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U.S. escalates ' drone war' in tribal region
Peter Goodspeed, National Post
Saturday, December 19, 2009
It may take months before the United States deploys 30,000 new troops to Afghanistan under Barack Obama's latest surge, but the U.S. military is already rushing to expand its "Drone War" in neighbouring Pakistan's troubled tribal areas.
Around 4 a.m. on Thursday, a swarm of pilotless Predator drones unleashed 12 Hellfire missiles on two suspected Taliban and al-Qaeda hideouts in the mountain district of Datta Khel in North Waziristan, killing 17 suspected terrorists, including seven "Arabs."
In the first attack, a remote-controlled drone fired two missiles at a car carrying two insurgents as it entered the village of Dosali around midnight.
Hours later, in an unusual pack attack, five drones attacked two compounds in neighbouring Ambarshaga. Local Pakistani intelligence officials say a withering blast of 10 missiles killed at least 15 insurgents.
The attacks came just a week after a similar raid hit Saleh al-Somali, al-Qaeda's external operations chief, in a nearby village just a few kilometres from the Afghanistan border.
The attacks mark a dramatic escalation of a remote-control push-button war that has seen the U.S. military deliver punishing body blows to al-Qaeda's leadership.
Since Mr. Obama came to power in January, his administration has carried out about 50 unmanned drone strikes inside Pakistan, more than the Bush administration in its final three years.
There were only 10 Predator strikes in Pakistan during 2006 and 2007.
Since unveiling his new strategy for the Afghan conflict this month, Mr. Obama is said to have signed off on an expanded Central Intelligence Agency war against al-Qaeda and Taliban targets inside Pakistan, ordering the hunt for Osama bin Laden into overdrive.
U.S. officials are also said to be pushing a reluctant Pakistani government to allow the CIA to extend its drone attacks from North and South Waziristan to Baluchistan, where Afghan Taliban leaders are believed to be hiding in and around Quetta.
U.S. officials refuse to discuss details, but intelligence experts say the sudden surge in activity has killed 14 of the 20 most wanted al-Qaeda terrorists.
Leon Panetta, the CIA director, recently called the spy agency's drones the "most effective weapon" available to take on Taliban and al-Qaeda terrorists.
In the last few months, they have killed hundreds of Taliban and al-Qaeda rebels, decapitating a mid-level leadership responsible for cross-border attacks into Afghanistan and forcing al-Qaeda's top leaders to worry about their very survival.
Drones are seductive weapons, promising the military the advantage of "higher ground" without risking U.S. lives.
A testament to U.S. technical ingenuity, the drones used in Afghanistan and Pakistan can fly 700 kilometres to their targets, then loiter overhead for 14 hours before returning to their base.
They are equipped with sensor packages that can intercept and analyze electronic signals, and eavesdrop on cellphone calls or simple conversations. Drones can also search out targets -- day or night and sometimes even through walls.
The weapons are now capable of sending up to 10 simultaneous streams of data back to 10 different sets of operators, who control the vehicles half a world away at CIA headquarters in Langley, Va., or at U.S. airbases in Nevada, Hawaii, Germany or Korea.
Drones made their operational debut in 1995 as intelligence-gathering surveillance and reconnaissance vehicles. In 1999, they flew 24 hours a day over Kosovo to provide NATO commanders with information on Serbian troop movements.
But it was during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the hunt for bin Laden that they became one of the most critical weapons in the U.S. arsenal.
Of 93 new aircraft requested by the U.S. Air Force this year, 52 were unmanned aerial vehicles.
At any moment on any given day, up to 40 U.S. drone aircraft are said to be in the air covering hot spots across the Middle East and Central Asia. The CIA reportedly has so many flying over Pakistan they sometimes create command and control problems.
Drones have revolutionized how Americans wage war. They hunt terrorists and guard borders with Mexico and Canada; they guide fighters, bombers and helicopter gunships to targets; and launch attacks on enemies in otherwise inaccessible areas.
In previous wars, U.S. soldiers found the enemy by patrolling until they bumped into them, said John Pike, a military analyst at GlobalSecurity.org."Now, U.S. troops can peek beyond the horizon and they have gone bonkers over [drones] because they work," he said.
