Army chief wanted more drone suppor

[waraich66]

KARACHI: Secret internal American government cables, accessed by Dawn through WikiLeaks, provide confirmation that the US military’s drone strikes programme within Pakistan had more than just tacit acceptance of the country’s top military brass, despite public posturing to the contrary. In fact, as long ago as January 2008, the country’s military was requesting the US for greater drone back-up for its own military operations.

Previously exposed diplomatic cables have already shown that Pakistan’s civilian leaders are strongly supportive – in private – of the drone strikes on alleged militant targets in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), even as they condemn them for general consumption. But it is not just the civilian leadership that has been following a duplicitous policy on the robotic vehicles.

In a meeting on January 22, 2008 with US CENTCOM Commander Admiral William J. Fallon, Army Chief General Ashfaq Kayani requested the Americans to provide “continuous Predator coverage of the conflict area” in South Waziristan where the army was conducting operations against militants. The request is detailed in a ‘Secret’ cable sent by then US Ambassador Anne Patterson on February 11, 2008. Pakistan’s military has consistently denied any involvement in the covert programme run mainly by the CIA.

The American account of Gen Kayani’s request for “Predator coverage” does not make clear if mere air surveillance were being requested or missile-armed drones were being sought. Theoretically “Predator coverage” could simply mean air surveillance and not necessarily offensive support. However the reaction to the request suggests otherwise. According to the report of the meeting sent back to Washington by Patterson, Admiral Fallon “regretted that he did not have the assets to support this request” but offered trained US Marines (known as JTACs) to coordinate air strikes for Pakistani infantry forces on ground. General Kayani “demurred” on the offer, pointing out that having US soldiers on ground “would not be politically acceptable.”

In another meeting with US Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen over March 3-4, 2008, Kayani was asked for his help “in approving a third Restricted Operating Zone for US aircraft over the FATA.” The request – detailed in a cable sent from the US Embassy Islamabad on March 24 – clearly indicates that two ‘corridors’ for US drones had already been approved earlier.

In secret cable on October 9, 2009 (previously published by WikiLeaks), Ambassador Patterson reports that US military support to the Pakistan Army’s 11th Corps operations in South Waziristan would “be at the division-level and would include a live downlink of unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) full motion video.” In fact, in November 2008, Dawn had reported then commander of US forces in Afghanistan, General David McKiernan, telling its reporter that US and Pakistan also share video feeds from Predator drones that carry out attacks. “We have a Predator feed going down to the one border coordination centre at Torkham Gate thats looked at by the Pakistan Military, Afghan Military, and the International Security Assistance Force,” General McKiernan had said.

Sharing of video feeds does not imply operational control by Pakistan’s military, however, and even this sharing may have subsequently been suspended.

Despite the occasionally disastrously misdirected attacks which have fed into the public hue and cry over civilian casualties, there is, in private, seeming general acceptance by the military of the efficacy of drone strikes. In a cable dated February 19, 2009, Ambassador Patterson sends talking points to Washington ahead of a week-long visit to the US by COAS Kayani. Referring to drone strikes, she writes: “Kayani knows full well that the strikes have been precise (creating few civilian casualties) and targeted primarily at foreign fighters in the Waziristans.”

Another previously unpublished cable dated May 26, 2009 details President Zardari’s meeting on May 25 with an American delegation led by Senator Patrick Leahy. “Referring to a recent drone strike in the tribal area that killed 60 militants,” wrote Ambassador Patterson in her report, “Zardari reported that his military aide believed a Pakistani operation to take out this site would have resulted in the deaths of over 60 Pakistani soldiers.”

The general support for drone strikes from both the military and civilian leadership is also evidenced by the continuous demand, documented over numerous cables, from Pakistan Government officials to American interlocutors for drone technology to be placed in Pakistani hands. The issue conveyed to the Americans is not so much that of accuracy as that of managing public perceptions.

In the meeting with Senator Leahy, Zardari is directly quoted telling the US delegation to “give me the drones so my forces can take out the militants.” That way, he explains, “we cannot be criticized by the media or anyone else for actions our Army takes to protect our sovereignty.”

