strike by a US Predator aircraft. The target appeared to be a compound operated by Hafiz Gul Bahadur, a Tehrik-i-Taliban leader. The dead included local tribal leaders. The strike, intended to further the local war effort, instead added to the unpopularity of drone strikes and added to the anti-American sentiment in Pakistan. Kayani conducted a rare press conference in which he condemned the drone strike (even persuading the Pakistani government to summon American Ambassador to Pakistan, Cameron Munter, and lodge a "protest in the strongest possible terms") and labelled it "intolerable". In 2011, after delivering a long lecture at the National Defence University, one staff officer reportedly got up and challenged his policy of co-operation with the United States. The officer asked, "If they don't trust us, how can we trust them?" according to one professor who was briefed on the session. General Kayani essentially responded, "We can't." Kayani's comments about the Datta Khel strike came to be put in the broader context of public and private communications by Pakistani officials with Washington, including an April 2011, visit by the head of the ISI, Lt. Gen. Ahmed Shuja Pasha, to CIA Director Leon Panetta at CIA headquarters. "[S]ome officials in both countries [were] saying intelligence ties [we]re at their lowest point since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks spurred the alliance," according to one report. The report went on to say the overall communications included private demands that the CIA suspend drone strikes and also reduce the number of US intelligence and Special Operations personnel in the country. After the ISI-CIA meeting, CIA spokesman George Little said the intelligence relationship "remains on solid footing." Retirement In 2013, General Kayani was in the race for the chairmanship of joint chiefs of staff committee along with Admiral Asif Sandila and Air Chief Marshal Tahir Rafiq; though he was shortlisted for the appointment, on 6 October 2013, General Kayani announced that he would be retiring, his due date of retirement in November, ending speculation that he might get another extension or would be appointed as Chairman Joint Chief of staff Committee. His retirement was confirmed when Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif approved then-Lieutenant General Raheel Sharif as chief of army staff and Lieutenant General Rashid Mehmood as Chairman Joint chiefs on 27 November 2013. Kayani now resides in Rawalpindi. Awards and decorations Foreign decorations See also Indo-Pakistani War of 1971 Tariq Majid References External links