Two research outlets have revealed that the United States has increased its unmanned aircraft strikes in Pakistan. Figures have risen since the 30 December suicide attack on a CIA base in Afghanistan that killed seven Americans. Analysts have commented that ’revenge’ may be the motivation.
Since Barack Obama took the presidential seat, 64 strikes have been recorded, including 51 in 2009 and 13 in 2010, based on a study made by the New America Foundation. The study added that 14 of these strikes have occurred since the suicide attack in December.
Peter Bergen, a CNN terror analyst and a fellow at the foundation, along with Katherine Tiedemann, a foundation policy analyst, noted that only 45 attacks have been recorded during the Bush Administration.
Bergen could not confirm why the drone attack rate has recently increased, but he pointed out the possibility of revenge being a factor.
The Long War Journal’s Web site also showed the same statistics. Bill Roggio, the journal’s editor, told CNN about his belief that “there was a revenge factor”.
“What we saw after December 30 was really unprecedented,” he said. “They had to do two things. They had to show that the attack didn’t hurt their ability to target [militants] and that they still had the capacity to do so.”
The air campaign, according to the journal, “remains the cornerstone of the effort to root
out and decapitate the senior leadership of al Qaeda, the Taliban, and other allied terror groups, and to disrupt both al Qaeda’s global and local operations in Afghanistan and Pakistan”.
The US military has not commented on the reported attacks, but airstrikes are known to be conducted by Americans, according to officials. The latest attack happened on Tuesday when an unmanned aircraft attacked four villages in North Waziristan, killing 29 people.