General Kayani also “focused on the need for surveillance assets” in the meeting with Admiral Fallon according to Patterson’s cable. “Kayani said he was not interested in acquiring Predators, but was interested in tactical Unmanned Air Vehicles (UAVs).” Predators are considered ‘theatre-level’ technology able to cover wide regions such as the whole of Afghanistan and Pakistan through remotely stationed operations rooms while ‘tactical’ drones are less wide-ranging and can be operated by forces on the ground.

After the first US drone strike outside the tribal areas, in Bannu on November 19, 2008 which killed four people including an alleged senior Al Qaeda member, Ambassador Patterson had presciently noted in another previously unpublished cable (dated November 24, 2008) the dangers of keeping the Pakistani public misinformed. “As the gap between private GOP acquiescence and public condemnation for US action grows,” she wrote back to Washington, “Pakistani leaders who feel they look increasingly weak to their constituents could begin considering stronger action against the US, even though the response to date has focused largely on ritual denunciation.”

Cables Referenced: WikiLeaks # 140777, 147015, 179645, 192895, 208526, 229065. All cables can be viewed on Dawn.com.

Source: Dawn

Bili Sher ke Khala lol

US will never transfer drone technology to Pakistan. Stealth drones will be real trouble for PA.

 

[waraich66]

CIA flew stealth drones into Pakistan to monitor bin Laden's house
The Washington Post
Washington, May 18, 2011
First Published: 20:54 IST(18/5/2011)
Last Updated: 23:28 IST(18/5/2011)
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The CIA employed sophisticated new stealth drone aircraft to fly dozens of secret missions deep into Pakistani airspace and monitor the compound where Osama bin Laden was killed, current and former US officials said. Using unmanned planes designed to evade radar detection and operate at high altitud
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es, the agency conducted clandestine flights over the compound for months before the May 2 assault in an effort to capture high-resolution video that satellites could not provide.

The aircraft allowed the CIA to glide undetected beyond the boundaries that Pakistan has long imposed on other US drones, including the Predators and Reapers that routinely carry out strikes against militants near the border with Afghanistan.

The agency turned to the new stealth aircraft "because they needed to see more about what was going on" than other surveillance platforms allowed, said a former US official familiar with the details of the operation.

"It's not like you can just park a Predator overhead - the Pakistanis would know," added the former official, who, like others interviewed, spoke on the condition of anonymity, citing the sensitivity of the program.

The monitoring effort also involved satellites, eavesdropping equipment and CIA operatives based at a safe house in Abbottabad, the city where bin Laden was found. The agency declined to comment for this article.

The CIA's repeated secret incursions into Pakistan's airspace underscore the level of distrust between the United States and a country often described as a key counterterrorism ally, and one that has received billions of dollars in US aid.

Pakistan's spy chief, Lt Gen Ahmed Shuja Pasha, last week offered to resign over the government's failures to detect or prevent a US operation that he described as a "breach of Pakistan's sovereignty."

The country's military and main intelligence service have come under harsh criticism since the revelation that bin Laden had been living in a garrison city - in the midst of the nation's military elite - possibly for years.

The new drones represent a major advance in the capabilities of remotely piloted planes, which have been the signature American weapon against terrorist groups since the attacks of Sept 11, 2001.

In 2009, the Air Force acknowledged the existence of a stealth drone, a Lockheed Martin model known as the RQ-170 Sentinel, two years after it was spotted at an airfield in Kandahar, Afghanistan. The aircraft bears the distinct, bat-winged shape of larger stealth warplanes. The operational use of the drones has never been described by official sources.

The extensive aerial surveillance after the compound was identified in August helps explain why the CIA went to Congress late last year, seeking permission to transfer tens of millions of dollars within agency budgets to fund intelligence-gathering efforts focused on the complex.

