Thaindian News

Washington, Feb. 18 (ANI): US Vice President Biden has claimed that the Obama administration’s response to the terror threat emanating from Afghanistan, Pakistan and other areas where al-Qaeda and Taliban hold sway, has been far better than what was achieved during the Bush administration.

“There has never been as much emphasis and resources brought against al-Qaeda. The success rate exceeds anything that occurred in the last administration,” the Washington Post quoted Biden as saying on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday.

The latest achievement in this counter-terror campaign was the capture in late January of Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the No. 2 official of the Afghan Taliban, in Karachi.

Baradar is now in Pakistani custody, and, according to the U.S. official, “he is providing intelligence.”

According to the paper, the numbers show a sharp upsurge in operations against al-Qaeda and its allies in Pakistan since Barack Obama took office.

According to the U.S. official, there were 55 Predator drone strikes last year in the Pakistani tribal areas. That’s nearly double the peak level during the Bush years, which reached the mid-30s in 2008.

The pace of Predator attacks has increased further in 2010. Since January 1, there have been more than a dozen operations. If that rate continues, the total number of attacks this year could roughly double again, to more than 100.

These raids have ravaged the top tier of al-Qaeda’s lieutenants. The victims include Saleh al-Somali, the chief of external operations, who was killed Dec. 8; Abdullah Said al-Libi, the chief of operations in Pakistan, who was killed Dec. 17; and Tahir Yuldashev, the leader of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, who was killed in August.

All told, according to U.S. officials, since the beginning of 2009, the drone attacks have killed “several hundred” named militants from al-Qaeda and its allies, more than in all previous years combined. The drones have also shattered the leadership of the Pakistani Taliban, which has been waging a terror campaign across that country.

The CIA’s human intelligence that feeds the drone attacks has increased as well. Some of these agents are run jointly with other intelligence services, but a growing number are “unilateral” CIA recruits. These assets are run from agency bases in Afghanistan, such as the facility at Khost.

“The degree of trust and confidence that the Pakistani government and military have toward the U.S. is changing in a favorable way,” said Gen. Jim Jones, the national security adviser, who returned Friday from a three-day visit to Pakistan. He said he was impressed that Pakistan was now willing to go after a wider array of targets.

Although the Pakistani government publicly complains about the drone attacks, it privately endorses the strategy under rules negotiated in mid-2008.

This agreement permits the CIA to fire when it has solid intelligence and to provide “concurrent notification” to Pakistan, which typically means shortly after a Hellfire missile is launched.

Al-Qaeda and its allies are indeed “on the run,” as Biden said. (ANI)