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Washington (AFP) Feb 20, 2011 CIA drones killed at least 581 militants in Pakistan last year, but only two were noteworthy enough to appear on a US list of most-wanted terrorists, the Washington Post reported on its website late Sunday, citing independent estimates. The report, due to appear in Monday's edition of the daily, said that despite a drastically escalated number of Predator drone strikes, the number of high-ranking militants as a result has fallen or increased only slightly. The daily reported that the relatively meager recent return on US efforts to target Islamic militants with the controversial drone program has raised questions about the purpose and parameters of the drone campaign. The Post reported that the CIA carried out a record 118 drone strikes over the last year, costing more than $1 million apiece. The CIA is increasingly killing "mere foot soldiers," a senior Pakistani official said, adding that the issue has come up in discussions in Washington involving President Asif Ali Zardari. The official said Pakistan has pressed the Americans "to find better targets, do it more sparingly and be a little less gung-ho." Experts told The Post that the program, which began with intermittent lethal attacks on Al-Qaeda leaders has evolved into a campaign that seems primarily focused on lower-level fighters. "I think it's hard to make the case that the 94 percent cohort threaten the United States in some way," said Peter Bergen, a director at the New America Foundation who said data on the strikes indicate that 94 percent of fatalities are lower-level militants. "There's been very little focus on that question from a human rights perspective. Targeted killings are about leaders -- it shouldn't be a blanket dispensation," he said.
earlier related report The drone strike was the first since a US gunman shot and killed two Pakistanis in the eastern city of Lahore on January 27, triggering a diplomatic row between Pakistan and its key terror ally the United States. "Five militants were killed in the strike," a military official told AFP. "The target was a house used by militants," he added, requesting anonymity. An intelligence official who confirmed the attack put the toll at six dead and three wounded. The unmanned aircraft fired three missiles at the house in Kaza Panga village, 15 kilometres (10 miles) west of Wana, the main town in South Waziristan. Washington has been at pains to play down talks of a rift with Pakistan over the detention of Raymond Davis, a US diplomat who shot the two men in a busy Lahore street. The US has argued that Davis, who claims to have fired in self-defence, should be released under diplomatic immunity. It was not immediately clear if there were any high-profile victims in the latest drone strike on the tribal areas, which are close to the Afghan border and a key battleground in the fight against the Taliban and Al-Qaeda. The United States does not confirm drone attacks, but its military and its Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) operating in Afghanistan are the only forces that deploy them in the region. The US strikes are deeply unpopular among the Pakistani public, who see foreign military action on Pakistani soil as a violation of national sovereignty. The death toll of at least five dead in the latest attack is small compared to previous raids. A series of strikes on January 1 killed at least 15 people and destroyed a Taliban compound, according to Pakistani officials. That attack was quickly followed by several more, but there has been a comparative lull since. Some observers have said that may be to do with Davis's detention. Missile attacks doubled in the tribal areas last year as the covert campaign was stepped up, with more than 100 drone strikes killing over 670 people in 2010 compared with 45 strikes that killed 420 in 2009, according to an AFP tally. Pakistan tacitly cooperates with the bombing campaign, which US officials say has severely weakened Al-Qaeda's leadership. Washington says the strikes have killed a number of high-value targets, including the former Pakistani Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud.
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