The stealth drones were used on the night of the raid, providing imagery that President Barack Obama and members of his national security team appear in photographs to have been watching as US Navy Seals descended on the compound shortly after 1 am in Pakistan. The drones are also equipped to eavesdrop on electronic transmissions, enabling US officials to monitor the Pakistani response.

The use of one of the aircraft on the night of the raid was reported by the National Journal's Marc Ambinder, who said in a tweet May 2 that an "RQ-170 drone [was] overhead."

The CIA never obtained a photograph of bin Laden at the compound or other direct confirmation of his presence before the assault, but the agency concluded after months of watching the complex that the figure frequently seen pacing back and forth was probably the al Qaeda chief.

The operation in Abbottabad involved another US aircraft with stealth features, a Black Hawk helicopter equipped with special cladding to dampen noise and evade detection during the 90-minute flight from a base in Afghanistan. The helicopter was intentionally destroyed by US forces - leaving only a tail section intact - after a crash landing at the outset of the raid.

The assault and the months of surveillance leading up to it involved venturing into some of Pakistan's most sensitive terrain. Because of the compound's location - near military and nuclear facilities - it was surrounded by Pakistani radar and other systems that could have detected encroachment by Predators or other non-stealth surveillance planes, according to US officials.

"It's a difficult challenge trying to secure information about any area or object of interest that is in a location where access is denied," said retired Air Force Lt Gen David Deptula, who served as head of intelligence and surveillance for that service.

The challenge is multiplied, he said, when the surveillance needs to be continuous, which "makes non-stealthy slow-speed aircraft easier to detect."

Satellites can typically provide snapshots of fixed locations every 90 minutes. "Geosynchronous" satellites can keep pace with the Earth's rotation and train their lenses on a fixed site, but they orbit at 22,500 miles up. By contrast, drones fly at altitudes between 15,000 and 50,000 feet.

In a fact sheet released by the Air Force, the RQ-170 is described as a "low observable unmanned aircraft system," meaning that it was designed to hide the signatures that make ordinary aircraft detectable by radar and other means. The sheet provides no other technical details.

Stealth aircraft typically use a range of radar-defeating technologies. Their undersides are covered with materials designed to absorb sound waves rather than bouncing them back at sensors on the ground. Their engines are shielded and their exhaust diverted upward to avoid heat trails visible to infrared sensors.

The Air Force has not explained why the RQ-170 was deployed to Afghanistan, where US forces are battling insurgents with no air defenses. Air Force officials declined to comment for this story.

Over the past two years, the US military has provided many of its Afghanistan-based Predators and Reapers to the CIA for operations in Pakistan's tribal region, where insurgent groups are based.

The stealth drones followed a similar path across the Pakistan border, officials said, but then diverged and continued toward the compound in Abbottabad.

US officials said the drones wouldn't have needed to be directly over the target to capture high-resolution video, because they are equipped with cameras that can gaze at steep angles in all directions.

"It's all geometry and slant ranges," said a former senior defense intelligence official.

Still, the missions were regarded as particularly risky because, if detected, they might have called Pakistani attention to US interest in the bin Laden compound.

"Bin Laden was in the heart of Pakistan and very near several of the nuclear weapons production sites," including two prominent complexes southeast of Islamabad, said David Albright, a nuclear weapons proliferation expert at the Institute for Science and International Security.

To protect such sites, Pakistan's military has invested heavily in sophisticated radar and other aircraft-detection systems. "They have traditionally worried most about penetration from India, but also the United States," Albright said.

Largely because of those concerns, Pakistan has placed strict limits on the number and range of CIA-operated Predators patrolling the country's tribal areas.US officials refer to the restricted zones as "flight boxes" that encompass North and South Waziristan.

I think Pakistani Engineers working in USA can help Pakistan to develop drones with in few years but GOP or PA should start funding these project under AQKhan team in KRL and AWC

 

[LEGENDARY WARRIOR]

Why have the Pakistan army and government not owned the drone - there have been failures resulting in civilian deaths but the drone have also been terribly successful -- So why bad mouth it in public and praise it it in private? I really don't understand it

I want you to go through this link to know that how much successful Drone Attacks have been: http://www.defence.pk/forums/pakistans-war/109330-drone-attacks-statistics.html

 

[mehru]

Probably the public just dont want to know it and love to see the drones stopped no matter who is getting killed.

