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From: Berhane Habtemariam (Berhane.Habtemariam@gmx.de)
Date: Sun Aug 15 2010 - 08:00:44 EDT
Secret Assault on Terrorism Widens on Two Continents
By SCOTT SHANE, MARK MAZZETTI and ROBERT F. WORTH
Published: August 15, 2010
WASHINGTON - At first, the news from
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/ye
men/index.html?inline=nyt-geo> Yemen on May 25 sounded like a modest victory
in the campaign against terrorists: an airstrike had hit a group suspected
of being operatives for
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/a/al_qaed
a/index.html?inline=nyt-org> Al Qaeda in the remote desert of Marib
Province, birthplace of the legendary queen of Sheba.
But the strike, it turned out, had also killed the province's deputy
governor, a respected local leader who Yemeni officials said had been trying
to talk Qaeda members into giving up their fight. Yemen's president,
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/s/ali_abdullah_s
aleh/index.html?inline=nyt-per> Ali Abdullah Saleh, accepted responsibility
for the death and paid blood money to the offended tribes.
The strike, though, was not the work of Mr. Saleh's decrepit Soviet-era air
force. It was a secret mission by the United States military, according to
American officials, at least the fourth such assault on Al Qaeda in the arid
mountains and deserts of Yemen since December.
The attack offered a glimpse of the Obama administration's shadow war
against Al Qaeda and its allies. In roughly a dozen countries - from the
deserts of North Africa, to the mountains of
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/pa
kistan/index.html?inline=nyt-geo> Pakistan, to former Soviet republics
crippled by ethnic and religious strife - the United States has
significantly increased military and intelligence operations, pursuing the
enemy using robotic drones and commando teams, paying contractors to spy and
training local operatives to chase terrorists.
The White House has intensified the
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/c/central
_intelligence_agency/index.html?inline=nyt-org> Central Intelligence
Agency's drone missile campaign in Pakistan, approved raids against Qaeda
operatives in Somalia and launched clandestine operations from Kenya. The
administration has worked with European allies to dismantle terrorist groups
in North Africa, efforts that include a recent French strike in Algeria. And
the Pentagon tapped a network of private contractors to gather intelligence
about things like militant hide-outs in Pakistan and the location of an
American soldier currently in
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/t/taliban
/index.html?inline=nyt-org> Taliban hands.
While the stealth war began in the Bush administration, it has expanded
under
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/o/barack_obama/i
ndex.html?inline=nyt-per> President Obama, who rose to prominence in part
for his early opposition to the invasion of Iraq. Virtually none of the
newly aggressive steps undertaken by the United States government have been
publicly acknowledged. In contrast with the troop buildup in Afghanistan,
which came after months of robust debate, for example, the American military
campaign in Yemen began without notice in December and has never been
officially confirmed.
Obama administration officials point to the benefits of bringing the fight
against Al Qaeda and other militants into the shadows. Afghanistan and Iraq,
they said, have sobered American politicians and voters about the staggering
costs of big wars that topple governments, require years of occupation and
can be a catalyst for further radicalization throughout the Muslim world.
Instead of "the hammer," in the words of
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/b/john_o_brennan
/index.html?inline=nyt-per> John O. Brennan, President Obama's top
counterterrorism adviser, America will rely on the "scalpel." In a speech in
May, Mr. Brennan, an architect of the White House strategy, used this
analogy while pledging a "multigenerational" campaign against Al Qaeda and
its extremist affiliates.
Yet such wars come with many risks: the potential for botched operations
that fuel anti-American rage; a blurring of the lines between soldiers and
spies that could put troops at risk of being denied
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/g/geneva_conve
ntions/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier> Geneva Convention protections; a
weakening of the Congressional oversight system put in place to prevent
abuses by America's secret operatives; and a reliance on authoritarian
foreign leaders and surrogates with sometimes murky loyalties.
