Obama permits CIA to broaden UAV war target list in
Pakistan
Published 7 May 2010
President Obama gave the CIA secret permission to attack a
wider range of targets, including suspected militants whose names are not known,
as part of a dramatic expansion of its campaign of UAV strikes in Pakistan's
border region; of more than 500 people who U.S. officials say have been killed
since the pace of strikes intensified, the vast majority have been individuals
whose names were unknown, or about whom the agency had only fragmentary
information. In some cases, the CIA discovered only after an attack that the
casualties included a suspected terrorist whom it had been seeking
Predator attacking // Source: for.org.uk
The CIA received secret permission to attack a wider range of targets,
including suspected militants whose names are not known, as part of a dramatic
expansion of its campaign of UAV strikes in Pakistan’s border region, according
to current and former counter-terrorism officials.
The expanded authority, approved two years ago by the Bush administration and
continued by President Obama, permits the agency to rely on what officials
describe as “pattern of life” analysis, using evidence collected by surveillance
cameras on the unmanned aircraft and from other sources about individuals
and locations.
Los Angeles Times’s David S. Cloud quotes the officials to say that the information then is used
to target suspected militants, even when their full identities are not known.
Previously, the CIA was restricted in most cases to killing only individuals
whose names were on an approved list.
The new rules have transformed the program from a narrow effort aimed at
killing top al Qaeda and Taliban leaders into a large-scale campaign of air
strikes in which few militants are off-limits, as long as they are deemed to
pose a threat to the United States, the officials said.
Instead of just a few dozen attacks per year, CIA-operated unmanned aircraft
now carry out multiple missile strikes each week against safe houses, training
camps, and other hiding places used by militants in the tribal belt
bordering Afghanistan.
As a matter of policy, CIA officials refuse to comment on the covert drone
program. Those who are willing to discuss it on condition of anonymity refuse to
describe in detail the standards of evidence they use for drone strikes, saying
only that strict procedures are in place to ensure that militants are being
targeted. Cloud writes that officials did say their surveillance yields so much
detail that they can watch for the routine arrival of particular vehicles or the
characteristics of individual people.
“The enemy has lost not just operational leaders and
facilitators — people whose names we know — but formations of fighters and other
terrorists,” said a senior U.S. counter-terrorism official, speaking on
condition of anonymity. “We might not always have their names, but … these are
people whose actions over time have made it obvious that they are a threat.”
In some cases, drones conduct surveillance for days to establish the evidence
that justifies firing a missile, the officials said. Even then, a strike can be
delayed or canceled if the chance of civilian casualties is too great,
they said.
Some analysts, however, said that permitting the CIA to kill individuals
whose names are unknown creates a serious risk of killing innocent people.
Civilian deaths caused by Western arms is a source of deep anger in both
Pakistan and Afghanistan. “There are a lot of ethical questions here about
whether we know who the targets are,” said Loch Johnson, an intelligence scholar
at the University of Georgia and a former congressional aide. “The danger is
that it could spawn new terrorists and increase resentment among the Pakistani
public, in particular where these strikes are taking place.”
U.S. officials say the strikes have caused fewer than thirty civilian
casualties since the drone program was expanded in Pakistan, a claim that is
impossible to verify since the remote and lawless tribal belt is usually
off-limits to Western reporters. Some estimates of civilian casualties by
outside analysts are in the hundreds.
Obama permits CIA to broaden UAV war target list in
Pakistan
Published 7 May 2010
Of more than 500 people who U.S. officials say have been killed since the
pace of strikes intensified, the vast majority have been individuals whose names
were unknown, or about whom the agency had only fragmentary information. In some
cases, the CIA discovered only after an attack that the casualties included a
suspected terrorist whom it had been seeking.
The CIA was directed by the Bush administration to begin using armed drones
to track Osama bin Laden and other senior al Qaeda figures, as well as Taliban
leaders who fled to Pakistan’s tribal areas after the 9/11 attacks. President
Bush secretly decided in his last year in office to expand the program. Obama
has continued and even streamlined the process, so that CIA Director Leon E.
Panetta can sign off on many attacks without notifying the White House
beforehand, an official said (see “U.S. widens UAV war over Pakistan,” 14
December 2009 HSNW; “UAV war in Pakistan expands,” 13 March
2009 HSNW; “Latest U.S. UAV strike in Pakistan signals change
of strategy,” 19
February 2009 HSNW ).
