Drones, "Pathrai," and HUMINT in Pakistan Posted by Patrick Barry

Two very different articles this morning provide new wrinkles to the controversy surrounding the CIA's covert drone program in Northwest Pakistan. First, you have this Karen DeYoung piece in the Washington Post, which, given DeYoung's insider contacts, at least partially constitutes an attempt by the administration to push back against the recent critiques directed at the Drone strikes. DeYoung's report includes testimony from both American and Pakistani officials that the drone attacks have become more targeted as ground intelligence has improved:

"There are better targets and better intelligence on the ground," the Pakistani official said. "It's less of a crapshoot.”

A second U.S. military official agreed, saying, "We're not getting civilians, and not getting outrage beyond the usual stuff."

Take that for what it’s worth. At the very least, its clear that there are some ardent defenders of the program pushing for its continuation in spite of the very strong arguments against its use. But assuming that Predator operations are improving, the question shifts to why? An article from the Guardian comes up with a pretty wild explanation – computer chips:

That success is reportedly in part thanks to the mysterious electronic devices, dubbed "chips" or "pathrai" (the Pashto word for a metal device), which have become a source of fear, intrigue and fascination.

"Everyone is talking about it," said Taj Muhammad Wazir, a student from south Waziristan.

"People are scared that if a pathrai comes into your house, a drone will attack it."

According to residents and Taliban propaganda, the CIA pays tribesmen to plant the electronic devices near farmhouses sheltering al-Qaida and Taliban commanders.

Now this seems pretty outlandish to me, especially because I'm told the British press does not have the most sterling reputation for the veracity of its reporting on covert U.S. policy. But truth and true are not always the same. While there may be reason to doubt that “pathrai” explain the uptick in drone strikes, the larger issue of how intelligence, particularly human intelligence, factors into CT operations in Pakistan remains salient.

In public remarks, several high-profile members of the Obama administration have identified the drones as critical instruments for incapacitating al-Qaeda (see Panetta, Mullen, Blair).  Leaving aside the question of whether asserting drones are effective actually makes it so, it strikes me that the drones themselves are only one part of the larger equation of CT operations planning in Pakistan. At least as important to these efforts, is the human intelligence that locates the senior al-Qaeda operatives targeted by the drones. Without good HUMINT, information on the safe-houses, training camps, the senior operatives, all that goes away – making the Predator UAV just another remote controlled toy, and worse, dimming prospects for successful kinetic operations of any kind, including the special ops missions, which DeYoung reports are currently reserved for the Big Three (Bin Laden, Zawahiri, and Mullah Omar.) This begs a set of basic questions: are Predator strikes, and their associated ramifications helping or hurting our intelligence gathering in northwest Pakistan? Will operatives see them as a success and become more cooperative? Or will the public outcry render them mute?

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Although much has been made of the recent drone attacks lately, there has not been enough attention to the hundreds of thousands of Pakistanis displaced because of recent military operations by the Pakistani military. These refugees could be a possible recruiting pool for the Taliban.

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