The May strike in Yemen, for example, provoked a revenge attack on an oil
pipeline by local tribesmen and produced a propaganda bonanza for Al Qaeda
in the Arabian Peninsula. It also left President Saleh privately furious
about the death of the provincial official, Jabir al-Shabwani, and
scrambling to prevent an anti-American backlash, according to Yemeni
officials.
The administration's demands have accelerated a transformation of the C.I.A.
into a paramilitary organization as much as a spying agency, which some
critics worry could lower the threshold for future quasi-military
operations. In Pakistan's mountains, the agency had broadened its drone
campaign beyond selective strikes against Qaeda leaders and now regularly
obliterates suspected enemy compounds and logistics convoys, just as the
military would grind down an enemy force.
For its part, the Pentagon is becoming more like the C.I.A. Across the
Middle East and elsewhere, Special Operations troops under secret "Execute
Orders" have conducted spying missions that were once the preserve of
civilian intelligence agencies. With code names like Eager Pawn and Indigo
Spade, such programs typically operate with even less transparency and
Congressional oversight than traditional covert actions by the C.I.A.
And, as American counterterrorism operations spread beyond war zones into
territory hostile to the military, private contractors have taken on a
prominent role, raising concerns that the United States has outsourced some
of its most important missions to a sometimes unaccountable private army.
A Proving Ground
Yemen is a testing ground for the "scalpel" approach Mr. Brennan endorses.
Administration officials warn of the growing strength of Al Qaeda's
affiliate there, citing as evidence its attempt on Dec. 25 to blow up a
trans-Atlantic jetliner using a young Nigerian operative. Some American
officials believe that militants in Yemen could now pose an even greater
threat than Al Qaeda's leadership in Pakistan.
The officials said that they have benefited from the Yemeni government's new
resolve to fight Al Qaeda and that the American strikes - carried out with
cruise missiles and Harrier fighter jets - had been approved by Yemen's
leaders. The strikes, administration officials say, have killed dozens of
militants suspected of plotting future attacks. The Pentagon and the C.I.A.
have quietly bulked up the number of their operatives at the embassy in
Sana, the Yemeni capital, over the past year.
Michael G. Vickers, left, oversees Special Operations troops around the
world; John O. Brennan is the president's top counterterrorism adviser; Gen.
David H. Petraeus helped win over the Yemeni president.
"Where we want to get is to much more small scale, preferably locally
driven operations," said Representative Adam Smith, Democrat of Washington,
who serves on the Intelligence and Armed Services Committees.
"For the first time in our history, an entity has declared a covert war
against us," Mr. Smith said, referring to Al Qaeda. "And we are using
similar elements of American power to respond to that covert war."
Some security experts draw parallels to the cold war, when the United States
drew heavily on covert operations as it fought a series of proxy battles
with the Soviet Union.
And some of the central players of those days have returned to take on
supporting roles in the shadow war. Michael G. Vickers, who helped run the
C.I.A.'s campaign to funnel guns and money to the Afghanistan mujahedeen in
the 1980s and was featured in the book and movie "Charlie Wilson's War," is
now the top Pentagon official overseeing Special Operations troops around
the globe. Duane R. Clarridge, a profane former C.I.A. officer who ran
operations in Central America and was indicted in the Iran-contra scandal,
turned up this year helping run a Pentagon-financed private spying operation
in Pakistan.
In pursuing this strategy, the White House is benefiting from a unique
political landscape. Republican lawmakers have been unwilling to take Mr.
Obama to task for aggressively hunting terrorists, and many Democrats seem
eager to embrace any move away from the long, costly wars begun by the Bush
administration.
Still, it has astonished some old hands of the military and intelligence
establishment. Jack Devine, a former top C.I.A. clandestine officer who
helped run the covert war against the Soviet Army in Afghanistan in the
1980s, said his record showed that he was "not exactly a cream puff" when it
came to advocating secret operations.