You see that after every drone attack, we get no details that who is killed and who is not. That's why people get suspicious. If ISPR could give a statement or even explain briefly after every month that how many militants are indeed killed then public opposition will reduce over time. Unfortunately noone really bothers to check and PA doesn't bother to explain and as a result, our media starts painting it as civilian killings.

 

[waraich66]

You see that after every drone attack, we get no details that who is killed and who is not. That's why people get suspicious. If ISPR could give a statement or even explain briefly after every month that how many militants are indeed killed then public opposition will reduce over time. Unfortunately noone really bothers to check and PA doesn't bother to explain and as a result, our media starts painting it as civilian killings.

US is using steath drone which PA cant even detect , how can they shoot them down. Wake up please!!!!

 

[Abu Basit]

You see that after every drone attack, we get no details that who is killed and who is not. That's why people get suspicious. If ISPR could give a statement or even explain briefly after every month that how many militants are indeed killed then public opposition will reduce over time. Unfortunately noone really bothers to check and PA doesn't bother to explain and as a result, our media starts painting it as civilian killings.

Pak armed forces have lost the trust of the Pakistani public, there americanized explanations will not make any difference.

 

[pakdefender]

I can add here that an officer I spoke to who was deployed in SWA said that what they have seen is that most of those knocked out in drone strikes are in fact militants. If drone attacks are co-ordinated to knock out Pakistan's enemies then there is nothing to complain. It’s very unfortunate but FATA is infested with enemies of Pakistan, this is not to say that everyone one in FATA is an enemy of Pakistan but there is enemy presence there.
And these enemies have not just sprung up in the last 10 years or so they have been there before also we just turned a blind eye to them.
As soon as the first convoys of Pakistan Army started arriving into SWA , they were met with hostility from the locals simply because supposedly FATA is their 'elaqa' and the army did a great crime just by venturing into territory that is supposedly part of Pakistan. Similar issues are there in Karachi where MQM has no-go areas under ‘sector commanders’ who think that Karachi is their fiefdom.
The militants in SWA forced the hand of Army to conduct an operation there since these rats were openly conducting attacks against Pakistan from that place.
The army has no love for the militants in NWA , neither do the militants have any love for the army but post SWA operation one thing got established that if these rats will come into Pakistan and conduct attacks the army will move in to take them out.
It’s with this status quo that things are trudging along , the American accuse us of giving shelter to militants in NWA , there is no truth in this we have lost men to these animals and from time to time the militants in NWA have inflicted casualties on our own troops. The military cannot undertake more operations for now since its stretched too thin from the north to the south to the west and the east of country.
FATA is a mess, it’s infested with the enemies of Pakistan and if the drone attacks are more co-ordinated with more Pakistan over sight and more control then there will be lesser public outcry.
Also there is need to have national level discussion about the status FATA has within the Pakistani federation.
For now we are engaged in the current conflict but this place has been used by Pakistan's enemies in the past also and if this 'lar or bar' business continues then in the future also this place will be used against Pakistan
After the American someone else will turn up, one afghan groups will support the new coming power against the other afghan group , people from FATA will again be involved in one way or the other in what goes on in Afghanistan.
These are just cold hard facts
It’s annoying to see people playing up this 'innocent civilians' nonsense all the time and posting pictures of a girl child with a blown up leg. if I am father and I have child then my actions sould not bring my child into harm’s way , if I consider myself to be some kind of super duper warrior who keeps gun in his house and fires and convoys and takes part in killings then I have put that that sweet child of mine in harm's way and some day if those whom I have killed will retaliate against me then I have put my child in harm’s way and have not been a good father. Also Do you people have the courage to talk about what’s the fate of the girls in these areas ?
Stop this buffoonery, in the first place you holes have put Pakistan in this compromised position that we find ourselves in.
If there was well established Army presence inside FATA , there were defenses that had been built over the years and the free flow of every tom dick and harry between Pakistan and Afghanistan was not the norm then this situation would never have arisen
But there are holes in FATA itself that see FATA as their fiefdom YET have this sense of entitlement that they should get full protection from the state.
The Americans have also kept this border open to use this as leverage against us they have their own agenda against for Pakistan.
This open border is the source of the troubles and the Army is not childish that they don’t know the issues we are faced with and they are fighting it out for the future of the country.

