New Study Suggests Drone Strikes Don’t Kill as Many Pakistani Civilians as Claimed

It’s the most controversial counterterrorism program there is. The CIA’s remotely piloted aircraft, operating with the tacit consent of the Pakistani government, fire missiles at suspected militants in the Pakistani tribal areas where U.S. ground troops are prohibited from operating and where the Pakistani military is often hesitant to tread. More…

Brennan: U.S. Faces a ‘New Phase’ of Terrorism

“We will destroy al-Qaeda.”

That’s how John Brennan capped his presentation Wednesday morning on counterterrorism’s role in the forthcoming National Security Strategy, and the often intense White House senior counterterrorism adviser smiled a bit as he said it. His exploration of the administration’s pathway for getting there was mostly familiar. More…

The Post-Kappes Era of CIA Drone Strikes

Both Eli Lake and Greg Miller report that President Obama personally asked Steve Kappes last year to remain the CIA’s deputy director. Kappes’ boss, Leon Panetta, announced yesterday that Kappes will be retiring next month. Under the Kappes Continuity — he ascended to deputy director in More…

Portrait of the Terrorist Attack as a Media Event

As you’ve probably read this morning, the Pakistani Taliban executed a complex attack — using suicide car bombers and gunmen — on the American consulate in Peshawar. The Taliban didn’t get past a consulate checkpoint. Nor did their team manage to kill any Americans. But they did bring their More…

Could Drone Strikes Be Cleaving Pakistanis From al-Qaeda?

Last month, Leon Panetta, the director of the CIA, gave an interview to The Washington Post bragging about the impact the CIA’s drone strikes have had on al-Qaeda and Taliban operations in Pakistan. Not having sufficient information to independently evaluate it, I sort of marked Panetta’s comments As Read. More…

That Harold Koh, Such a ‘Transnationalist’ That He Defends The Legality of Drone Strikes

On March 16, Shane Harris reported that Harold Koh, the State Department’s legal adviser, asserted that the Obama administration’s drone strikes on al-Qaeda and affiliated targets are legal, and would at some point make a more fulsome public case for why that is. Last night, reports Mark More…

Speaking of Drone Strikes, Leon Panetta Says They’re Awesome

The Washington Post sits down with the CIA director, who has lots of great things to say about how the CIA is disrupting al-Qaeda:

Panetta credited an increasingly aggressive campaign against al-Qaeda and its Taliban allies, including more frequent strikes and better coordination with Pakistan. He called it “the most

More…

Under McChrystal, Drone Strikes in Afghanistan Quietly Rise as Civilian Casualties Drop

Last week’s two drone strikes in Afghanistan rattled journalists. Didn’t Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, sharply restrict offensive air strikes? Laura King, reporting from Kabul for the Los Angeles Times, wondered if the two strikes, occurring in rapid succession, “signaled what More…

ACLU Wants to Know the Legal Basis for CIA Drone Strikes

It’s a question that rarely gets asked: from where does the Obama administration locate the legal authority to launch missiles from the CIA’s unmanned drones into Pakistani (and, this week, Afghan) territory? The ACLU wants to know.

The civil liberties group today filed a Freedom of Information Act request More…

Retribution for FOB Chapman Massacre?

The New York Times reports:

American missiles, presumably fired by remotely piloted drones, struck twice Wednesday in North Waziristan, the tribal region that is a stronghold of Qaeda and Taliban militants.

One hopes the targeting wasn’t the result, in some vestigial manner, of spotting done by the suicide bomber More…