But he warned that the safeguards introduced after Congressional
investigations into clandestine wars of the past - from C.I.A. assassination
attempts to the Iran-contra affair, in which money from secret arms dealings
with Iran was funneled to right-wing rebels in Nicaragua known as the
contras - were beginning to be weakened. "We got the covert action programs
under well-defined rules after we had made mistakes and learned from them,"
he said. "Now, we're coming up with a new model, and I'm concerned there are
not clear rules."
Cooperation and Control
The initial American strike in Yemen came on Dec. 17, hitting what was
believed to be a Qaeda training camp in Abyan Province, in the southern part
of the country. The first report from the Yemeni government said that its
air force had killed "around 34" Qaeda fighters there, and that others had
been captured elsewhere in coordinated ground operations.
The next day, Mr. Obama called President Saleh to thank him for his
cooperation and pledge continuing American support. Mr. Saleh's approval for
the strike - rushed because of intelligence reports that Qaeda suicide
bombers might be headed to Sana - was the culmination of administration
efforts to win him over, including visits by Mr. Brennan and Gen.
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/p/david_h_petrae
us/index.html?inline=nyt-per> David H. Petraeus, then the commander of
military operations in the Middle East.
The accounts of the American strikes in Yemen, which include many details
that have not previously been reported, are based on interviews with
American and Yemeni officials who requested anonymity because the military
campaign in Yemen is classified, as well as documents from Yemeni
investigators.
As word of the Dec. 17 attack filtered out, a very mixed picture emerged.
The Yemeni press quickly identified the United States as responsible for the
strike. Qaeda members seized on video of dead children and joined a protest
rally a few days later, broadcast by
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/a/al_jaze
era/index.html?inline=nyt-org> Al Jazeera, in which a speaker shouldering an
AK-47 rifle appealed to Yemeni counterterrorism troops.
"Soldiers, you should know we do not want to fight you," the Qaeda
operative, standing amid angry Yemenis, declared. "There is no problem
between you and us. The problem is between us and America and its agents.
Beware taking the side of America!"
A Navy ship offshore had fired the weapon in the attack, a cruise missile
loaded with
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/c/cluster_muni
tions/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier> cluster bombs, according to a report
by
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/a/amnesty
_international/index.html?inline=nyt-org> Amnesty International. Unlike
conventional bombs, cluster bombs disperse small munitions, some of which do
not immediately explode, increasing the likelihood of civilian causalities.
The use of cluster munitions, later documented by Amnesty, was condemned by
human rights groups.
An inquiry by the Yemeni Parliament found that the strike had killed at
least 41 members of two families living near the makeshift Qaeda camp. Three
more civilians were killed and nine were wounded four days later when they
stepped on unexploded munitions from the strike, the inquiry found.
American officials cited strained resources for decisions about some of the
Yemen strikes. With the C.I.A.'s armed drones tied up with the bombing
campaign in Pakistan, the officials said, cruise missiles were all that was
available at the time. Drones are favored by the White House for clandestine
strikes because they can linger over targets for hours or days before
unleashing Hellfire missiles, reducing the risk that women, children or
other noncombatants will fall victim.
The Yemen operation has raised a broader question: who should be running the
shadow war? White House officials are debating whether the C.I.A. should
take over the Yemen campaign as a "covert action," which would allow the
United States to carry out operations even without the approval of Yemen's
government. By law, covert action programs require presidential
authorization and formal notification to the Congressional intelligence
committees. No such requirements apply to the military's so-called Special
Access Programs, like the Yemen strikes.
Obama administration officials defend their efforts in Yemen. The strikes
have been "conducted very methodically," and claims of innocent civilians
being killed are "very much exaggerated," said a senior counterterrorism
official. He added that comparing the nascent Yemen campaign with American
drone strikes in Pakistan was unfair, since the United States has had a
decade to build an intelligence network in Pakistan that feeds the drone
program.
In Yemen, officials said, there is a dearth of solid intelligence about
Qaeda operations. "It will take time to develop and grow that capability,"
the senior official said.
