Tag Archives: Al Qaeda

Fallout from the drone strikes

Obama administration officials are strong supporters of the drone strikes, and the number of attacks on Al Qaeda leaders and militants in Pakistan has increased dramatically over the past year and a half, as a New America Foundation study has demonstrated.

Administration officials have also claimed only a couple dozen civilians have died in the attacks, and that the strikes have been helpful in the battle against Al Qaeda and the Taliban.

Anecdotally, it has long been clear that people in Pakistan, where nearly all of the drone attacks have taken place, see things differently. The Pakistani media has been critical of the strikes. And Thursday, the Pew Research Center released a study entitled “Concern About Extremist Threat Slips in Pakistan,” that includes data on Pakistani views of drones, and the results are clear. Ninety percent of people in Pakistan who are asked about drone strikes believe that they are killing too many innocent people, regardless of what U.S. officials have been saying about the attacks (see question Q107b).

Experts have already recognized that the strikes have helped Al Qaeda leaders recruit new members and have radicalized people in Pakistan as well as individuals who are from that country and are now living abroad. The Pew study shows that many people in Pakistan believe that they are killing innocent civilians – and offers more evidence that the strikes are hurting U.S. efforts in the global war of ideas. 

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Yemen's water: a different national security threat

WASHINGTON–After a Yemen-based branch of al Qaeda claimed it was behind the foiled terrorist attack on Christmas day late last year, the country on the tip of the Arabian Peninsula has garnered national attention.
Described as a ticking time bomb for extremism, Yemen has captured public attention as al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula’s primary new breeding ground —  a chronic politically unstable state ripe for AQAP’s exploitation. More than 100 Yemenis have been incarcerated in Guantanamo since 2002 and several hundred al Qaeda affiliated militants are said to operate in the country.
Yet for many Yemenis, the pervasive al Qaeda threat is eclipsed by more impending crises, including an increasingly violent secessionist movement in the south and a civil war in the north. In addition to civil unrest, the poorest nation  in the region – and one of the poorest in the world – faces yet another catastrophe whose numbers portend a far deadlier long-term challenge.
Yemen’s population of 23 million, nearly half of whom are under the age of 15, is expected to double by 2035.
And experts claim the capital city, Sana’a, could become the world’s first capital city to run dry, raising concerns that a World Heritage City could devolve into a mere ghost town.
Yemen’s oil accounts for approximately 85% of the government’s revenue. Profit is used to subsidize expensive diesel pumps to extract water, but analysts predict that its petroleum output, already down from 460,000 barrels a day in 2002 to 300-350,000 in 2007, will fall to 0 in 2017.
“Everyone — the Yemeni people, the American government — are sitting around waiting for the crisis to vanish,” said Mohammed Albasha, press and public relations officer at the Embassy of Yemen in Washington. “They’re just talking about it and no one is giving solutions.”
Greg Johnsen, Princeton University expert on Yemen, argues that solutions have been offered – they’re just detrimental.
“Counterterrorism is the only tool the administration is availing themselves with to deal with Yemen and that is a catastrophic mistake,” said Johnsen.
Will Rogers, research assistant at the Center for a New American Security think tank, says the development community must work with locals to break the cycle and bolster the government’s legitimacy.
“You can throw money at the problem but if u don’t have a sustainable plan, you won’t see improvement,” he said.
As water becomes more scarce, the government is increasingly unable to maintain control and legitimacy over tribal governments. Pockets of ungoverned spaces present opportunities for al Qaeda to exploit economic and political challenges.
If the overarching goal is to make Yemen a more stable state, then the first and most basic task is to develop sustainable water projects. But that has become increasingly difficult.
According to a February 2009 report by Integrated Regional Information Network, eighty percent of rural water projects funded by World Bank and Yemen government programs had been seized by tribesmen near or upon completion.
“The effective implementation of programs is hampered by Yemen’s limited institutional capacity,” said Xavier Devictor, World Bank Country Program Coordinator for Egypt, Yemen, and Djibouti. “And actions are likely to require social change, which may take time to materialize.”
Under Secretary of State for Democracy and Global Affair Maria Otero recently traveled to the Middle East in a trip that was said to underscore the need to elevate America’s diplomatic efforts surrounding water.
“Yemen is perhaps the most extreme example of the problems in the region,” said Carl Schonander, primary policy person for the Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs under Otero.
But Yemen wasn’t a stop on the department’s tour.
“The trip was planned far in advanced and we didn’t make it to Yemen,” he said, “but the consciousness of the issues should no doubt be raised more.”
Many are counting on it. But as the Yemeni proverb goes, from a pound of talk, an ounce of understanding.
“The next big war in the Middle East wont be over oil, but water,” said Albasha.
“It’s the main source for life,” he said, “and will be the next big ugly battle.”

