Predators

by Williams, Brian Glyn

  Within minutes the remote pilots’ screens back at CIA Headquarters in Langley were filled with the images of explosions as the drones’ AGM-114 Hellfire antiarmor missiles slammed into the gathered crowd. As the smoke cleared, the CIA drone operators would have doubtless seen many “squirters” (i.e., survivors fleeing the explosions) as well as numerous dead and dying people lying scattered around the detonation zone (known as “bugsplats” in CIA parlance). But the drones were not done. According to one source, the drones subsequently fired missiles at Taliban members attempting to flee the scene of the attack in sport utility vehicles (SUVs), killing several more.16

  Having decimated the funeral, the remote-control drones then flew back to their bases, located to the south, in the Pakistani province of Baluchistan, and the CIA waited for human intelligence (humint) to tell them whether they had killed Mehsud or any of his top leadership.

  It did not take long for reports to come from the agency. Even though Pakistani and foreign journalists were denied access to this remote region, word began to trickle out that between sixty and seventy people had been killed in the missile strikes. This was the second deadliest drone strike in the ongoing campaign (the first took place in 2006 in the town of Damadola).

  Then came the unfortunate news: for all the mayhem, Mehsud was not among those killed. Minutes before the strike, he had left the funeral and thus avoided the fate of several of his top commanders, who were blown up by the missiles. Mehsud had reportedly been so close to the explosion that it had damaged his car.17 Among those who were not so lucky was a notorious leader named Sangeen Khan, who was the Pakistani Taliban’s top commander in Afghanistan.

  Members of the Taliban were not the only ones killed. According to one Pakistani source half of those killed in the strike were villagers.18 Another local source claimed that of the sixty-seven people killed in the explosion eighteen had been villagers.19 For their part, the Taliban, which had cause to inflate the number of dead civilians, claimed that only five of its members had been killed; the rest of the casualties were bystanders.

  As with most of the CIA’s strikes on the Taliban, it was difficult to nail down the details of who had died in this remote zone. One eyewitness who lost a leg in the strike reported, “After the prayers ended people were asking each other to leave the area as drones were hovering. First two drones fired two missiles, it created havoc, there was smoke and dust everywhere. Injured people were crying and asking for help. … They fired the third missile after a minute, and I fell on the ground.”20

  Regardless of what portion of the victims comprised civilian bystanders, it was the second highest death toll from a drone strike to date. Surprisingly, although there had been protest marches against previous drone strikes—most notably after the aforementioned Damadola strike—on this occasion there seemed to be little outrage in Pakistan at the killing of so many people at a funeral. Many in the pro-Taliban Islamist political parties grumbled about the sacrilege of attacking a funeral, but by this time most Pakistanis were willing to countenance the unpopular CIA drone strikes if it would rid them of Mehsud.

  So the drone hunt continued. In the succeeding weeks and months the Pakistanis worked hand in glove with the CIA to track down the elusive Mehsud. The CIA launched several strikes on Mehsud’s followers in an effort to kill him, but he never seemed to be at the scene of the attack.

  Then, in August 2009 the CIA got lucky. Word came out of South Waziristan that Mehsud had married a second wife with the aim of having a male child after his first wife had given him only daughters. CIA and ISI spies determined who the woman was and found that she was the daughter of local cleric named Ikramuddin Mehsud. The trackers now had the scent of the prey. On the night of August 5, the CIA learned that Baitullah Mehsud, who was a diabetic, had traveled to his father-in-law’s house in the village of Zanghara because he was feeling ill.

  When a drone was sent to the scene, the CIA pilots flying the plane from seven thousand miles away in the United States were shocked to see images of several people gathered on the roof of the father-in-law’s house. The man in the center of the crowd was receiving a glucose drip while his bodyguards looked on. Mehsud was known to be a diabetic; the man had to be him. This was the opportunity of a lifetime for the CIA pilots. The order was given to fire Hellfire missiles. Once again the CIA screens in distant America were lit up with explosions as the precision-guided missiles slammed into the unsuspecting people on the clay house below. The ultimate combination of humint and technological intelligence (techint) had called forth a “decapitation strike.”