On Dec. 24, another cruise missile struck in a remote valley called Rafadh,
about 400 miles southeast of the Yemeni capital and two hours from the
nearest paved road. The Yemeni authorities said the strike killed dozens of
Qaeda operatives, including the leader of the Qaeda branch in Yemen, Nasser
al-Wuhayshi, and his Saudi deputy, Said Ali al-Shihri. But officials later
acknowledged that neither man was hit, and local witnesses say the missile
killed five low-level Qaeda members.
The next known American strike, on March 14, was more successful, killing a
Qaeda operative named Jamil al-Anbari and possibly another militant. Al
Qaeda's Yemeni branch acknowledged Mr. Anbari's death. On June 19, the group
retaliated with a lethal attack on a government security compound in Aden
that left 11 people dead and said the "brigade of the martyr Jamil
al-Anbari" carried it out.
In part, the spotty record of the Yemen airstrikes may derive from another
unavoidable risk of the new shadow war: the need to depend on local proxies
who may be unreliable or corrupt, or whose agendas differ from that of the
United States.
American officials have a troubled history with Mr. Saleh, a wily political
survivor who cultivates radical clerics at election time and has a history
of making deals with jihadists. Until recently, taking on Al Qaeda had not
been a priority for his government, which has been fighting an intermittent
armed rebellion since 2004.
And for all Mr. Saleh's power - his portraits hang everywhere in the Yemeni
capital - his government is deeply unpopular in the remote provinces where
the militants have sought sanctuary. The tribes there tend to regularly
switch sides, making it difficult to depend on them for information about Al
Qaeda. "My state is anyone who fills my pocket with money," goes one old
tribal motto.
The Yemeni security services are similarly unreliable and have collaborated
with jihadists at times. The United States has trained elite
counterterrorism teams there in recent years, but the military still suffers
from corruption and poor discipline.
It is still not clear why Mr. Shabwani, the Marib deputy governor, was
killed. The day he died, he was planning to meet members of Al Qaeda's
Yemeni branch in Wadi Abeeda, a remote, lawless plain dotted with orange
groves east of Yemen's capital. The most widely accepted explanation is that
Yemeni and American officials failed to fully communicate before the attack.
Abdul Ghani al-Eryani, a Yemeni political analyst, said the civilian deaths
in the first strike and the killing of the deputy governor in May "had a
devastating impact." The mishaps, he said, "embarrassed the government and
gave ammunition to Al Qaeda and the Salafists," he said, referring to
adherents of the form of Islam embraced by militants.
American officials said President Saleh was angry about the strike in May,
but not so angry as to call for a halt to the clandestine American
operations. "At the end of the day, it's not like he said, 'No more,' " said
one Obama administration official. "He didn't kick us out of the country."
Weighing Success
Despite the airstrike campaign, the leadership of Al Qaeda in the Arabian
Peninsula survives, and there is little sign the group is much weaker.
Attacks by Qaeda militants in Yemen have picked up again, with several
deadly assaults on Yemeni army convoys in recent weeks. Al Qaeda's Yemen
branch has managed to put out its first English-language online magazine,
Inspire, complete with bomb-making instructions. Intelligence officials
believe that Samir Khan, a 24-year-old American who arrived from North
Carolina last year, played a major role in producing the slick publication.
As a test case, the strikes have raised the classic trade-off of the
post-Sept. 11 era: Do the selective hits make the United States safer by
eliminating terrorists? Or do they help the terrorist network frame its
violence as a heroic religious struggle against American aggression,
recruiting new operatives for the enemy?
Al Qaeda has worked tirelessly to exploit the strikes, and in
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/a/anwar_al_awlak
i/index.html?inline=nyt-per> Anwar al-Awlaki, the American-born cleric now
hiding in Yemen, the group has perhaps the most sophisticated ideological
opponent the United States has faced since 2001.
