ISLAMABAD: The United States is seeking new bases in Central Asia for launching drone strikes at suspected Al Qaeda targets inside Pakistan after 2014, the Los Angeles Times reported yesterday.
The bases will be used only if the United States fails to sign a bilateral security deal with Afghanistan and is forced to withdraw all its forces from that country after 2014.
A new jet-powered drone, called the Predator C, or Avenger, could be used for attacking targets inside Pakistan if the bases were moved to Central Asia, the report said.
The Avenger could “get to ‘hot’ targets in Pakistan much faster and might solve some of these logistic problems posed by the slower-moving propeller-driven Predator and Reaper drones.
General Atomics, which makes the Avenger, says it is ready for combat. So far, the San Diego-based company has built four prototypes.
The new bases, however, will not be as effective as for the existing US bases in Afghanistan that allow the CIA to gather intelligence to find Al Qaeda operatives and quickly launch drone missiles at specific targets in Pakistan’s mountainous tribal region.
That’s why the United States was still trying to retain those bases.
Quoting official US sources, the Times reported that CIA analysts operating from fortified outposts near the Pakistani border evaluate electronic intelligence, while case officers meet sources who help them identify targets.
They pay people to place GPS trackers on cars or buildings to help guide the drone-launched missiles.
Closing the bases in Afghanistan will also cause the CIA to lose this advantage, the report added.
“If the bases are evacuated, the CIA fleet of armed Predator and Reaper drones could be moved to airfields north of Afghanistan,” the newspaper reported.
US Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel publicly acknowledged for the first time this month that US officials are examining different basing options for drones, including having bases in India.
The CIA and the US military used a base in Uzbekistan to conduct drone flights until they were evicted in 2005.
The US military also has used a base in Kyrgyzstan to conduct air operations.
The Pentagon said last fall that it would shift those operations to Romania this summer.
Drone strikes in Pakistan have grown less frequent - 28 last year, down from 117 in 2010 - and more precise.
The London-based Bureau of Investigative Journalism, which has compiled a database of known drone strikes, found four noncombatants killed in 2013.
“But the ability to act quickly, without harming civilians, would suffer if the CIA was forced to leave the area,” the report said.
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is one of the principal intelligence-gathering agencies of the United States federal government.
The CIA’s headquarters is in Langley, Virginia, a few miles west of Washington, DC.
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