Missile attacks have risen steeply since Obama took office. There were an
estimated 53 drone strikes in 2009, up from just over 30 in Bush’s last year,
according to a website run by the New America Foundation that tracks press
reports of attacks in Pakistan. Through early this month, there had been 34 more
strikes this year, an average of one every 3 1/2 days, according to the
site’s figures
The 2010 attacks have killed from 143 to 247 people, according to estimates
collected by the site, but only seven militants have been publicly identified.
Among them are al Qaeda explosives expert Ghazwan Yemeni, Taliban commander
Mohammad Qari Zafar, Egyptian Canadian al Qaeda leader Sheikh Mansoor, and
Jordanian Taliban commander Mahmud Mahdi Zeidan.
Pakistani Taliban leader Hakimullah Mahsud, the architect of a series of
suicide bombings and raids on markets, mosques and security installations in the
latter half of 2009, was targeted in multiple strikes last year after evidence
emerged that he was involved in attacks against the Pakistani government and
Americans. He was initially believed to have been killed in a January drone
strike, but apparently survived. This week he appeared in a video, vowing
additional attacks against the United States.
Cloud writes that U.S. officials said Wednesday that there is increasing
evidence that Mahsud’s group, known as Tehrik-e-Taliban, had helped train the
Pakistani American who allegedly attempted to carry out a car bombing in New
York’s Times Square. The attempt may have been a response to the escalating U.S.
drone campaign, one official said.
The number of Predator and Reaper drones in the region is classified, but one
former official estimated that the size of the fleet has at least doubled in the
last year. The increased numbers improve the CIA’s ability to conduct continual
surveillance against multiple targets in North Waziristan and other militant
strongholds, the officials said.
Cloud notes that the CIA maintains a list of senior members of al Qaeda, the
Taliban and other militants, identified by name, whom the agency still tracks
and seeks to kill. The decision to widen the program was made because
counter-terrorism officials saw militant threats growing, but were unable to use
lethal force unless they were able to track a targeted individual.
Obama permits CIA to broaden UAV war target list in
Pakistan
Published 7 May 2010
“In the last year of the Bush administration, the
intelligence people had overwhelming evidence that al Qaeda was regrouping in
the tribal areas, and was plotting actively against this country,” said the
counter-terrorism official. “You can’t hear an alarm like that and then do
nothing,” the official said, adding that the actions taken by the Bush
administration have “intensified since.”
The CIA program is operated independently of the U.S. military, which flies
its own unmanned aircraft primarily over Afghanistan and follows different
targeting procedures (“The U.S. military — and Pakistan — join UAV war in
Pakistan,” 13
May 2009 HSNW).
The border region is a stew of interlocking and shadowy militant groups, some
of which seek to attack U.S. troops in Afghanistan or mount larger attacks
against U.S. interests, while others are more focused on overthrowing the
Pakistani government.
Some outside analysts caution that it could be difficult to determine whether
a suspect about whom little is known represents a threat to U.S. interests.
Former officials who were involved in the program, however, said that many of
the groups were found to be working together, and thus were considered
legitimate targets. One former official directly involved in the program said
many locations were watched so closely that the CIA could predict daily
routines. “Is the white van there yet?” the official said, giving an example
of the degree of scrutiny. “Is he walking with a limp?”
Officials say some decisions are straightforward — for example, if drones
observe bomb-making or fighters training for possible operations in Afghanistan.
In one case cited by officials, a missile was fired at a compound where unknown
individuals were seen assembling a car bomb.
People who are determined to be raising money for al Qaeda or who only
facilitate its operations are not targeted, according to a senior administration
official. Such support “is not enough as a matter of administration practice and
policy to make you a target for lethal operations,” the official said.
In addition to more drones, U.S. intelligence agencies involved in the
program have increased the number of analysts working on tracking targets and
have made other technical upgrades that have improved their ability to track and
kill militants.
The Pakistani government occasionally complains publicly about the U.S drone
strikes, but also has helped expand the program by providing information about
possible targets and by clearing airspace, so the drones can operate without
risk of collision with other planes, officials said.
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