Predators
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The Pakistani military and intelligence communities were humiliated when they realized that bin Laden had been living close to one of their bases (no evidence has emerged to show the bin Laden worked with the Pakistanis) and that they had been unable to protect their airspace from deep incursion. Relations between the Pakistanis and the Americans once again soured, and in a special session of the Pakistani parliament, ISI chief Ahmed Shuja Pasha denounced the American raid. The Pakistanis promised to reevaluate their relationship with the Americans and subsequently closed down the drone air base at Shamsi and ordered U.S. personnel to leave it. (American personnel returned to the base soon thereafter.) Pakistan’s parliament also passed a resolution declaring that the drone strikes were a violation of sovereignty equivalent to the raid on bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad.115
But much good came out of the raid as well. The cache of information found in bin Laden’s computers enabled the CIA to use a drone to track and kill Atiyah abd al Rahman, the man who was promoted to al Qaeda’s number-two spot following bin Laden’s death.116 In fact there was a blitz of drone strikes in the FATA in the days and weeks after bin Laden’s death as the CIA exploited information found in the slain terrorist’s computers to strike at al Qaeda hideouts in the region.117
DRONES HELP HUNT DOWN GADDAFI IN LIBYA
American drones also played a major role in the 2011 air war against the Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi. In the winter and spring of that year Libyan citizens joined the so-called Arab Spring, a region-wide movement that was toppling Middle Eastern dictators, and began to openly resist Gaddafi’s rule. In response, the dictator launched his troops on the rebels and promised to hunt them down like “rats.” Alarmed by the prospect of a mass slaughter of civilians, President Obama, with the aid of the British and French, decided to wage an air campaign to assist the outgunned anti-Gaddafi rebels. U.S. and NATO aircraft began targeting Gaddafi positions to bolster the popular uprising and prevent a massacre. This was to be a unique airborne war that the Obama administration could claim did not “involve the presence of U.S. ground troops, U.S. casualties or a serious risk thereof.”118
Not surprisingly, the United States made considerable use of drones in support of the insurgents. According to Global Security’s John Pike, “The US had neither the support nor the means to invade Libya. It would’ve been both a political and military blunder. So we had robots do the work for us—and it worked, perfectly. Qaddafi’s air defenses and armor were obliterated from control rooms a world away.”119 The drones took out antiaircraft defenses, multiple rocket launchers, tanks, and truck-mounted weapons. In fact, twice as many drone strikes were carried out in the 2011 Libyan campaign (146) as in Pakistan that year.120 More than 140 Hellfire missiles were fired by U.S. drones that were based in Sicily and flown from Creech Air Force Base in Nevada and elsewhere.121
The drones’ most important strike occurred on October 20. On that day Gaddafi, who had been largely defeated and encircled by rebels in the town of Sirte, was spotted by high-flying drones. According to the Telegraph, the drones “built up a normal pattern of life picture so that when something unusual happened this morning such as a large group of vehicles gathering together, that came across as highly unusual activity and the decision was taken to follow them and prosecute an attack.” As Gaddafi broke from cover and tried to escape in an eighty vehicle convoy, a drone spotted vehicles, tracked their movements, and relayed them to nearby French fighter jets. The drone then attacked the convoy with its missiles, bringing it to a halt whereupon it was attacked by the French jets. A bloodied Gaddafi survived the attack, but as he attempted to escape from the burning convoy, he was found in a nearby drainage ditch and executed by vengeful rebels.122
SENTINEL DOWN: THE CIA LOSES A TOP-SECRET SPY DRONE OVER IRAN
In 2009 a grainy photo of a mysterious jet drone taking off from the runway at a U.S. air base in Kandahar, Afghanistan, was leaked to the press. Technology wonks described the aircraft as the “Beast of Kandahar.” Later the public learned that the top-secret stealth drone was the RQ-170 Sentinel, designed and built by Lockheed Martin’s “Skunk Works,” the company’s supersecret division that built the U2 spy plane, F-22 jet fighter, and F-117 Nighthawk. Speculation about the RQ-170’s purpose abounded. Why would the CIA deploy a radar-proof stealth drone to a region where the Taliban tribesmen had no radar or antiaircraft capabilities?
