WASHINGTON: US special forces have conducted about a
dozen secret operations against Al-Qaeda and other Islamic militants
in Pakistan, Syria and other countries under broad war-waging
authority given them by the administration of President George W.
Bush, The New York Times reported on its website late Sunday.
Citing unnamed senior US officials, the newspaper said the authority
was contained in a classified order signed by then-defense secretary
Donald Rumsfeld in early 2004 with the approval of President Bush.
The order gave the military permission to attack Al-Qaeda and other
hostile targets anywhere in the world, even in countries not at war
with the United States, without any additional approval, the report
said.
Under this authority, a Navy Seal team raided a suspected Islamic
militant compound in the Bajaur region of Pakistan in 2006, The
Times said, citing a former top CIA official. What’s more, military
planners were able to watch the entire attack “live” at CIA
headquarters in Virginia through a video camera installed on a
Predator aircraft that was sent to the area, the paper said.
Another raid was conducted by US special forces in Syria last
October 26 in cooperation with the Central Intelligence Agency, the
report said. There is no information about the remaining secret
military strikes, but officials made clear the list of targets did
not include Iran, The Times pointed out.
The paper said, however, that US forces had carried out
reconnaissance missions in Iran using other classified directives.
About a dozen additional operations have been canceled in the past
four years because they were deemed too risky, too diplomatically
explosive or relied on insufficient evidence, the paper said.
Before the 2004 order, the Pentagon needed to get approval for
missions on a case-by-case basis, which could take days, the paper
recalled. But Rumsfeld was not satisfied with the status-quo and
pressed hard for permission to use military power automatically
outside the combat zones of Iraq and Afghanistan, according to The
Times.
Source > Pakistan Observer | nov 11
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