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CIA given green light to bomb Osama bin Laden

July 3, 2008

The CIA has been given the green light by Pakistan to attack Osama bin Laden with unmanned aircraft armed with ground attack missiles if they can find the terror godfather, it has been revealed.

The US intelligence agency does not have to ask permission from the Pakistani government to attack his hideout, presumed to be in the lawless tribal areas on Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan.

Using a Predator would dramatically slash the time between receiving actionable intelligence on the al Qaeda leader’s whereabouts and a strike.

It would remove the need to brief and transport Special Forces from a base in Afghanistan and, crucially, cut out the need to inform the ISI, Pakistan’s intelligence service, which is widely understood to be riddled with al Qaeda sympathisers.

According to a US official with knowledge of the deal, the permission to operate Predator drones without seeking permission was granted by Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf early in the war on terror.

But details of the deal were leaked to the Washington Times newspaper yesterday amid growing discontent from the US military at the failure of the Pakistani government to let American ground troops take up the search for the al Qaeda leader.

Under the terms of the deal, the CIA must coordinate all its activities within the tribal areas with Pakistani authorities with the one sole exception of operations against bin Laden himself.

Under the current rules, only CIA paramilitary officers are permitted by Pakistan to operate on the ground within their borders. President Musharraf refused a request to increase their numbers earlier this year.

A Pentagon plan to let US special forces operate in the federally administered tribal areas of Pakistan was never approved after a turf war between hawks and moderates in the Bush administration.

US Special Forces are planning to set up two training centres in the tribal areas to school Pakistani troops in counterinsurgency techniques but the first will not even be established until the autumn, seven years after the 9/11 attacks.

The hunt for bin Laden has become an election issue, with John McCain promising to capture or kill the terrorist leader during his first term and Barack Obama pledging to attack him without consulting the Pakistanis if necessary. That claim could mean that Mr Obama has received intelligence briefings on the arrangement with Pakistan.

The CIA, the Pentagon and US Joint Special Operations Command all declined to comment. President Bush’s spokeswoman Dana Perino said: “The president has a strong, overarching commitment to make sure that we track down and bring to justice Osama bin Laden and other top members of al Qaeda.”

Telegraph | Tim Shipman | Wednesday, July 02, 2008

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