CIA Resumes Drone Attacks
The New York Times reports:
C.I.A. drones fired two missiles at militants in Pakistan’s tribal areas on Wednesday, two days after Pakistan’s spy chief threatened to curtail the drone strikes and demanded more information about the Central Intelligence Agency’s operations there.
The strikes drew a sharp rebuke from a Pakistani government that is increasingly public in its criticism of the C.I.A.’s covert role in its country.
“Pakistan strongly condemns the drone attack, ” according to a statement from the Foreign Ministry in Islamabad, which said it had lodged “a strong protest” with the United States ambassador there, Cameron P. Munter. “We have repeatedly said that such attacks are counterproductive and only contribute to strengthen the hands of the terrorists.”
On Monday, the chief of Pakistan’s main spy agency, Lt. Gen. Ahmed Shuja Pasha, met with the C.I.A. director, Leon E. Panetta, and Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to try to resolve tensions between the two counterterrorism allies, most recently over the arrest in Pakistan of Raymond A. Davis, a C.I.A. security officer who killed two Pakistani men in January during what he said was a robbery attempt.
After the meeting, American and Pakistani officials said that Pakistan’s request for advance notice of C.I.A. missile strikes, for fewer strikes over all, and for a fuller accounting of C.I.A. officers and contractors working in Pakistan “is being talked about.” The American official added: “The bottom line is that joint cooperation is essential to the security of the two nations. The stakes are too high.”
But the timing of the strikes on Wednesday served only to infuriate Pakistani officials and raised the question of whether Pakistan would retaliate by shutting down American supply lines from Pakistan into Afghanistan, which it had done in previous disputes.
The drone attack was widely interpreted by Pakistan’s main spy agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence directorate, as a deliberate effort by Washington to embarrass the country. “If the message was that business will continue as usual, it was a crude way of sending it,” a senior Pakistani intelligence official said.
A C.I.A. spokesman declined to comment. But an American official familiar with the operations defended the timing and targets, which came after a 27-day gap since the last strike on March 17, the day after Mr. Davis was released from Pakistani custody.
“These operations are consistent with the U.S.-Pakistan agreements that have been in place for some time,” said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the political delicacy of the drone program. “This was about protecting Americans in the region. This is not about sending a signal to Pakistan.”
The targets of the attack were militants commanded by Maulvi Nazir, a Taliban leader from South Waziristan who is closely allied to the Haqqani network, the main Afghan Taliban group supported by the Pakistani military. American and Pakistani intelligence officials say Mr. Nazir is known to harbor Arabs affiliated with Al Qaeda. The Haqqani network and fighters associated with it are also responsible for many of the attacks against American and Afghan troops in eastern Afghanistan.
The drones struck a double-cabin pickup truck and a motorcycle as they returned from Afghanistan into Pakistan, a Pakistani military official said. Seven fighters were killed and six others were wounded in the attack just south of the village of Angor Adda on the border between the two countries.
“It may have been for a very good reason and a quality target, but the politics of it look a little insensitive,” said Bruce Riedel, a former C.I.A. officer and the author of “Deadly Embrace: Pakistan, America, and the Future of Global Jihad.”
