Washington: A US newspaper on Monday has claimed that the Obama administration is making contingency plans to use air bases in Central Asia to conduct drone missile attacks in northwest Pakistan in case the White HouseĀ is forced to withdraw all U.S. forces from Afghanistan at the end of this year, according to U.S. officials.
According to LA Times, the ObamaĀ administration But even if alternative bases are secured, the officials said, the CIA’s capability to gather sufficient intelligence to find Al-QaedaĀ operatives and quickly launch drone missiles at specific targets in Pakistan’s mountainous tribal region will be greatly diminished if the spy agency loses its drone bases in Afghanistan.
The CIA’s targeted killing program thus may prove a casualty of the bitter standoff with Afghan President Hamid KarzaiĀ over whether any U.S. troops can remain in Afghanistan after 2014, as the White House has sought. Karzai has refused to sign a bilateral security agreement to permit a long-term American deployment, and some White House aides are arguing for a complete pullout.
According to current and former officers, CIA analysts operating from fortified outposts near the Pakistani border evaluate electronic intelligence, while case officers meet sources who help them identify targets. They pay people to place GPS trackers on cars or buildings to help guide the drone-launched missiles.
“There is an enormous amount of human intelligence collected that supports the strikes, and those bases are a key part of it,” one official said.
The CIA cannot fly drones from its Afghan drone bases without US militaryĀ protection, according to several American officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because the program is classified. If the bases are evacuated, the CIA fleet of armed Predator and Reaper drones could be moved to airfields north of Afghanistan, U.S. officials say, without naming the countries.
The CIA and the military used an air base in Uzbekistan to conduct drone flights until the U.S. was evicted in 2005, said Brian Glyn Williams, a University of Massachusetts professor and author of the book “Predators: The CIA’s Drone War on Al Qaeda.”
The military also has used a base in Kyrgyzstan to conduct air operations, including moving troops and supplies into Afghanistan. The PentagonĀ said last fall that it would shift those operations to Romania this summer.
Drone strikes in Pakistan have grown less frequent ā 28 last year, down from 117 in 2010 ā and more precise. The London-based Bureau of Investigative Journalism, which has compiled a database of known drone strikes, found four noncombatants killed in 2013.
But the ability to act quickly, without harming civilians, would suffer if the CIA was forced to leave the area, officials say.
“People think of drones as if they fly to a place, shoot and go home,” said a former U.S. official familiar with counter-terrorism operations. “But there is a large amount of coordination and intelligence gathering that takes place, and it takes a lot of time and patience.”
Another challenge for counter-terrorism planners is President Obama’s stated intention to gradually shift responsibility for drone attacks from the CIA to the military. The Pentagon’s Joint Special Operations Command conducts drone strikes in Yemen and Somalia under a legal standard different from the CIA’s in Pakistan.
Outside a war zone, the military normally requires an invitation from the host country. The CIA drone campaign is covert. Pakistan consents through back channels, while formally protesting the strikes in diplomatic forums and at the United Nations. That arrangement could pose a legal problem if the U.S. military takes over drone strikes, officials say.
In any case, CongressĀ has balked at handing CIA drone strikes to the military. Key lawmakers favor keeping the CIA program active, especially for Pakistan.
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