But for all their success, the drones have created controversy over the number of civilians killed in their attacks.
By some estimates up to 1,000 people have died in the past two years in U.S. drone attacks in Pakistan, provoking public hostility.
U.S. officials insist the death counts are exaggerated and undocumented, and say they do everything they can to limit civilian casualties.
A recent study by the New America Foundation, a policy group in Washington, estimates at least 500 rebels and 250 civilians have been killed in U.S. drone attacks since 2006.
A separate estimate by the Long War Journal counted 885 rebel and 94 civilian deaths.
Nevertheless, many Pakistani politicians claim the attacks violate international law and undermine their nation's sovereignty. They also threaten to deepen public resentment at the United States in the world's second-largest Islamic country.
"The strikes are now exciting visceral opposition across a broad spectrum of Pakistani opinion," said David Kilcullen, a counter-insurgency expert who has advised U.S. generals in Iraq and Afghanistan.
"We need to be extremely careful about undermining the longer-term objective -- a stable Pakistan, where elected politicians control their own national-security establishment, and extremism is diminishing -- for the sake of collecting scalps."
Suggestions Washington might push its drone war into Baluchistan would open a contentious new front in the clandestine war, just as Pakistan's civilian government is undergoing renewed political turmoil.
"Pakistani forces will continue their internal battle against their homegrown insurgency, but are unready to open a new front against the Afghan Taliban," said Shuja Nawaz, director of the Atlantic Council's South Asia Center.
"This reluctance will likely provoke private and public pressure for Pakistan to 'do more' or else risk U.S. drone attacks into Baluchistan and heightened strikes inside the Federally Administered Tribal Area.
"If this happens, the U.S.-Pakistan relationship may be heading for a train wreck."
In the meantime, U.S. drones, nicknamed machay (wasps) by Pashtun residents of the tribal areas because of the buzzing noise they make during an attack, continue to patrol the skies hunting for targets.
Three suspected rebels died and another five were injured yesterday when a drone fired missiles into yet another house in Datta Khel.
pgoodspeed@nationalpost.com
U.S. escalates ' drone war' in tribal region
Peter Goodspeed, National Post
Saturday, December 19, 2009
It may take months before the United States deploys 30,000 new troops to Afghanistan under Barack Obama's latest surge, but the U.S. military is already rushing to expand its "Drone War" in neighbouring Pakistan's troubled tribal areas.
Around 4 a.m. on Thursday, a swarm of pilotless Predator drones unleashed 12 Hellfire missiles on two suspected Taliban and al-Qaeda hideouts in the mountain district of Datta Khel in North Waziristan, killing 17 suspected terrorists, including seven "Arabs."
In the first attack, a remote-controlled drone fired two missiles at a car carrying two insurgents as it entered the village of Dosali around midnight.
Hours later, in an unusual pack attack, five drones attacked two compounds in neighbouring Ambarshaga. Local Pakistani intelligence officials say a withering blast of 10 missiles killed at least 15 insurgents.
The attacks came just a week after a similar raid hit Saleh al-Somali, al-Qaeda's external operations chief, in a nearby village just a few kilometres from the Afghanistan border.
The attacks mark a dramatic escalation of a remote-control push-button war that has seen the U.S. military deliver punishing body blows to al-Qaeda's leadership.
Since Mr. Obama came to power in January, his administration has carried out about 50 unmanned drone strikes inside Pakistan, more than the Bush administration in its final three years.
There were only 10 Predator strikes in Pakistan during 2006 and 2007.
Since unveiling his new strategy for the Afghan conflict this month, Mr. Obama is said to have signed off on an expanded Central Intelligence Agency war against al-Qaeda and Taliban targets inside Pakistan, ordering the hunt for Osama bin Laden into overdrive.
U.S. officials are also said to be pushing a reluctant Pakistani government to allow the CIA to extend its drone attacks from North and South Waziristan to Baluchistan, where Afghan Taliban leaders are believed to be hiding in and around Quetta.
U.S. officials refuse to discuss details, but intelligence experts say the sudden surge in activity has killed 14 of the 20 most wanted al-Qaeda terrorists.