  Then the smoke cleared. Although the CIA pilots could not be sure, it looked as if everyone on the roof, including seven bodyguards, Mehsud’s new wife, and Baitullah Mehsud himself, was dead. Having expended its ammunition, the Predator drone turned and flew back to its base in the south while its handlers awaited news from distant Pakistan on the fate of the target.

  It did not take long for word to emerge from South Waziristan. On the following day rumors began to spread that someone important had indeed been killed in the strike—Mehsud’s wife. By that evening newspapers around the globe were publishing stories about the killing of the terrorist mastermind’s wife.21 Panicked Pakistanis feared a wave of suicide bombings as revenge for her death while Taliban leaders denied that Mehsud himself had been killed.

  Then word of a large funeral to be held in the village the next day trickled out from the Taliban-controlled territory. A woman would never merit such an honor among the conservative Pashtun tribesmen of South Waziristan. It had to be someone more important than Mehsud’s wife. A Taliban spokesman delivered the stunning news: With great sadness he announced that Mehsud had achieved “martyrdom.” Pakistan’s most wanted man was finally dead. Almost simultaneously a Pakistani military spokesman announced that he had actually seen the kill video filmed by the very drone that had fired on Mehsud. The Pakistani source claimed, “This is one hundred per cent. We have no doubt about his death. He is dead and buried.” According to this source, “He was clearly visible with his wife. And the missile hit the target as it was. His torso remained, while half of the body was blown up.”22

  There were no public outcries from Pakistanis about CIA violations of sovereignty on this occasion. On the contrary, many Pakistanis secretly celebrated. The Pakistani newspaper Dawn ran a headline celebrating the death of Mehsud that read, “Good Riddance, Killer Baitullah.”23 One blogger from the Pakistani port city of Karachi claimed, “If [his death is] true, it would be good news and shows the value of drone attacks,” and another wrote, “The mass murderer has met his fate. He was responsible for the death of thousands of innocent Pakistanis. May he burn in hell for eternity.”24

  The Americans were no less jubilant. President Barack Obama, who had stepped up the drone attacks soon after taking office, announced with grim satisfaction that the United States had “taken out” the terrorist chief. White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said, “Baitullah Mehsud is somebody who has well earned his label as a murderous thug. If he is dead, without a doubt the people of Pakistan will be safer as a result.”25 Roger Cressey, a former counterterrorism official on the National Security Council, said, “Mehsud was someone both we and Pakistan were happy to see go up in smoke.”26

  But those who thought the Pakistani Taliban had been beheaded by Baitullah’s death were to be disappointed, for the terrorist group quickly held a shura (council meeting) and chose as Baitullah Mehsud’s successor the fearsome Hakimullah Mehsud. As previously mentioned, Hakimullah Mehsud was a Taliban subcommander who had gained fame by attacking U.S. and Coalition supply convoys traveling through the Khyber Agency to Afghanistan. The new Pakistani Taliban chief lost no time in declaring his “love and affection” for America’s number-one enemy, Osama bin Laden, and promised swift revenge on the CIA for the death of his friend and predecessor, Baitullah Mehsud.27

  Hakimullah ended his message to the Americans by criticizing them for imprisoning Muslims in Abu
Ghraib, Iraq, and Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and predicted, “If America continues to attack the innocent people of the tribal areas then we are forced to attack America.” Then he added, “We will make new plans to attack them. You prepare for jihad and this is the time of jihad.”28 In essence Hakimullah was invoking the ancient Pashtun tribal code of badal, which calls for eye for an eye revenge against one’s enemies, regardless of the cost.

