“The drones were terrifying. From the ground, it is impossible to determine who or what they are tracking as they circle overhead. The buzz of a distant propeller is a constant reminder of imminent death. Drones fire missiles that travel faster than the speed of sound. A drone’s victim never hears the missile that kills him.”

David Rohde, in the Reuters Magazine article “The Drone Wars.”

Read the rest of the article | Download Reuters Magazine [PDF]

(via reuters)

ProPublica: Did Pakistan's intelligence service help kill Americans? We may find out soon:

Star Witness in Terror Trial Could Heighten U.S.-Pakistan Tension

The life of David Coleman Headley, a confessed American terrorist and Pakistani spy, has moved from a soap opera to a crime story to an espionage thriller embroiling the elites of India, Pakistan and the United States.

Monday begins the most revealing chapter yet: The courtroom drama.

Headley, a Pakistani-American businessman and former DEA informant, will be the star witness against Tahawwur Rana of Chicago, his boyhood friend and alleged accomplice in the 2008 terror attacks on Mumbai. Opening arguments are set for Monday in a trial that has drawn international attention because Headley’s testimony could reinforce allegations that Pakistan plays a double game in the fight against terrorism.

The prosecution will depend largely on how the jury views Headley, one of the most intriguing figures to surface in a U.S. terror case. The burly, smooth-talking 50-year-old has a swashbuckling personality and a knack for juggling relationships with multiple wives, terrorist groups and law enforcement and intelligence agencies.

“Sometimes he’d tell my husband, ‘Oh, I want to be in movies,’ a movie star or something like that,” Rana’s wife, Samraz, told ProPublica and PBS FRONTLINE in her first-ever interview. “So it looks like he wants to be famous.”

Headley has gotten his wish. He pleaded guilty last year to conducting reconnaissance for the Mumbai attacks, which killed 166 people, and for a plot against Denmark. His confessions painted a devastating portrait of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate (ISI), because he says ISI officers helped the Lashkar-i-Taiba terrorist group plot the commando-style attacks on Mumbai.

(for more click above link)

1999, candidate Bush on then new top man in Pakistan General Pervez Musharraf

”..he’s just been elected, not elected, this guy took over office. It appears this guy is going to bring stability to the country and I think that’s good news for the sub-continent.”

Interviewer: “Can you name him?”

Bush: “General. I can name the general. General.”

High-res Pakistani police officials and firefighters gather beside flames which erupted from the wreckage of NATO oil tankers following an unexploded timed device blast at a terminal on the outskirts of Peshawar on Feb 26. Four NATO tankers gutted by a series of blasts on Feb. 25 caught fire again when an unexploded timed device went off, wounding two people in northwestern Pakistan, police said. More than two dozen militants had struck a terminal on the outskirts of the northwestern city of Peshawar on Feb. 25 and planted devices on 12 out of 18 parked tankers carrying fuel for NATO troops in neighbouring Afghanistan.

Pakistani police officials and firefighters gather beside flames which erupted from the wreckage of NATO oil tankers following an unexploded timed device blast at a terminal on the outskirts of Peshawar on Feb 26. Four NATO tankers gutted by a series of blasts on Feb. 25 caught fire again when an unexploded timed device went off, wounding two people in northwestern Pakistan, police said. More than two dozen militants had struck a terminal on the outskirts of the northwestern city of Peshawar on Feb. 25 and planted devices on 12 out of 18 parked tankers carrying fuel for NATO troops in neighbouring Afghanistan.

  • MSN

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Mulvi Kabir, the former Taliban governor in Afghanistan’s Nangahar Province, and a key figure in the Taliban regime was recently captured in Pakistan, two senior US officials tell Fox News. Kabir, considered to be among the top ten most wanted Taliban leaders, was apprehended in the Naw Shera district of Pakistan’s Northwest Frontier Province by Pakistani police forces.

A senior U.S. military official in Afghanistan called Kabir a “significant detention”.

”

FoxNews Exclusive: Major Taliban Operative Captured

news broken by FoxNews yet FoxNews contributor Bill Kristol could not be found for comment. : /

“Mr. Obama’s decision to raise the nuclear specter was notable because a succession of American officials have publicly stated recently that the Pakistani arsenal is secure. In private, however, they have commissioned new intelligence studies on how vulnerable Pakistani warheads and laboratories would be if insurgents made greater inroads, with one official saying recently, “It is the scenario we spend the most time thinking about.”

Between the Lines of the President’s Speech, an Expanded Campaign in Pakistan NYTimes

The Remote-Control War

newsweek:

From Isikoff and Hosenball:

At the same time that the Pakistani government is stepping up military operations against al-Qaeda and the Taliban in the border region of Waziristan, clandestine US counter-terrorism efforts inside Pakistan, particularly the use of missiles borne by US-operated drone aircraft like CIA-run Predators, to attack targets associated with Al-Qaeda and its affiliates, are expected to continue, and possibly intensify. Because these operations are considered covert and thus subject to government classification rules, US government agencies have never given a public accounting of when, where and why the missiles have been used. But as their use has grown more frequent, debate has been growing over both the effectiveness and morality of the use of the robot aircraft to engage in what some critics have described as “targeted killing” by remote control.


This is a fascinating, underreported story, and, along with Jane Mayer’s great New Yorker piece, a great read.