CIA Expands Use of Drones in Terror War

The LA Times ^ | January 29, 2006 | By Josh Meyer, Times Staff Writer

[prophetic]

I love this part:

Another apparent Predator missile strike killed a former Taliban commander, Nek Mohammed, in South Waziristan in June 2004, along with five others. A local observer said the strike was so precise that it didn't damage any of the buildings around the lawn where Mohammed was seated. At the time, the Pakistani army said Mohammed had been killed in clashes with its soldiers.

[Thebaddog]

I'm getting the vibe that tactics need tweaking if Zwahiri really blew off the party last week when he saw drones in the area.

[winston2]

I love Predators and hate terrorists!

[Echo Talon]

The CIA's failed Jan. 13 attempt to assassinate Al Qaeda second-in-command Ayman Zawahiri in Pakistan was the latest strike in the "targeted killing" program

It killed a couple terrorist... not sure I'd say it was failure.

[MARKUSPRIME]

Eat hellfires b*tches!

[ExcursionGuy84]

I don't like this: More "leaking" of CIA tactics used in the GWOT.

This will make our enemies more wary & edgy next times.

[oldenuff2no]

We need a couple dozen of thee on our southern border.

[Dog]

It killed Zawahiri also....:-)

[Dog]

The media has labeled the missile strike an utter failure......you know what that means?

Zawahiri sleeps with the fishs.....:-)

[bygolly]

I'm getting the vibe that tactics need tweaking if Zwahiri really blew off the party last week when he saw drones in the area.

I doubt he could have seen any drone. They fly too high, are too small, too quiet, and was nighttime. Maybe he was tipped off by the Paki gov't...or maybe he was scattered about the area.

[Echo Talon]

Hellfire II

[jmc1969]

It killed Zawahiri also.

---

That is the one down side of the Drones vs ground forces, they make it alot harder to tell what you killed, and they give time for others to take the bodies away.

[sure_fine]

"The CIA's failed Jan. 13 attempt to assassinate Al Qaeda"


there was nothing failed about that, not one damn thing

[Dog]

Thanks..

I can't prove Zawahiri is dead....BUT I am SURE he is dead.....as sure as I am that OBL is alive.

[Dog]

I know...

[winston2]

“Forces are going to be opposed, and they are going to provoke some kind of response, some kind of retaliation,” he said. “If you don’t have a weapon, you are going to use a stone.”

Yea - I've been mumbling about that for a while, myself.

Can you imagine the effect of predators cruising the border and during night missions - randomly - firing a few tracers. I read somewhere that the A-10's flying missions over enemy dropped their shell casings in flight and the shell casings falling on enemy home roofs was as scary as getting fired at.

[winston2]

We need a couple dozen of thee on our southern border.

Sorry I pasted the wrong quote from you on my reply.

[irish guard]

Hahaha.....dog is the relentless believer in Zawahiri being dead.....I'm gettin there, I'm gettin there. I said a week ago that we (the U.S. military and CIA...I better make myself clear on that) would know in one or two weeks whether Zawahiri was killed in the attack based on intel from the area and scuttlebutt and I stand by that. We may not find out for some time, since the government can and should use this to their advantage.

The question I still have is who was "spirited" from those graves and who did it? Have we seen anything from that area lately? There was a flurry of news during the week after the hellfire attack and everything seems to have gone silent since then.

To my knowledge, the U.S. has never released any kind of statement whatsoever on the attack and after complaining in order to pacify the anti American crowd in Pakistan, we have heard nothing from them in the last five days either. ......dog, you may just be right.

[A.A. Cunningham]

[Dog]

I know I am....:-)

It's weird but little things are taking place in that general area of the strike.

Two days after the strike...two men are killed in a landmine explosion 5 clicks from the strike in a place called Jangevi.

Less than a week after the strike 5 men were swooped down on by unknown security troops an arrested in a place called Matta.

Not long after that a relative of Faqir Mohammad(who it is thought took away the AQ bodies) was arrested along with another fella....for planting landmines.

Today I read of a Turkish AQ guy picked up in Shah Alam north of Peshawar...again in the same general area.

There is a secret hunt on in that area....that is flying under the media radar.