  Events were to show that Hakimullah’s call for vengeance against the CIA murderers of his former mentor, Baitullah Mehsud, and countless other Taliban and Pashtun tribesmen were no mere words. Hakimullah eventually kept his promise by killing a CIA station chief linked to the drone attacks and seven of her fellow officers. But the feud did not end there. Hakimullah’s commander who was in charge of the revenge attack on the CIA would later be killed by a drone. Hakimullah himself was later reported wounded in the legs and abdomen, but not killed, in a subsequent drone strike.29

  Thus the cycle of violence in the rugged mountains of the Afghan-Pakistani border perpetuated itself in a way that many previous conquering states and empires had experienced over the centuries. How many other Pashtuns had similarly declared badal on the United States as a result of the bloody drone campaign against Baitullah Mehsud no one knew. How many innocents had been killed in the numerous strikes on him and his followers before he was finally assassinated? Were the Americans making more enemies than they could kill, or were they simply using the most advanced means at their disposal to eradicate dangerous men who were committed to causing future slaughter and terrorism? No one seemed to know the answers to these important questions.

  While the debate on these issues has been driven by extremes (the arguments that on the one hand, “drones make more enemies than they kill” and, on the other, “they are an unprecedented means for killing al Qaeda and Taliban members”), this book will try to find a middle ground. It will do so by analyzing the wider issues involved in the drone attacks, such as the unique history of the Pashtun tribal areas, Pakistani relations with the Taliban and the United States, the development of the armed drones, Pakistani reactions to the drone strikes, and Taliban and al Qaeda responses. By looking at all aspects of the issue, one can construct a three-dimensional picture of this murky assassination campaign that is still not fully understood even by those carrying it out or those suffering from it.

  Before these issues can be explored the reader must first, however, make a crucial background journey into the missing history of the remote Pashtun territory where the drone strikes have been carried out, the FATA. It is only by understanding the culture and history of this autonomous land that one can understand the ebb and flow of the drone war that is taking place on and above it.

  2

  A History of the Pashtun Tribal Lands of Pakistan

  From a historical perspective, this ignorance about the enemy makes the war on terror unique. Rarely have so many resources been deployed on the basis of such a vague understanding about who the enemy is and how it functions.

  —Thomas Heggerhammer, Times (London), April 2, 2008

  Afghanistan is a war of attrition, because Pakistan provides a sanctuary for the enemy.

  —Bing West, The Wrong War

  The Pashtuns who live in the autonomous tribal zone targeted by the drones are an Aryan–East Iranian people dominated by the tribal code of Pashtunwali who are often called the Afghans or Pathans. The Afghan-Pashtuns created a state in the mid-1700s that included modern-day Afghanistan and the Pashtun tribal lands of northwestern Pakistan. When the colonial British advanced from India to the borders of their state in the 1800s, the Pashtun hill men began to raid British India. This set off a series of border skirmishes between the expansionist British and the unruly Afghan-Pashtuns that led to the British conquest of a sizable chunk of Pashtun territory, which was ultimately added to their vast Indian empire. The Pashtuns were thus divided between Afghanistan and British India (portions of the latter became Pakistan in 1947).

  THE FATA, 1947–1998

  The British then carved the Pashtun territory they had annexed into India into two zones known as the FATA and the North-West Frontier Province. The North-West Frontier Province was less hilly and easier to tame than the FATA, and it was often described as “settled.” This area subsequently became a regular province of British India and later the newly independent country of Pakistan. But the Pashtuns in the hills of the FATA were more unsettled, and they revolted against their British masters on many occasions. For this reason they were never fully included in the British state the way the provinces of Sindh, Punjab, Baluchistan, and the North-West Frontier were. A state of perpetual low-level rebellion that often turned into outright war existed in the FATA for most of its history.

  In 1947 the newly independent state of Pakistan thus inherited its western borders, defined by the FATA, from the British, and it has kept the system in place to this day. The Pakistani army never entered the FATA, and the government rarely meddled in this autonomous tribal region except to meet with their intermediaries with the tribes, the political agents. The agents ruled the tribesmen through the maliks.

  The FATA has thus remained the wildest and most undeveloped part of Pakistan. It was, and still is in many ways, a world unto itself. It has a high poverty rate, low levels of literacy, and few schools and roads, and its population is deeply conservative in religious and tribal terms. Whereas the Sindhis and Punjabis who dominate Pakistan tend to be relaxed Barelvi Sufi Muslims who are strongly influenced by Indian culture and all that it entails (from Bollywood to clothing styles), the Pashtuns of the FATA are much more conservative and have been drawn to the fundamentalist Deobandi branch of Islam.