The first part of the answer came in May 2011, when the bat-wing Sentinel was used to spy on bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad. But that was not the only target of the stealth jet drone. On December 4, 2011, the Western media reported that the Iranian army’s electronic warfare unit had downed a Sentinel that had intruded deep into Iranian airspace to spy on suspected nuclear weapons development facilities. The Sentinel, which had active phased-array radar, a “next-generation radar that allows one to use radar while staying stealthy,” and full motion sensors to detect radiation, was said to be one of a fleet of drones that had been flying over Iran from a base in Shindand in western Afghanistan without the knowledge of the Afghan government.123 The Iranians claimed the plane was captured intact over the eastern Iranian city of Kashmar, some 140 miles into Iran, by severing its communications links. The Iranians also claimed that they had reconfigured the drone’s GPS coordinates to make it land in Iran, not Afghanistan. An Iranian engineer said, “The [Sentinel’s] GPS navigation is the weakest point. By putting noise [jamming] on the communications, you force the bird into autopilot. This is where the bird loses its brain.”124
Cyberwarfare experts in the West were, however, highly skeptical of the Iranians’ claims of hijacking the state-of-the-art drone. According to an article in the Christian Science Monitor,
To accomplish such a cyber coup, at least three and probably many more major technical hurdles would need to be overcome, several US cyber warfare and drone experts said. While none of these steps is impossible, each is difficult, and taken together, they represent a massive technological challenge for any enemy hacker—one that the US experts suggest is beyond Iran’s capabilities.
Hijacking and safe landing of the RQ-170 in Iran, if true, would represent a new level of cyber intrigue in the drone wars. First, Iran would need to spot the stealth drone. Second, it would need to jam the encrypted GPS signal. Third, it would have to substitute a false signal that the internal systems on the drone could understand and obey. US experts say even the first task—spotting the drone—would be very difficult for Iran.
The US used a stealth helicopter in the Osama bin Laden raid that went undetected, and US military planes have bombed all over the world undetected. So for Iran to detect a far-smaller stealth drone seems “almost like science fiction,” says John Bumgarner, chief technology officer for the US Cyber Consequences Unit, a nonprofit cyber-warfare think tank.125
For its part, the Pentagon told reporters that there was no indication that the drone was brought down by “hostile activity of any kind.”126 To allay fears, the military pointed out that the drone was programmed to automatically erase sensitive data onboard to prevent it from falling into enemy hands.
Regardless of whether the CIA lost control of the drone on its own through a command malfunction or whether it was hijacked, the capture was a triumph for an Iran that was suffering under U.S.-led sanctions. Although the data onboard might have been erased or too encrypted to access, the Iranians were able to acquire the drone’s top-secret, radar-proof “skin.” The loss of the drone was such a disaster that the United States contemplated sending in airborne troops to retrieve it or blow it up but rejected the mission as too dangerous.127 They feared that such a mission would be construed as an “act of war.”
The Iranians subsequently displayed the stealth Sentinel in triumph in front of an American flag that had skulls in place of the stars.128 A commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards proudly proclaimed that the Sentinel, which was equipped with highly advanced surveillance systems, electronic communication, and radar systems, had fallen i
nto the trap of Iran’s armed forces.129 When the U.S. government asked for the drone back, an Iranian official contemptuously said, “No one returns the symbol of aggression to the party that sought secret and vital intelligence related to the national security of a country.”130 In a further display of contempt, the Iranians offered to return the drone in the form of a 1:80-scale colorful toy replica of the drone, which began to sell in Iran in January 2012, complete with a stand featuring the words, “We will trample America under our feet.”
