is a member of that party, his brother said. The first woman head of a Muslim state, Benazir Bhutto, led the Pakistan People’s Party until her assassination in 2007. Qasim said he wants both the Pakistan and US government to recognize his brother’s innocence and financially compensate the family for their loss. “How can you just kill an innocent person?” he said. Meanwhile, Hafiz Saeed, a Pakistani Islamist with a $10 million US bounty on his head, led prayers at a mosque in Islamabad on Friday and called on his country’s military to shoot down any American drones entering Pakistani territory.

The anti-US rhetoric came as the US special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan visited Islamabad for the first time since last month’s killing of Afghan Taleban leader Mullah Akhtar Mansour in a drone strike in western Pakistan. US and Pakistan relations have been strained by the strike, which Islamabad has protested against as a violation of its sovereignty. Friday’s public appearance by Saeed, whom the US and India accuse of masterminding a 2008 attack on India’s financial capital Mumbai that killed 166 people, was another reminder of the many sore points in the Pakistani-US relationship. The United States has offered $10 million for information leading to Saeed’s arrest and conviction, but he remains free. He maintains a low profile for much of the time, meaning his occasional public appearances and pronouncements are closely watched.

“The US stands with India in their enmity towards Pakistan,” Saeed told a crowd of hundreds of people after leading Friday prayers at the Islamabad mosque. “We want to request the army chief and make the air chief realize that it is their duty to shoot down any drone that comes into Pakistan and respond to it in kind.” In response to the May 21 drone strike that killed Mansour, an Islamist charity Saeed heads, the Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD), has announced a series of anti-US protests in major cities, with Saeed expected to be a featured speaker. Pakistan’s top foreign policy official and its powerful military chief met Richard Olson, the US special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, during a visit.