Predators
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The drones’ presence was even more evident almost a year after Muhammad’s death, when another terrorist was killed in the region, this time a top al Qaeda agent named Haithem al Yemeni. Yemeni was next in line to replace the number-three man in al Qaeda, Abu Faraj al Libbi, who had been arrested by the Pakistanis. Upon his arrest, Libbi had been interrogated and was said to have given details of Yemeni’s movements. These were then given to the CIA, which used a drone to assassinate Yemeni while he was riding in a car driven by a local Taliban warlord named Samiullah Khan.28 Yemeni was said to have been killed near Mir Ali, North Waziristan, on or before May 13, 2005, after being under surveillance by the CIA for more than a week. CIA officers had monitored his movements for several days in the hopes that he would lead them to bin Laden or Zawahiri, but decided to kill him after fearing that they would eventually lose him.29
At the time, a Cable News Network (CNN) analyst pointed out that if the word of Yemeni’s death at the hands of a CIA drone spread, it could “create political problems for the Pakistani government, which has been quietly cooperating with U.S. efforts to round up or kill al Qaeda operatives.”30 News of the assassination would of course be a public relations disaster for the Pakistani government, whose citizens were among the most anti-American people in the world, should it become known that government officials had given the CIA carte blanche to hunt its enemies on their territory
A National Broadcasting Company (NBC) source shed some important light on the relaxed procedures behind the covert campaign: “Sources told NBC News that the CIA has all the approvals necessary within its counterterror center in Langley, Va., to fire missiles within Pakistan when an al-Qaida target is spotted. The agency does not have to check with the White House or with Pakistani authorities or the CIA director. The purpose is to expedite rapid action in the field in case the opportunity is time sensitive.”31 This little noticed news was actually very important. In effect the Pakistanis and the White House had given the CIA’s Counterterrorism Center (actually located in Tysons Corner, Virginia, not Langley) the green light to fire at will in the effort to assassinate targets in Pakistan, without seeking approval from either government.32
Years later President Musharraf admitted to giving the CIA permission to carry out surveillance with drones but denied giving the organization the right to fire missiles.33 This retroactive denial does not, however, seem plausible in light of the subsequent drone campaign carried out during his tenure as president. It is more likely that Musharraf gave the Americans full authority to hunt terrorists as part of his new relationship with them but kept this agreement hidden from his own people. The Pakistani authorities had thus come a long way since their days of supporting the Taliban. The CIA had also come a long way since September 4, 2001, when Director Tenet worried about issues related to how the U.S. government and others would react when Arab terrorists began being assassinated. Clearly the CIA was now actively hunting terrorists operating from the autonomous “Talibanistan” zone in the FATA, which was officially claimed by the Pakistani government.
Not all voices were in favor of this new cooperation in killing terrorists in Pakistan. The human rights group Amnesty International issued a statement after the killing of Haithem al Yemeni that said,
Amnesty International fears that, if the circumstances of these killings have been reported accurately, the USA has carried out an extrajudicial execution, in violation of international law. Amnesty International reminds the USA that it has condemned such unlawful actions when carried out by other states in the past. It calls upon the USA to end immediately all operations aimed at killing suspects instead of arresting them, investigate all past suspected cases of extrajudicial executions, and revoke all orders that may allow extrajudicial execution.34
Despite such calls for an end to the assassination campaign, the cooperation between Pakistan and the United States in carrying out the killings was expanded. In fact, NBC reported that the drone attack on Yemeni had actually been preceded by several strikes on sites in Pakistan described as terrorist training camps.35 This was not surprising considering the growth in terrorist camps in the FATA since the overthrow of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan in 2001. According to one source, the Taliban and al Qaeda eventually established as many as 157 terrorist training camps throughout the FATA.36 Numerous terrorist attacks, including the 2002 Bali bombings, the 2003 Istanbul bombings, and the 2005 bombings in London, could be traced to these camps. The CIA feared that future 9/11s were being plotted in the terrorist camps in the FATA and continued to monitor them by means of high-flying drones.
