Going for the knock out punch against al Qaeda

NY Times:

President Obama’s top adviser on Pakistan said Friday that the United States had six months to deliver “a knockout blow” to Al Qaeda’s senior leadership in Pakistan while the group was still in turmoil after the killing of Osama bin Laden.

The adviser, Douglas E. Lute, a deputy national security adviser, said the United States needed to increase covert action in Pakistan to take advantage of the disarray within Al Qaeda’s senior ranks.

His comment was widely interpreted to refer to drone strikes, although he did not refer to the operations by name. The United States does not publicly acknowledge the drone strikes, which are classified. “This is a period of turbulence for our enemy,” Mr. Lute said in rare public remarks at a security forum here. “This is the time to double down on the opportunity to defeat Al Qaeda.”

Killing or capturing the group’s half-dozen or so top leaders in the next six months would “seriously degrade Al Qaeda’s ability to regenerate,” he said. “We need to go for the knockout punch in this window of opportunity.”

...
I am sure the administration is eager to wrap up the war against al Qaeda. We all are. But Pakistan restrictions on US employed CIA operatives will make it difficult to find and destroy then enemy. The drones need spotters on the ground to find enemy forces. The drones are generally limited to soda straw views of the ground and they need a hint of where to start looking to be effective.

Al Qaeda leaders will probable lie low during the period. We will probably have to get lucky on finding couriers to find them.

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