"If
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/b/george_w_bush/
index.html?inline=nyt-per> George W. Bush is remembered by getting America
stuck in Afghanistan and Iraq, it's looking like Obama wants to be
remembered as the president who got America stuck in Yemen," the cleric said
in a March Internet address that was almost gleeful about the American
campaign.
Most Yemenis have little sympathy for Al Qaeda and have observed the
American strikes with "passive indignation," Mr. Eryani said. But, he added,
"I think the strikes over all have been counterproductive."
Edmund J. Hull, the United States ambassador to Yemen from 2001 to 2004,
cautioned that American policy must not be limited to using force against Al
Qaeda.
"I think it's both understandable and defensible for the Obama
administration to pursue aggressive counterterrorism operations," Mr. Hull
said. But he added: "I'm concerned that counterterrorism is defined as an
intelligence and military program. To be successful in the long run, we have
to take a far broader approach that emphasizes political, social and
economic forces."
Obama administration officials say that is exactly what they are doing -
sharply increasing the foreign aid budget for Yemen and offering both money
and advice to address the country's crippling problems. They emphasized that
the core of the American effort was not the strikes but training for elite
Yemeni units, providing equipment and sharing intelligence to support Yemeni
sweeps against Al Qaeda.
Still, the historical track record of limited military efforts like the
Yemen strikes is not encouraging.
<http://www.cfr.org/bios/15139/micah_zenko.html> Micah Zenko, a fellow at
the Center for Preventive Action at the
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/c/council
_on_foreign_relations/index.html?inline=nyt-org> Council on Foreign
Relations, examines in a forthcoming book what he has labeled "discrete
military operations" from the Balkans to Pakistan since the end of the cold
war in 1991. He found that these operations seldom achieve either their
military or political objectives.
But he said that over the years, military force had proved to be a seductive
tool that tended to dominate "all the discussions and planning" and push
more subtle solutions to the side.
When terrorists threaten Americans, Mr. Zenko said, "there is tremendous
pressure from the
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/n/nationa
l_security_council/index.html?inline=nyt-org> National Security Council and
the Congressional committees to, quote, 'do something.' "
That is apparent to visitors at the American Embassy in Sana, who have
noticed that it is increasingly crowded with military personnel and
intelligence operatives. For now, the shadow warriors are taking the lead.
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/features/timestopics/series/the_shadow_war/in
dex.html> Shadow War
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/features/timestopics/series/the_shadow_war/in
dex.html> The Shadow War
Expanding Battlefield
Articles in this series will examine the secret expansion of the war against
Al Qaeda and its allies.
Series
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/features/timestopics/series/the_shadow_war/in
dex.html> Page and Related Articles >
Multimedia
<javascript:pop_me_up2('http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2010/08/15/world/1
5shadowwarmap.html?ref=world','776_600','width=776,height=600,location=no,sc
rollbars=yes,toolbars=no,resizable=yes')>
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warmap-thumbWide-v2.jpgGraphic
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5shadowwarmap.html?ref=world','776_600','width=776,height=600,location=no,sc
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<javascript:pop_me_up2('http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2010/08/15/world/1
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Counterterrorism
<javascript:pop_me_up2('http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2010/08/15/world/1
5shadowwarmap2.html?ref=world','776_600','width=776,height=600,location=no,s
crollbars=yes,toolbars=no,resizable=yes')> Geography
Related
.
<http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/25/world/25military.html?ref=world> U.S. Is
Said to Expand Secret Actions in Mideast (May 25, 2010)
.
<http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/16/world/16contractors.html?ref=world> U.S.
Is Still Using Private Spy Ring, Despite Doubts (May 16, 2010)
. <http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/09/world/09awlaki.html?ref=world>
Imam's Path From Condemning Terror to Preaching Jihad (May 9, 2010)
.
<http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/15/world/asia/15contractors.html?ref=world>
Contractors Tied to Effort to Track and Kill Militants (March 15, 2010)
. Times Topic: Al
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/a/al_qaed
a/index.html> Qaeda
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