  The FATA might have remained an obscure, Massachusetts-sized conservative backwater of 3 million people had it not been for the December 25, 1979, invasion of neighboring Afghanistan by the Soviet Union. Owing to its strategic location on the Afghan-Pakistani frontier, the FATA quickly became a springboard for cross-border Pashtun jihad against the “godless” Soviet invaders. When the Soviets invaded Afghanistan, they began to fight with Afghan-based Pashtun mujahideen (holy warrior) rebels who declared a holy war on the Russian unbelievers. Such Afghan-Pashtun mujahideen leaders as the fanatical Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and Jalaludin Haqqani used Pakistan’s FATA and neighboring North-West Frontier Province as rear-area staging grounds for carrying out cross-border strikes on the Soviet invaders. Wounded or weary mujahideen trekked over the mountains into Pakistan to regroup and replenish their supplies in the FATA or the North-West Frontier capital of Peshawar. The mujahideen rebels’ weapons caches were safe from the enemy in the FATA, and their guerrillas could evade Soviet offensives by fleeing across the border.

  Not surprisingly, the Soviets, who were losing up to two thousand men a year to the mujahideen, responded much as the Americans had in Vietnam—by trying to bomb their enemies’ cross-border sanctuaries. According to the Pakistanis, the Soviet air force entered Pakistani airspace more than two thousand times in pursuit of mujahideen, often bombing deep into sovereign Pakistani territory.1 On these bombing raids the Soviet MiG and Sukhoi fighter-bombers used unguided “dumb” bombs, which were extremely imprecise, and this led to the deaths of scores of Pakistani civilians. The Pakistanis responded aggressively to the violations of their airspace and used their new American-supplied F-16 fighter jets to shoot down eight Soviet aircraft.2 (Such robust defense of their airspace contrasts drastically with the Pakistanis’ current policy of allowing the United States to deploy its slow-moving drones against the Taliban in the same region.)

  This being the period of the Cold War, the American CIA quickly got involved in the act as well. In the FATA the mujahideen “freedom fighters” were armed by CIA operatives who gave them cash, radios, Blowpipe weapons, and Stinger antiaircraft missiles to fight their Russian adversaries. The CIA worked closely with Pakistan’s Islamist president Mohammad Zia-ul-Haq and his ISI to arm the 200,000 mujahideen so that they could “bleed” the Sov
iet occupation forces in Afghanistan.

  Although it is not true, as many have suggested, that the United States trained and equipped Arab jihad volunteers such as bin Laden, it is true that the United States trained and equipped Hekmatyar and Haqqani. This policy was to later backfire and lead to the so-called blowback effect. Today, Haqqani is the most effective Taliban leader in the eastern Afghanistan provinces of Khost, Paktia, and Paktika, while Hekmatyar is a Taliban-linked insurgent commander in northern Afghanistan. In a case of déjà vu, both of these Pashtun mujahideen-turned-pro-Taliban-insurgents continue to use the FATA as a sanctuary, but this time it is against their former sponsors in the 1980s jihad, the Americans.

  They say that war makes strange bedfellows, and this was never more true than with the Americans and President Zia-ul-Haq, a dictatorial, Islamist general who had seized power in Pakistan in 1977 from the democratically elected president of the country, Zulfikar Bhutto (the father of Benazir Bhutto). After the coup, the elder Bhutto was put on trial and executed. When the Soviets were finally driven from Afghanistan in 1989, the Americans began to see the Pakistani leader’s flaws in a clearer light.

  Differences between the two anti-Soviet allies were heightened in 1990, when the United States could not confirm that post-Zia Pakistan was not developing a nuclear weapon. The Americans were deeply concerned about the spread of nuclear weapons to this unstable country and enacted the Pressler Amendment to enforce sanctions on Pakistan for trying to develop them. This led Washington to withhold $1.2 billion worth of military equipment that the Pakistanis had already paid for. Among the most important weapons withheld by the Americans was a delivery of F-16 fighter jets.3