In addition, Iran filed a complaint with the UN against the United States for the violation of its airspace. The Iranians promised that they would “reverse engineer” (i.e., duplicate) and “mass-produce” America’s most secret drone. Although this seemed unlikely, the CIA feared Iran would share American secrets with other nations, most likely Russia and China, which were suspected to have the capacity to reverse engineer the drone. One U.S. expert bemoaned the loss of the drone by calling it “the biggest Christmas present to our enemies in probably a decade.”131
THE SALALA FRIENDLY FIRE INCIDENT AND THE 2011–2012 DRONE LULL
According to the Long War Journal, there were 117 drone strikes in Pakistan in 2010 but only sixty-four in 2011.132 This bucked the trend that had seen an increase in the number of drone strikes every year since 2005. There were four reasons for this unprecedented dip in the number of drone strikes. The first was the previously mentioned monthlong moratorium on drone strikes following the Pakistanis’ arrest of the CIA contractor Raymond Davis in April and March 2011. This moratorium was designed to mollify the Pakistanis, who were infuriated by his killing of two Pakistani robbers/ISI agents. The second was a moratorium on drone strikes following the May 1–2 JSOC raid on bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad, which similarly infuriated the Pakistanis.
The third reason received less attention. In the summer of 2011 the Obama administration had an internal debate on the usefulness of signature killing. The catalyst for this debate was the clumsy Datta Khel strike, which killed numerous civilians (discussed previously). Discussion of this collateral damage tragedy among U.S. officials ultimately led to a tightening of restrictions on signature killings of low-ranked Taliban fighters.
The story of the tightened restrictions was broken in November 2011 by the Wall Street Journal, which reported that the CIA had backed down on its “wide net” policy of killing low-ranked Taliban foot soldiers after U.S. military and diplomatic officials complained that they were damaging America’s tenuous relationship with Pakistan. Although they recognized the strikes’ overall tactical effectiveness, members of the U.S. military and State Department had asked the CIA to be more selective in their targets. According to the Wall Street Journal, “The disputes over drones became so protracted that the White House launched a review over the summer, in which Mr. Obama intervened.”133
In the end the CIA conceded to the more restrictive parameters for signature killings. One senior U.S. official described the new drone strike standards as follows: “The bar has been raised. Inside CIA, there is a recognition you need to be damn sure [the strike] is worth it.”134 In addition, the State Department won greater sway in influencing strike decisions, Pakistani leaders were to be given advance notice about future drone operations, and the CIA agreed to suspend drone strikes when Pakistani officials visited America. Soon thereafter the pace of drone strikes in Pakistan began to drop off.
The fourth reason for the decrease in drone strikes was the so-called Salala incident, on November 26, 2011, which led to an almost two month lull in attacks. The Salala incident was the lowest point in Pakistani-U.S. relations since Bush and Musharraf had forged the post-9/11 alliance. It involved a case of friendly fire on the Afghan-Pakistani border that led to the death of twenty-four Pakistani soldiers, including two officers, at the hands of American airpower.
The incident began on the night of November 25 and early morning of November 26 when a joint Afghan-U.S. patrol was fired upon from a position on the Pakistani side of the border. Believing that they were taking fire from Taliban militants, the U.S.-Afghan force called in air support from Apache Longbow attack helicopters, an AC-130 gunship, and at least one F-15. The U.S. air assets attacked a Pakistani army checkpoint on Salala Mountain in the Mohmand Agency, which was known by its code name “Volcano,” where they thought the fire originated from. This checkpoint then radioed to a nearby checkpoint known as “Boulder,” which fired antiaircraft weapons at the intruding helicopters.
The helicopters, however, returned to attack a second time as the Pakistanis frantically tried to contact U.S., Afghan, and NATO forces to call off the air assault. When communication was finally established, the attack was terminated, but not before twenty-four Pakistani soldiers at checkpoint “Volcano” had been killed and thirteen wounded. The primary fault lay in poor communication between the Pakistanis and the Afghan-U.S. force as well as a lack of information on their respective positions in an area where Taliban fighters were known to operate. Each side blamed the other.135
Regardless of who fired first, the killing of twenty-four Pakistani soldiers on Pakistani soil caused outrage across Pakistan. Having barely tolerated CIA spies, drone strikes, border raids, and political pressure to do more in the FATA for the years, not to mention the SEALs’ ground attack against bin Laden, the Pakistani military and political establishment were furious. Obama personally apologized for the incident: “For the loss of life—and for the lack of proper coordination between U.S. and Pakistani forces that contributed to those losses—we express our deepest regret. We further express sincere condolences to the Pakistani people, to the Pakistani government, and most importantly, to the families of the Pakistani soldiers who were killed or wounded.”136 But his words were not enough.
