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Obama's Drone War: Does the Killing Pay Off?

2 years ago

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David Wood

Chief Military Correspondent

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An air strike last month by a U.S. robot plane killed Taliban chief Hakimullah Mehsud, Pakistani officials confirmed this week, in a bit of good news. A notoriously brutal extremist, Mehsud played a key role in the killing of seven CIA operatives by a suicide bomber in Afghanistan Dec. 30.

But there was bad news, too: Mehsud has been replaced by an even more dangerous and unpredictable terrorist named Maulvi Noor Jamal.

Air strikes by unmanned drones against terrorist leaders in Pakistan and elsewhere, which have intensified since President Obama took office, are a proven tactic in the war against Islamist extremists. In the past two months, according to a tally by the Long War Journal, drone attacks have killed, among others, two senior al-Qaeda leaders, a senior Taliban commander, two senior al-Qaeda operatives, and a wanted Palestinian terrorist who was allied with al-Qaeda.

But as the campaign to eliminate the leaders of terrorist groups accelerates, there are growing questions about whether the men who take their place are any better than the ones who are killed. The evidence so far suggests that the second- and third-tier terrorists who take leadership positions may, like Maulvi, be far worse.

"The drone attacks have become very effective over time, hitting an increased number of targets, more precisely with less collateral damage,'' said Haider Ali Hussein Mullick, a counterinsurgency analyst at the U.S. Joint Special Operations University.

But those stepping into vacant leadership positions, he added, "are more deadly. They do not have strong ideological links. They are dangerous. These are not guys you can talk to.''

Maulvi Noor Jamal, for instance, already has a reputation for brutality (his nom de guerre, Maulana Tufan, means "violent gale"'). A recent video shows him flogging two men and a teenager for refusing to grow beards. "He kills humans like one will kill chickens,'' a local Pakistani, requesting anonymity, told The New York Times.

Bill Roggio, managing editor of The Long War Journal, takes a dissenting view about second- and third-generation leaders being more radical . "How much more extreme can these guys get? They're already blowing up girls' schools, beheading people; I don't doubt if they had weapons of mass destruction, they'd use them. And that's the existing leadership.''

Drone attacks, first begun under President George W. Bush, have struck repeatedly at al-Qaeda and Taliban compounds and safe houses, specifically targeting individual leaders (despite an official U.S. ban on assassinations).

The attacks in Pakistan have come at a high price, eroding public support for its government (which has vigorously condemned the attacks, though it has supplied the intelligence for them) and raising anti-American anger.

But even as dozens have been killed, the terrorist threat to Americans has grown and metastasized, with two new forms of attack: the homegrown jihadist, U.S. Army Maj. Nidal Hussein, who allegedly killed 12 in a shooting spree at Fort Hood, Tex., in November, and the quick-hit attempted firebombing of a passenger jet on Christmas Day by Umar Farouq Abdulmutallab.

Both kinds of attack are far harder to intercept and disrupt than long-planned, complex operations by large terrorist organizations, intelligence officials said. And neither is the kind of operation that can be easily prevented by a drone strike.

These attacks, the resurgence of al-Qaeda, and the flare-up of its operations in Somalia, Yemen and elsewhere, suggest that the campaign to stop terrorists by killing off terrorist leaders has been less than successful.

"Killing leaders supports an illusion of progress, but not the reality,'' said John McCreary, former strategic analyst for the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Terrorism and counterinsurgency experts said leadership succession in the core al-Qaeda organization and in the dozens of smaller terrorist groups is a difficult process that takes time and attention. The organizations are often led by a charismatic leader whose death ignites an extended and sometimes violent struggle among contenders and their factions.

Those who rise to the top often do so by being more radical, more hardline, than their predecessor. They may be "under more pressure'' to prove their worth by staging spectacular or daring attacks, said McCreary.

"Each successive leader is more virulent than his predecessors,'' he said. "One might be tempted to think that perceptive people could see a lesson here.''

In his annual assessment of security threats facing the United States, Dennis Blair, director of national intelligence, said last week that drone attacks and other initiatives against al-Qaeda and related terrorist organizations "have put the organization in one of its most difficult positions'' since 2001.

"However,'' he added, "while these efforts have slowed the pace of anti-U.S. planning and hindered progress on new external operations, they have not been sufficient to stop them.''

Lest anyone miss the point, Blair went on to suggest that key al-Qaeda operatives are being replaced faster than they can be killed. "At least until Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawwahiri are dead or captured, al-Qaeda will retain its resolute intent to strike the homeland,'' he said.

"Until counterterrorism pressure on al-Qaeda's place of refuge, key lieutenants and operative cadre outpaces the group's ability to recover,'' Blair said, " al-Qaeda will retain its capability to mount an attack.''

But that's not all. Terrorist plots also are festering in places where the United States is not systematically using drones to attack terrorist leaders. Blair, for instance, acknowledged that al-Qaeda operatives -- including North Americans -- are moving from Iraq to Afghanistan, Somalia and North Africa, and are providing manpower to extremist networks in Europe.

Despite the unrelenting drone attacks on al-Qaeda's base in Pakistan, he said, "we face a persistent terrorist threat from al-Qaeda and potentially others who share its anti-Western ideology.''

But if there are heavy long-term costs of drone attacks, they do provide significant short-term gains. Not to be overlooked is the psychological impact of a weapon that can drop silently from the sky without warning on any gathering of al-Qaeda operatives.

Merely finding a succession of secret safe houses and to arrange transportation and other logistics can become a greater preoccupation than carrying out terrorist operations. And plunging a terrorist cell into a debilitating leadership struggle is certainly a plus.

"Drone strikes on militants disrupt the al Qaeda leadership and force the organization to keep its head down,'' Daniel Byman, senior terrorism analyst at the Brookings Institution, recently wrote.

"But by themselves, they are not enough.''

Filed Under: Iraq, Terror, National Security, Afghanistan Journal, Afghanistan

Tagged: al queda terrorists, AlQuedaTerrorists, drone, drone planes, DronePlanes

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