Brian Williams - Predators

Obama appeared to be more focused on winning the war in Afghanistan than Bush was. Soon after coming to power he announced that he would send an additional thirty thousand troops to fight in what had become known as “the Forgotten War.” During his speech announcing the troop surge in Afghanistan, Obama made his intentions toward the Taliban and al Qaeda abundantly clear: “We are in Afghanistan to prevent a cancer from spreading throughout the country. But this same cancer has also taken root in the border region of Pakistan. We cannot tolerate a safe haven for terrorists whose location is known and whose intentions are clear.” 9

Obama also broadcast his intentions when he announced, “I will not hesitate to use force to take out terrorists who pose a direct threat to America…. I will ensure that the military becomes more stealthy, agile, and lethal in its ability to kill terrorists.” 10That Obama felt this way should have come as no surprise for those who followed his speeches on the campaign trail when he was running for president. In 2007 and 2008 Senator Obama made it clear to voters that should he become president, he would refocus U.S. energy from Iraq, which he called a “war of choice,” to Afghanistan, which he called a “war of necessity.” In an August 2007 speech Obama firmly declared, “I understand that President Musharraf has his own challenges. But let me make this clear. There are terrorists holed up in those mountains who murdered 3,000 Americans. They are plotting to strike again. It was a terrible mistake to fail to act when we had a chance to take out an al Qaeda leadership meeting in 2005. If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and President Musharraf won’t act, we will.” Lest there was any ambiguity about his stance, Obama continued,

We have a difficult situation in Pakistan. I believe that part of the reason we have a difficult situation is because we made a bad judgment going into Iraq in the first place when we hadn’t finished the job of hunting down bin Laden and crushing al Qaeda. So what happened was we got distracted, we diverted resources, and ultimately bin Laden escaped, set up base camps in the mountains of Pakistan in the northwest provinces there.

They are now raiding our troops in Afghanistan, destabilizing the situation. They’re stronger now than at any time since 2001. And that’s why I think it’s so important for us to reverse course because that’s the central front on terrorism. They are plotting to kill Americans right now. As Secretary Gates, the Defense secretary, said, the war against terrorism began in that region, and that’s where it will end. 11

By personally condoning the drone strikes, President Obama was simply fulfilling his campaign vow to refocus on Afghanistan and go after terrorist targets hiding out in Pakistan. Obama appeared set to rely on the Bush-era congressional resolution that authorized the president to “use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons” found to be linked to the 9/11 attacks. By year’s end more than five hundred militants and a far smaller number of civilians living in the FATA region would be killed as the aerial assassination campaign that was begun under Bush gained momentum under Obama.

FEDERALLY ADMINISTERED TRIBAL AGENCIES, 2004–2013

Space will not allow an in-depth, case-by-case analysis of each of the drone strikes under President Obama, but the trends reflected in 2008 were repeated in 2009, 2010, 2011, and 2012 with only a few exceptions (such as more attacks in North Waziristan and a tendency to go after more mid- or low-level Pakistani and Afghan Taliban targets instead of high-value foreign al Qaeda targets). Only those drone strikes that killed high-ranking al Qaeda or Taliban leaders will be analyzed here in detail. This analysis of the HVTs killed in Pakistan in 2009 sheds a fascinating light on the more notable successes of the drone campaign.

The campaign of 2009 began on January 1, when five militants were killed in a strike in South Waziristan. Among those killed in the strike were a high-ranking Kenyan al Qaeda explosives expert named Usama al Kini and his lieutenant Sheikh Ahmed Salim Swedan. Kini had trained the terrorists who carried out the bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania that killed hundreds of primarily African civilians in 1998. Considering the blood on this mass murderer’s hands, much of it Pakistani, his death was celebrated in the United States and Pakistan, as well as Africa. 12

Other militant leaders killed soon thereafter included Abdullah Hamas al Filistini, a Palestinian al Qaeda trainer; Khwaz ali Mehsud, a senior deputy to Baitullah Mehsud; Mufti Noor Wali, a suicide bomb trainer for both al Qaeda and the Taliban; Kiyafetullah Anikhel, another of Baitullah Mehsud’s commanders; and finally on August 5, 2009, the most-wanted man in Pakistan, Baitullah Mehsud himself. 13His death was quietly celebrated throughout Pakistan by those moderates who abhorred the growing influence of the extremists.

Twenty-two days later, on August 27, a drone struck another interesting terrorist, named Tahir Yuldushev. Yuldushev was the most-wanted man in his native Uzbekistan. There he was wanted for founding the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), a terrorist group that carried out a bloody bombing campaign in that country that killed numerous civilians. 14The IMU also kidnapped Americans in the region and spread terror to neighboring Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, killing scores. 15On August 27, 2009, the Pakistanis, however, announced that a U.S. drone attack on a group of Uzbeks had killed the notorious Yuldushev. (His successor, Uthman Adil, would subsequently be killed by a drone in 2012.) 16

On September 7, 2009, another big fish was taken out in South Waziristan: Mustafa al Jaziri, an Algerian who was a member of al Qaeda’s shura . The following day Maulvi Ismail Khan, a Haqqani commander, was killed in North Waziristan. Six days leader Najmuddin Jalalov, the founder of a splinter group of Uzbekistani terrorists known as the Islamic Jihad Group, was killed in a drone strike. Jalalov’s Islamic Jihad Group became well known in Germany after three of its members were arrested for planning “massive” bombings of discotheques, airports, pubs, and nightspots frequented by Americans in Germany. 17His death was a huge relief for U.S., Uzbekistani, and German authorities and helped disrupt terrorist attacks against the West.

On October 21, 2009, Abu Musa al Masri, an Egyptian explosives expert and trainer, was killed by a drone in North Waziristan. On December 8 Saleh el Somali, a leader of al Qaeda’s foreign operations, was killed while traveling in his car in North Waziristan. 18On December 17 Zuhaib al Zahib, a commander of the al Qaeda fighting force known as the Lashkar al Zil (Shadow Army), was killed in North Waziristan. During this attack, the CIA took the unusual step of using five drones to fire ten missiles at the compound where Zahib was staying to make sure he did not escape. 19Sometime after the Zahib strike, Abdullah Said al Libbi, a Libyan who was head of the Lashkar al Zil, was also killed by a drone. Finally, on December 31 an important Taliban commander who was involved in attacks on the Pakistani army and Afghanistan, Haji Omar, was killed, along with his son and a woman, when he was hit by a missile in a hujra in North Waziristan. 20

Also reported killed in 2009 in an unspecified drone strike was Saad bin Laden, Osama’s third oldest son. 21Saad was believed to have been involved in the bombing of a Tunisian synagogue that killed nineteen predominantly German and French tourists in 2002.

By year’s end more than sixteen top al Qaeda and Taliban militants and more than five hundred lower-level fighters had been killed. The majority of those who were killed in the strikes were described as “foot soldiers,” not HVTs. A U.S. official spoke of this remarkable trend, saying, “This effort has evolved because our intelligence has improved greatly over the years, and we’re able to identify not just senior terrorists, but also al-Qaeda foot soldiers who are planning attacks on our homeland and our troops in Afghanistan…. We would be remiss if we didn’t go after people who have American blood on their hands. To use a military analogy, if you’re only going after the generals, you’re likely to be run over by tanks.” 22