As the bodies of the slain Pakistani army “martyrs” were publicly buried, there were anti-American protests throughout the country. A Pakistani official asked, “How can anyone expect a regime in Islamabad to be giving more support to the U.S. when our soldiers are being killed in cold blood?”137
The Pakistani response to the Salala incident came a day after the attack. First, they closed down the NATO supply lines that allowed convoys to transport supplies from the port of Karachi through the Khyber Agency to troops in Afghanistan. These supply routes were not reopened until July 2012, when Secretary of State Hillary Clinton apologized for the Salala incident. Second, and most importantly for the drone campaign, the Pakistanis gave the Americans fifteen days to vacate the premises of the “secret” drone base at Shamsi in Baluchistan. America moved to respond with alacrity, and U.S. cargo planes removed equipment and personnel from the base before the December 11 Pakistani deadline.138 The Pakistanis also threatened, “Any object entering into our airspace, including U.S. drones, will be treated as hostile and be shot down.”139 At this time anti-Americanism rose to a fever pitch among Pakistani army officers who felt that the Salala incident was a purposeful action intended to punish Pakistan for not tackling the Haqqani Network in North Waziristan.
Thus did the historic drone war, which began with the night killing of Nek Muhammad on June 18, 2004, and which accelerated to more than a hundred strikes in 2010, come to a sudden and unexpected halt in November 2011. The last drone strike of the 2011 campaign was on the night of November 15–16, 2011, in South Waziristan, the very territory where the first strike on Muhammad was carried out more than seven years earlier.140 From this point forward, a Pakistani official has said, the drone strikes will most likely be limited to “high profile targets.”141 Another Pakistani official said, “There is likely to be some arrangement on drone attacks, with Pakistan calling for large reductions in their number and geographic scope, and demanding prior notification and approval of every strike.”142
The post-Salala lull gave the Taliban and al Qaeda a much-needed reprieve from years of constant aerial bombardment. On January 6, 2012, the New York Times published an article titled “Lull in US Drone Strikes Aids Militants in Pakistan,” which r
eported, “A nearly two-month lull in American drone strikes in Pakistan has helped embolden Al Qaeda and several Pakistani militant factions to regroup, increase attacks against Pakistani security forces and threaten intensified strikes against allied forces in Afghanistan, American and Pakistani officials say.” The article ended by quoting a member of the newly emboldened Haqqani Network who said of the drones, which were flying overhead but now no longer firing, “There are still drones, but there is no fear anymore.”143 A FATA-based Pakistani security official said, “The militants were quite happy with this lull and they were publicly operating in the region as they were no more worried for their lives.”144
That impunity ended on January 10, 2012, when a drone struck in Miranshah, North Waziristan, killing “at least four militants.” A local eyewitness reported of the strike, “It was an unusually big bang. Since it was extremely cold I didn’t leave the house, but could see a house on fire.”145 Reuters reported, “The latest drone strike in Miranshah appears to demonstrate that if there was any kind of moratorium on such attacks, it has now been lifted.”146
Pakistanis were stunned by the development, especially since their government had promised that the drone strikes would now be limited to HVTs. But it turned out that the hit was in fact on an HVT. The January 10 strike targeted Alsam Awan, a British-Pakistani al Qaeda operative believed to be planning attacks on the West. An American official described Awan as “a senior Al Qaeda external operations planner who was working on attacks against the West.” He added, “His death reduces Al Qaeda’s thinning bench of another operative devoted to plotting the death of innocent civilians.”147
Two days later the CIA let it be known that it was continuing the policy of going after HVTs when it launched a drone attack on an SUV and a car in the militant-controlled Datta Khel region of North Waziristan. As the dust cleared, it began to appear as if someone important had indeed been killed in the drone strike: Hakimullah Mehsud, the head of the Pakistani Taliban and the man responsible for killing the CIA drone team at Camp Chapman. But the Taliban adamantly denied the reports of the leader’s death, claiming they were a CIA ruse to reveal his location.148 In fact, Mehsud had been falsely reported to have been killed in both 2009 and 2010. It seemed that the wily Taliban leader had once again cheated death.