Word that the reconnaissance drones were armed may not, however, have gotten out yet. That would change with the next assassination: the killing of the new number three in al Qaeda, Abu Hamza al Rabia, in November 2005. Rabia had been involved in two terrorist plots to kill President Musharraf.37 Before his death, one Pakistani source stated that he had been playing hide-and-seek with the CIA.38 In fact, he had survived a drone strike on November 5, 2005, that had reportedly broken his leg and killed his wife and child.39 Then he and four bodyguards, two of them Syrian, were mysteriously killed on November 30, 2005, at 1:45 a.m. in a village located near the capital of North Waziristan, Miranshah. Rabia died in an unexplained explosion that destroyed the mud-walled compound where he was living at the time.
In response to media inquiries about the possible role of a Predator in Rabia’s death, a Pakistani intelligence official ambiguously stated that the terrorist had been killed while “working with explosives.”40 But such comments directly contradicted eyewitnesses who reported seeing white streaks flying from the sky into the house.41 One witness reported, “I heard more explosions and went out to the courtyard, and when I looked up at the sky, I saw a white drone. I saw a flash of light come from the drone followed by explosions.”42
The truth came out when a local Pashtun freelance journalist named Hayatullah Khan was hired by the U.S. television show Frontline and traveled to the scene with a camera. There he filmed local villagers holding pieces of shrapnel with the words “U.S. Guided Missile, Contact Serno, AGM-114” clearly visible on them.43 Hayatullah’s pictures were subsequently broadcast around the world and deeply embarrassed the Pakistani government, which had sought to downplay its covert working relationship with the CIA.
Afterward, Hayatullah feared that he had incurred the wrath of the Pakistani authorities and told reporters, “When I published the picture of the missile I knew the government would harm me.” Hayatullah’s premonition proved to be correct; he was subsequently kidnapped by unknown people. After his tribe launched a massive search for him that included questioning the local Taliban, Hayatullah’s body was found with five bullet holes in it; his hands were bound by government-issued handcuffs.44
The Pakistani security forces were clearly sensitive to the issue of the drone strikes—so sensitive that they were willing to resort to murder to keep secret their role in them. Hundreds of Pakistani journalists subsequently protested the killing of one of their own by the country’s security forces. The Pakistani government may have also tried to keep the lid on the news that the son and nephew of the man who had given hospitality to Rabia had also been killed in the drone strike. These two were possibly the second pair of collateral damages of the Pakistani drone campaign (the first being Abu Hamza al Rabia’s wife and child, who were killed in the earlier strike).45
For their part the Americans were thrilled with the death of the third-highest ranked al Qaeda terrorist in Pakistan. National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley said, “This is law enforcement, this is not assassination. This is going against the leadership of an organization that has declared war on the United States.”46 By this time the Pakistanis had lost more than 250 soldiers fighting against the Taliban while searching for al Qaeda terrorists and were still willing to continue to live with the lie that the terrorists’ deaths were carried out by “car bombs” or “explosive mishaps.”47 Many in the ISI and military who had previously
supported the Taliban had been purged. President Musharraf clearly saw the Taliban and al Qaeda (which had tried to assassinate him on several occasions) as a threat. While there had been cases of Pakistani frontier soldiers firing on U.S. troops in support of newly reorganized Afghan Taliban insurgents along the border, the Pakistani military and intelligence appeared to be tentatively throwing in its lot with the Americans.
