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| 11/23 |
| 2009/2/13-16 [Politics/Foreign/Asia/India] UID:52568 Activity:nil |
2/13 Feinstein can't keep her mouth shut. Thanks Feinstein!
http://csua.org/u/nif
\_ Neither can the WashPo: http://csua.org/u/nik |
| 11/23 |
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| csua.org/u/nif -> www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-090213-pakistan-us,0,1099409.story At a hearing, Feinstein expressed surprise at Pakistani opposition to the ongoing campaign of Predator-launched CIA missile strikes against Al Qaeda targets along Pakistan's northwest border. "As I understand it, these are flown out of a Pakistani base," she said of the planes. story The basing of the pilotless aircraft in Pakistan suggests a much deeper relationship with the United States on counterterrorism matters than has been publicly acknowledged. Such an arrangement would be at odds with protests lodged by officials in Islamabad and could inflame anti-American sentiment in the country. The CIA declined to comment, but former US intelligence officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the information, confirmed that Feinstein's account was accurate. Phil LaVelle, a spokesman for Feinstein, said her comment was based solely on previous news reports that Predators were operated from bases near Islamabad. Feinstein's remarks being characterized as anything other than a reference" to a article that appeared last March in the Washington Post, LaVelle said. Feinstein did not refer to newspaper accounts during the hearing. US military installations in Afghanistan, and remotely piloted from locations in the United States. Experts said the disclosure could create political problems for the fledgling government in Islamabad. Unfortunately it also has the potential to threaten Pakistani-American relations." Feinstein's disclosure came during testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee by US Director of National Intelligence Dennis C Blair on the nation's security threats. Blair did not respond directly to Feinstein's remark, except to say that Pakistan is "sorting out" its cooperation with the United States. Pakistani officials have long denied that they ever granted the United States permission to fly the Predator planes over Pakistani territory, let alone to operate the aircraft from within the country. The new civilian leadership has gone to significant lengths to distance itself from the Predator strikes, which are extremely unpopular in Pakistan, in part because they are widely reported to kill civilians as well as militants. The Pakistani government regularly lodges diplomatic protests against the strikes as a violation of its sovereignty, and officials said the subject was raised with Richard C Holbrooke, a newly appointed US envoy to the region, who completed his first visit to the country on Thursday. Pervez Musharraf's policy giving the United States tacit permission to carry out the strikes. The CIA has been working to step up its presence in Pakistan in recent years. The CIA has deployed as many as 200 people to Pakistan, one of its largest overseas operations outside of Iraq, current and former agency officials have estimated. That contingent works alongside other US operatives who specialize in electronic communications and spy satellites. The use of Predator planes armed with Hellfire anti-tank missiles has emerged as perhaps the important US tool in its ongoing efforts to attack Al Qaeda in its sanctuary in Pakistan's tribal belt. New Year's Day strike killed two senior Al Qaeda operatives who were suspected of involvement in the bombing of Islamabad's Marriott They were among at least eight senior Al Qaeda figures reportedly killed in Predator strikes over the past seven months as part of a stepped-up missile campaign that US intelligence officials have characterized as major success against Al Qaeda. In his prepared testimony Thursday, Blair said that Al Qaeda has "lost significant parts of its command structure since 2008 in a succession of blows as damaging to the group as any since the fall of the Taliban in late 2001." Los Angeles Times staff writer Laura King contributed from Istanbul. |
| csua.org/u/nik -> www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2008/03/27/ST2008032700935.html CLOSE Comments that include profanity or personal attacks or other inappropriate comments or material will be removed from the site. Additionally, entries that are unsigned or contain "signatures" by someone other than the actual author will be removed. Finally, we will take steps to block users who violate any of our posting standards, terms of use or privacy policies or any other policies governing this site. Pakistan's tribal areas, partly because of anxieties that Pakistan's new leaders will insist on scaling back military operations in that country, according to US officials. Pervez Musharraf, who has generally supported the US strikes, will almost certainly have reduced powers in the months ahead, and so it wants to inflict as much damage as it can to al-Qaeda's network now, the officials said. Over the past two months, US-controlled Predator aircraft are known to have struck at least three sites used by al-Qaeda operatives. Ashfaq Kiyani that allows US strikes on foreign fighters operating in Pakistan, but not against the Pakistani Taliban, the officials said. About 45 Arab, Afghan and other foreign fighters have been killed in the attacks, all near the Afghan border, US and Pakistani officials said. Osama bin Laden and his lieutenants, by forcing them to move in ways that US intelligence analysts can detect. Local sources are providing better information to guide the strikes, the officials said. A senior US official called it a "shake the tree" strategy. Some military officers have privately cautioned that airstrikes alone -- without more US special forces soldiers on the ground in the region -- are unlikely to net the top al-Qaeda leaders. The campaign is not designed to capture bin Laden before Bush leaves office, administration officials said. "It's not a blitz to close this chapter," said a senior official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of ongoing operations. But nothing can be done to put al-Qaeda away in the next nine or 10 months. In the long haul, it's an issue that extends beyond this administration." Islamabad and Jacobabad in Pakistan -- could be curtailed. "We have always said that as for strikes, that is for Pakistani forces to do and for the Pakistani government to decide. US Deputy Secretary of State John D Negroponte and Assistant Secretary of State Richard A Boucher heard the message directly yesterday from tribal elders in the village of Landi Kotal in the Khyber area. system should be made effective to eliminate the causes of militancy and other problems from the tribal areas," said Malik Darya Khan, an elder. "We also told them that we have some disgruntled brothers" -- an indirect reference to local Taliban and militants -- who should be pulled into the mainstream through negotiations and dialogue, he said. "The tribal turmoil can be resolved only through negotiations, not with military operations," Khan added. But he and others have said little specifically about how the new government should cope with foreign fighters, causing the Bush administration to engage in heavy lobbying on that issue. Recent Known Predator Strikes Graphic | Precision attacks against small clusters of Islamic militants were believed to have been carried out by CIA-operated MQ-1B drones, the pilotless, camera-equipped aircraft armed with 100-pound Hellfire missiles. |