United States To Continue Drone Attacks From Afghanistan

The United States plans to continue the attacks in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) region of Pakistan from the US airbases in Afghanistan after the departure of the US & CIA officials from the Shamsi Airbase.

The Shamsi Airbase was used by the US forces as main airbase for conducing the drone attacks along the Pak-Afghan border region. US forces employ the MQ-1 Predator and 

The US officials believe that orders to vacate the Shamsi airbase were designed to calm the Pakistani public down after the ISAF/NATO attack on a Pakistani border check post which resulted in the death of 24 solders of Pakistan army.

The MQ-9 Reaper Hunter-Killer UAV can carry as many as 14 Hellfire missiles air-to-surface missile (ASM) and still stay airborne for over 14 hours. The Reaper can also carry  a payload of four Hellfire missiles and two GBU-12 Paveway II laser-guided bombs or two GBU-38 Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM).  In lightly armed configuration, the MQ-9 Reaper can carry a payload of 450 kg and stay airborne for 42 hours at high altitude.