This newfound cooperation would be strained following the next drone strike, which was aimed at none other than Ayman al Zawahiri. As it transpired, the Pakistanis had gained considerable insight into the al Qaeda number two’s movements following the interrogation of the arrested al Qaeda operative Abu Faraj al Libbi. According to Libbi, Zawahiri had found sanctuary among militants in the village of Azam Warsak in South Waziristan. He had in fact married a Pashtun woman from the region to cement his relationship with the local tribesmen. In mid-March 2004 the Pakistani army bombed Azam Warsak and later received word that Zawahiri had been injured in the bombing.48
Zawahiri then fled north to the tribal agency of Bajaur and found refuge in the village of Damadola, which was controlled by pro-Taliban militants led by Sufi Muhammad. But the CIA was not far behind, and on or around January 5, 2006, it fired a missile into a compound believed to be housing Zawahiri. The al Qaeda operative was not killed in the attack, but eight family members of a “militant cleric” who was said to have given him hospitality were.49
Then, just before January 13, 2006, word came that Zawahiri had been invited to a compound in Damadola where known terrorists had met before. On this occasion he was to celebrate the Muslim feast of Eid al Adha and have a “terrorism summit.”50 Libbi had told his interrogators that such meetings had happened in the locale before. There were “strong indications that was happening again,” and “all the intelligence signatures” said that Zawahiri himself would be there for the meeting.51 It also emerged that some of the men said to be in attendance would be important al Qaeda operatives who had been tracked by the ISI since they had entered Pakistan from Afghanistan.52
It was exactly the opportunity the CIA had been waiting for. The new CIA head, Porter Goss, personally gave the order to launch a barrage of drone missiles into the compound and was also said to have notified White House officials of the impending attack.53 According to one report, four drones took part in the subsequent strike, probably the largest flight of Predators involved in an attack to that date. As many as ten missiles were fired into the buildings thought to be housing Zawahiri and his comrades, according to Pakistani sources (this would indicate that as many as five Predators were actually involved in the attack since each Predator can carry only two Hellfire missiles).54 Once again CIA screens in Virginia lit up with explosions as the Predators sent back live feed from the FATA to their handlers.
Then reports that several high-ranking al Qaeda members had been killed began to come in. But even as the American government triumphantly proclaimed that it had killed several top terrorists, it became clear that something had gone horribly wrong.55 Although the Pakistanis initially claimed that the Americans had missed Zawahiri by no more than an hour or two, it turned out that the cautious al Qaeda number two had not attended the meeting in the first place. Instead he had decided at the last minute not to visit the compound and had sent four of his representatives in his stead.56 The representatives were there when the strike occurred. According to one Pakistani source, eleven “extremists,” including seven foreigners, were killed in the attack.57
And they were not the only ones. One survivor, Shah Zaman, who lost two sons and a daughter in the attack, said, “I ran out and saw planes. I ran towards a nearby mountain. When we were running we heard three more explosions and I saw my home being hit.”58 After the smoke cleared, it became apparent that between thirteen and thirty people had been killed in the Hellfire missile barrage, among them Zawahiri’s four representatives, said to be Egyptians.59 Their bodies were taken away by al Qaeda militants before they could be identified. The rest of the victims appeared to have been civilians (although ethicists were to ponder how innocent a civilian was if he or she was giving sanctuary or meeting with known terrorists). Regardless, as many as fourteen of the civilians killed in the drone strike were said to have come from the same family, and they included five children and women.
As word got out that three separate compounds with civilians in them had been destroyed in Damadola, the Pakistani government (whose agents had of course tracked the four important al Qaeda targets to the houses) gave a rather guarded statement: “According to preliminary investigations there was foreign presence in the area and that, in all probability, was targeted from across the border in Afghanistan.”60 This weak explanation both continued the myth that the drones were “invading” Pakistani airspace (when they were in all probability based in Shamsi and Jacobabad in Baluchistan Province) and pointed out that the Americans had actually been trying to target foreign terrorists, not Pakistani civilians.
The explanation did nothing to mollify average Pakistanis, who were infuriated by the summary execution of their compatriots by a foreign intelligence service that was notorious in the country. Interestingly, on this occasion the Pakistani government did not bother trying to cover up the CIA strike or deny that it had happened. The cat was now out of the bag; the CIA was actively killing suspected terrorists and even innocent bystanders on Pakistani soil.
