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India-Pakistan
Strategypage: Who can a terrorist trust?
2009-03-25
March 25, 2009: Al Qaeda has a serious intelligence problem in its Pakistani sanctuary. Someone is ratting them out. In the last seven months, U.S. UAVs have carried out 38 Hellfire missile attacks on al Qaeda (and a few Taliban) leaders. In the three years before that, there were less than a dozen such attacks. Something has changed, and it has the al Qaeda leadership increasingly worried, alarmed, paranoid and desperate to find out who is letting the Americans know where the terrorist leaders are. This Hellfire campaign is hitting al Qaeda at the very top, with at least nine (of 20) senior leaders, and dozens of middle-management types killed in the last seven months.
Tough to be a number 3. Maybe one should stick to being a number 3,000?
While al Qaeda believes local Pakistanis are responsible for leaking location information to the Americans, it's a bit more complicated than that. First of all, the U.S. has had a good informant network in the Pakistani tribal territories for the last few years. This came about in the late 1990s when, after having been away for a decade (since Russia left Afghanistan in the late 1980s), U.S. intelligence operatives returned to the Afghan border area, and began developing an informant network inside Afghanistan, using tribal connections on the Pakistani side. After September 11, 2001, this network kept growing. So did the force of Predator (and later the larger Reaper) UAVs available to run round-the-clock surveillance on al Qaeda operations. The main obstacle to using all this information was the Pakistani president (Pervez Musharraf), an army general who did not want to anger the tribesmen by letting the Americans launch a lot of Hellfire missiles from their UAVs. Musharraf insisted on personally approving each Hellfire strike, and he did not do this very often. Musharraf lost his job last August, and the U.S. told the new civilian government that it was now open season on al Qaeda. The new Pakistani government asked the Americans to be as discreet, and accurate, as possible, and then hunkered down for the public outrage over this American "attack on Pakistan." But in fact, the Hellfire attacks were killing men who were responsible for terrorist attacks that had killed hundreds of Pakistanis.

The U.S. intelligence network in Pakistan had connections everywhere. Even pro-Taliban tribesmen were willing to earn some money by informing on al Qaeda. That's because many Taliban did not like the al Qaeda people (most of the them foreigners) much at all. The Taliban has tried to maintain good, or at least civil, relations with al Qaeda. But that efforts has frayed to the point where al Qaeda big shots like Osama bin Laden spends most of his time staying hidden from U.S. UAVs, Pakistani troops and hostile Pushtun tribesmen.
Posted by:tu3031

#4  Now, if Obama just stays the heck out of the way and lets it continue, we might have a chance.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia   2009-03-25 21:33  

#3  "Schadenfreude. We should all be ashamed to feel it so strongly."

Or not.

(I vote "not.")
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut   2009-03-25 20:34  

#2  First of all, the U.S. has had a good informant network in the Pakistani tribal territories for the last few years. This came about in the late 1990s when, after having been away for a decade (since Russia left Afghanistan in the late 1980s), U.S. intelligence operatives returned to the Afghan border area, and began developing an informant network inside Afghanistan, using tribal connections on the Pakistani side.

To the person who had this particular bright idea: thank you!!!!

After September 11, 2001, this network kept growing. So did the force of Predator (and later the larger Reaper) UAVs available to run round-the-clock surveillance on al Qaeda operations.

The U.S. intelligence network in Pakistan had connections everywhere. Even pro-Taliban tribesmen were willing to earn some money by informing on al Qaeda. That's because many Taliban did not like the al Qaeda people (most of the them foreigners) much at all. The Taliban has tried to maintain good, or at least civil, relations with al Qaeda. But that efforts has frayed to the point where al Qaeda big shots like Osama bin Laden spends most of his time staying hidden from U.S. UAVs, Pakistani troops and hostile Pushtun tribesmen.

The poor man!

It's bad enough that al Qaeda is losing senior people, it's worse that they are now seen, by local tribesmen, as a way to get rich.

Schadenfreude. We should all be ashamed to feel it so strongly.
Posted by: trailing wife    2009-03-25 19:01  

#1  Who's the rat? Check the dude with the turban.
Posted by: Shavirt Forkbeard8424   2009-03-25 17:19  

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