A sharply escalated campaign of CIA drone strikes in Pakistan is aimed in part at al-Qaeda units suspected of planning terrorist attacks on targets in Europe, a threat that U.S. officials described as "credible but not specific" enough to allow authorities to anticipate precisely where or when a strike might occur.
The intensified bombing of targets in North and South
Waziristan represents an expansion of the secret drone program from its origins
as a weapon used in a selective hunt for high-ranking operatives to one now
delivering a barrage of strikes in the hopes of disrupting a still-murky plot.
A U.S. official said that President Obama and
congressional leaders have been briefed extensively on the European threat in
recent weeks and that the warnings are considered ominous enough to warrant
preemptive strikes.
American intelligence agencies have had "to work
backwards, with your starting point being individuals you believe are involved
in plotting, even when you don't have the full outlines of the plot
itself," the U.S. official said. "That's why we have been striking -
with precision - people and facilities that are part of these
conspiracies."
U.S. officials said that intelligence about potential
pending attacks has not indicated that the plots are aimed at targets in the
United States. Still, officials alluded to significant security precautions.
A senior administration official said that the president
"has held multiple sessions with his CT [counterterrorism] and homeland
teams in recent weeks to review this and other threat reporting and to make
sure that all appropriate steps were being taken to protect the American
people."
The flurry of drone strikes continued Tuesday amid
reports of a new attack by pilotless Predator or Reaper aircraft on a Taliban
compound near Wana in South Waziristan. If confirmed, it would bring the total
number of drone attacks in September to 21, far outstripping the previous
monthly record of 12 strikes, reached in January, according to numbers compiled
by the Web site Long War Journal.
Several U.S. officials interviewed would not speak
publicly about the campaign, or the intelligence behind the fears over a
European terror plot. Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper Jr.
said in a statement Tuesday: "We know al-Qaeda wants to attack Europe and
the United States. We continue to work closely with our European allies on the
threat from international terrorism, including al-Qaeda."
The U.S. has shared intelligence with European allies in
recent days, Clapper said, and is working with "our key partners in order
to disrupt terrorist plotting, identify and take action against potential
operatives, and strengthen our defenses against potential threats."
The link between the stepped-up campaign of drone strikes
and the potential European attacks was first reported by the Wall Street
Journal. U.S. officials said, however, that there are multiple factors behind
the escalated campaign, including expanded latitude from the Obama
administration to punish a militant network that has carried out attacks in
Afghanistan and is believed to be sheltering al-Qaeda.
The Haqqani network has long been considered by U.S.
officials to be a proxy force for Pakistan's powerful Inter-Services
Intelligence directorate. The United States has prodded Pakistan to confront
the group, to little avail.
"There is a recognition that the Pakistanis can't do
anything there and won't," a second U.S. official said. As a result, the
official said, U.S. forces and the CIA have been given "a green light to
go after Haqqani."
A senior U.S. counterterrorism official said "there
has been a lot of noise in the system" pointing to an al-Qaeda plot
against targets in European countries including France, Germany and Britain.
Mounting anxiety has prompted European authorities to
take a series of precautionary steps in recent days, including the evacuation
on Tuesday of the Eiffel Tower in Paris for the second time in as many weeks.
ABC News reported that information about the European
plot had been based to a large extent on the interrogation of a suspected
German terrorist now being held in U.S. custody at Bagram air base in
Afghanistan.
U.S. officials confirmed that there is a detainee at
Bagram who had been captured in that country and holds a German passport, but
they played down any connection between the prisoner and the stepped-up drone
campaign.
*Staff writers Karen DeYoung and Scott Wilson contributed
to this report.