The resulting uproar was not entirely unexpected considering the Pakistani public’s deep distrust of America. Some ten thousand people rallied in the port of Karachi, Pakistan’s largest city. There they chanted “Death to America” and “Stop bombing against innocent people.”61 Hundreds also gathered in the capital of Islamabad, as well as in Lahore, Multan, and Peshawar, the capital of the Pashtun-dominated North-West Frontier Province. Many burned U.S. flags and demanded the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan, while others torched the office of a U.S.-backed aid agency. In the FATA itself a group of approximately eight thousand tribesmen chanting “God is great” protested the strikes.62 The CIA had caused a major public relations disaster with a key strategic ally, all for the sake of killing four unknown al Qaeda operatives.
Not one to miss an opportunity, the intended target of the strike, Zawahiri, quickly released a video response to the attempt on his life. Gloating about his survival, Zawahiri addressed President Bush directly: “Butcher of Washington, you are not only defeated and a liar, but also a failure. You are a curse on your own nation and you have brought and will bring them only catastrophes and tragedies. Bush, do you know where I am? I am among the Muslim masses.”63
Zawahiri was not the only one reacting; the Pakistani government was terribly embarrassed by the incident. As Pakistani protestors demanded the resignation of President Musharraf, the Pakistani government strongly condemned the strike to the U.S. ambassador. Pakistani information minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed called the air strike “highly condemnable” and said the Pakistani government wanted “to assure the people we will not allow such incidents to reoccur.”64
The Damadola strike also appeared to have galvanized an antidrone sentiment among the antiwar movement in the United States as well. One American reverend wrote a blog post for CounterPunch titled “Remember Damadola”:
America’s moral decline is seen in the widespread mainstream acceptance of the murder of women and children and other persons by our government in our name. How little the lives of distant and different human beings seem to count reveals how much we are falling from grace. … President Bush expressed no sympathy to the families and friends of the dead Damadola villagers. No apology to their loved ones, nor to the people of Pakistan. No restitution offered. No explanation given to morally concerned American citizens about the killing of innocent human beings.65
In fact no apology was forthcoming from the U.S. government. On the contrary, one Pentagon official said, “The message to [the Pashtuns of the FATA] is, ‘You have to take a new measure now: your families are not safe if y
ou protect the terrorists.’”66 And despite all the public clamor in Pakistan and the growing antidrone movement in the United States, President Musharraf remained committed to his newfound alliance with the Americans who had by this time paid his country $10 billion in aid. (This total would ultimately rise to more than $20 billion.)
An interesting report in Time magazine from the period provides insight into the relationship between the Americans and the Pakistanis after the Damadola strike:
Although the missile strike provoked a round of protests in Pakistan’s tribal areas that forced President Pervez Musharraf to distance his government from the operation, cooperation between the U.S. and Pakistan in the hunt for bin Laden has quietly deepened. A Peshawar-based Pakistani intelligence official speaking on condition of anonymity says Washington has an understanding with Islamabad that allows the U.S. to strike within Pakistan’s border regions—providing the Americans have actionable intelligence and especially if the Pakistanis won’t or can’t take firm action. Pakistan’s caveat is that it would formally protest such strikes to deflect domestic criticism.67
To support U.S. operations, the Pakistanis joined with the CIA to create a network of local spies and informants who were actively involved in hunting for al Qaeda HVTs. One Pakistani security officer told Time magazine that the CIA had installed sophisticated surveillance equipment in several ISI offices to monitor radio and Internet communications between al Qaeda members.68
The results of this continuing collaboration remained mixed, according to a 2006 Los Angeles Times report based on interviews with CIA operatives who served alongside the ISI: “American spy agencies depend heavily on cooperation from Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency, elements of which are believed to have long-standing ties to the Taliban. Underscoring the lack of trust, a former high-ranking CIA official said that the United States typically gives the Pakistani government less than an hour’s notice before launching a Predator missile strike, largely out of fear that more time might allow ISI sympathizers to tip off targets.”69