 

[LEGENDARY WARRIOR]

US is using steath drone which PA cant even detect , how can they shoot them down. Wake up please!!!!

EYES!!

 

[muse]

This post is for our members who are persuaded that Pakistan is a apostate state and that those who are fighting the Pakistani state and engaging in acts such as beheading Pakistani soldiers -- How do you wish for those Pakistanis who see the Pakistani state and the Pakistani Fauj as the sole and exclusive wielder of the power of coercion in society, how do you justify the position you have taken ? I think it would be very helpful if you could explain your position --

 

[S.M.R]

ISPR Press Release:



A spokesman of ISPR has contradicted a news item published in section of press on 20 May 2011 captioned “Army Chief wanted more drone support in year 2008”. The Spokesman said that in the past, there has only been sharing of technical intelligence in some areas. No armed Drone attack support has ever been asked for our operations which have been conducted using own resources. He further clarified, that during Swat-Malakand Operation Rah-e-Rast in 2008-09, and South Waziristan Agency operation Rah-e-Nijat in 2009-10, not even outside technical support was asked for. These operations were jointly conducted by Pakistan Army and Pakistan Air Force, the Spokesman concluded.
:: ISPR :: Inter Services Public Relations - PAKISTAN

 

[iPhone]

Why have the Pakistan army and government not owned the drone - there have been failures resulting in civilian deaths but the drone have also been terribly successful -- So why bad mouth it in public and praise it it in private? I really don't understand it

what's so hard to not understand. Drones are extremely successful. Many members of security establishment and retired army officials have come on to tv to admit it and also termed it a "necessary evil." Without them the army would have to physically go into those remote areas and fight off the militants and loose more soldiers.

But of all their success they come at a price of civilian collateral here and there but largely terrorists. Now if top army brass and civilian admin. comes out in public and fully owns up the drone attacks, that makes them directly responsible for whatever civilian deaths, little or large, as a result of drone strikes, and public anger will be directly against them.

The fault lies with the civilian gov't for not being able to convince the public that drones are targeting the terrorists and are in interest of Pakistan. In their defense though, it's not an easy thing to tell the public esp when there is civilian deaths included, however small. So drones happen with army's and civilians approval, they deny it in public due to civilian collateral but behind the scene they fully endorse it.

 

[iPhone]

You see that after every drone attack, we get no details that who is killed and who is not. That's why people get suspicious. If ISPR could give a statement or even explain briefly after every month that how many militants are indeed killed then public opposition will reduce over time. Unfortunately noone really bothers to check and PA doesn't bother to explain and as a result, our media starts painting it as civilian killings.

I dont' think people are that naive that they take ever word from media as is. People know, for the most part, those getting killed are largely terrorists. Even media nowadays reports as drone missile hitting a compound and a vehicle parked outside of it, people aren't stupid that they don't know it's not civilians who's living there.
As for ISPR issuing details about deaths, then that would just show that they endorse the drone attack, which is not the current gov't policy.

 

[Last Hope]

http://www.defence.pk/forums/general-defence/109468-ispr-denies-army-chief-asked-us-drone-help.html

 

[Musafar]

Kiyani you are one huge lying b@stard

 

[alphamale]

it is well known fact that pak army & govt is in support of drone strikes, which is somewhat a necessity to kill enemies of pakistan but general ppl of pakistan think that it is a war against pak by U.S. they think that stopping drone strikes or ouster of U.S from Afghanistan will end pak worries which unfortunately is not the case.