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Questions to ponder over the CIA drone strikes

WASHINGTON – Drone attacks carried out by the CIA against “high-value targets” (aka terrorists and their financial backers), primarily in South Asia, have caused many to question the legal, moral and strategic ramifications of targeting hostile individuals.

A United Nations report last week that criticized the CIA’s targeted killings warned that officials involved in coordinating these attacks might be subject to legal prosecution. That includes the people involved in approving the missions, those flying the drones and even those manning the camera and weapons systems.

The report was issued shortly after al-Qaeda’s third-in-command, Mustafa Abu al-Yazid, was confirmed dead by the terrorist organization after a Predator drone strike reportedly killed him in Pakistan on May 21.

The news of al-Yazid’s death coupled with the UN’s criticism reveals the conundrum facing the international community:

Clearly the UN does not trust the United States (or other nations that use drone strikes like Russia and Israel) to be judge, jury and executioner of those they consider to be a threat to domestic or global security. But by using these unmanned aerial vehicles, the U.S. has been able to take out terrorist leaders without putting much of its own personnel at risk (though some still carry out missions inside hostile territory).

From a moral and strategic standpoint, which intertwine in some circumstances, the use of drones brings up myriad questions. For instance, are these strikes worth the death of civilians who are accidentally targeted by drones, which can spur the recruitment of the affected population into terrorist organizations?

Reports vary widely on how many civilians have been killed by unmanned aerial vehicles. According to the UN, the number in Pakistan ranges from 20 to several hundred. Peter Singer, the author of “Wired for War: The Robotics Revolution and Conflict in the 21st Century” and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, said some Pakistani newspapers have claimed the number to be closer to 2,000.

Regardless of the exact figure, of which Singer is unsure, he said that public perception is key to the whole process, which can work to either help or hurt terrorist organizations in recruiting new personnel, depending upon the circumstances.

“There is a truth somewhere in (those numbers), but that actually is different from what the perception of the public in the two places is,” he said. “Essentially we may be operating with great care and precision, and I actually think that is a fact, but the reality 7,000 miles away is perceived as something different.”

“We’ve killed a lot of bad guys. The concern is are we getting into a cycle of ‘Whack-a-Mole,’ the carnival game where you’re knocking one guy down and another one pops up,” Singer said.

There are potential legal ramifications to the CIA drone strikes as well. According to a Washington Post opinion piece written by Gary Solis, a law professor at Georgetown University Law Center:

“It makes no difference that CIA civilians are employed by, or in the service of, the U.S. government or its armed forces. They are civilians; they wear no distinguishing uniform or sign, and if they input target data or pilot armed drones in the combat zone, they directly participate in hostilities — which means they may be lawfully targeted.”

The UN report echoed Solis’ sentiment that the strikes may be unlawful. It said that targeted killings are only legal if they aim for civilians who “directly participate in hostilities,” which does not include individuals who only provide “financial support, advocacy or non-combat aid.”

Robert Young Pelton, a filmmaker and author who travels to conflict zones all over the world, said the use of drones for targeted killings is troubling in a different sense.

“These are probably the coldest executions created by mankind,” he said. “Lawyers, spies, all sorts of people make this the most lethal, most specific, most sanitized version of political assassination that I’ve seen.”

Despite the cold nature of the targetings, Pelton said the “drone strikes are the single most effective tool against al-Qaeda.”

With all the perspectives through which to view this controversy, there is one question that stands out above the rest: Will the drone strikes help bring an end to terrorism?

Civilian casualties, legal issues and moral dilemmas are all important issues to weigh, but the ability to fight terrorists without risking the lives of American troops, and without waging another messy land war is critical.

In this sense, Peter Singer has identified the biggest challenge of all: “The danger of the technology is that it’s very seductive,” he said. “The policy challenge is figuring out when it’s worth that blowback effect. It may be worth it for the No. 3 (terrorist in al-Qaeda), it may not be worth it for the (average terrorist) you can’t identify.

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Confirmed: Two top Qaeda leaders in Iraq killed in raid

The Associated Press, Reuters and other outlets have confirmed that two top Al Qaeda leaders, Abu Omar al-Baghdadi and Abu Ayyub al-Masri, have been killed during a joint operation with U.S. and Iraqi forces. The operation was a night raid on a safe house.

Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said they were killed at a house in Thar-Thar, a rural area 50 miles west of Baghdad that is regarded as a hotbed of Qaeda activity. According to Reuters and the AP, Maliki told a news conference that “the attack was carried out by ground forces, which surrounded the house, and also through the use of missiles. U.S. forces also participated.”

According to AP, U.S. Army Gen. Raymond Odierno, commander of American forces in Iraq, said the deaths are potentially the most significant blow to the terrorist organization since the beginning of the insurgency.

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