Leon Panetta, the CIA director, recently called the spy agency's drones the "most effective weapon" available to take on Taliban and al-Qaeda terrorists.
In the last few months, they have killed hundreds of Taliban and al-Qaeda rebels, decapitating a mid-level leadership responsible for cross-border attacks into Afghanistan and forcing al-Qaeda's top leaders to worry about their very survival.
Drones are seductive weapons, promising the military the advantage of "higher ground" without risking U.S. lives.
A testament to U.S. technical ingenuity, the drones used in Afghanistan and Pakistan can fly 700 kilometres to their targets, then loiter overhead for 14 hours before returning to their base.
They are equipped with sensor packages that can intercept and analyze electronic signals, and eavesdrop on cellphone calls or simple conversations. Drones can also search out targets -- day or night and sometimes even through walls.
The weapons are now capable of sending up to 10 simultaneous streams of data back to 10 different sets of operators, who control the vehicles half a world away at CIA headquarters in Langley, Va., or at U.S. airbases in Nevada, Hawaii, Germany or Korea.
Drones made their operational debut in 1995 as intelligence-gathering surveillance and reconnaissance vehicles. In 1999, they flew 24 hours a day over Kosovo to provide NATO commanders with information on Serbian troop movements.
But it was during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the hunt for bin Laden that they became one of the most critical weapons in the U.S. arsenal.
Of 93 new aircraft requested by the U.S. Air Force this year, 52 were unmanned aerial vehicles.
At any moment on any given day, up to 40 U.S. drone aircraft are said to be in the air covering hot spots across the Middle East and Central Asia. The CIA reportedly has so many flying over Pakistan they sometimes create command and control problems.
Drones have revolutionized how Americans wage war. They hunt terrorists and guard borders with Mexico and Canada; they guide fighters, bombers and helicopter gunships to targets; and launch attacks on enemies in otherwise inaccessible areas.
In previous wars, U.S. soldiers found the enemy by patrolling until they bumped into them, said John Pike, a military analyst at GlobalSecurity.org."Now, U.S. troops can peek beyond the horizon and they have gone bonkers over [drones] because they work," he said.
But for all their success, the drones have created controversy over the number of civilians killed in their attacks.
By some estimates up to 1,000 people have died in the past two years in U.S. drone attacks in Pakistan, provoking public hostility.
U.S. officials insist the death counts are exaggerated and undocumented, and say they do everything they can to limit civilian casualties.
A recent study by the New America Foundation, a policy group in Washington, estimates at least 500 rebels and 250 civilians have been killed in U.S. drone attacks since 2006.
A separate estimate by the Long War Journal counted 885 rebel and 94 civilian deaths.
Nevertheless, many Pakistani politicians claim the attacks violate international law and undermine their nation's sovereignty. They also threaten to deepen public resentment at the United States in the world's second-largest Islamic country.
"The strikes are now exciting visceral opposition across a broad spectrum of Pakistani opinion," said David Kilcullen, a counter-insurgency expert who has advised U.S. generals in Iraq and Afghanistan.
"We need to be extremely careful about undermining the longer-term objective -- a stable Pakistan, where elected politicians control their own national-security establishment, and extremism is diminishing -- for the sake of collecting scalps."
Suggestions Washington might push its drone war into Baluchistan would open a contentious new front in the clandestine war, just as Pakistan's civilian government is undergoing renewed political turmoil.
"Pakistani forces will continue their internal battle against their homegrown insurgency, but are unready to open a new front against the Afghan Taliban," said Shuja Nawaz, director of the Atlantic Council's South Asia Center.
"This reluctance will likely provoke private and public pressure for Pakistan to 'do more' or else risk U.S. drone attacks into Baluchistan and heightened strikes inside the Federally Administered Tribal Area.
"If this happens, the U.S.-Pakistan relationship may be heading for a train wreck."
In the meantime, U.S. drones, nicknamed machay (wasps) by Pashtun residents of the tribal areas because of the buzzing noise they make during an attack, continue to patrol the skies hunting for targets.
Three suspected rebels died and another five were injured yesterday when a drone fired missiles into yet another house in Datta Khel.
pgoodspeed@nationalpost.com
U.S. escalates ' drone war' in tribal region
