Go after Taliban leaders in Quetta with drones

Washington Times:

A longtime adviser to U.S. commanders inAfghanistan says now is the time for PresidentObama to change strategy and target Talibanleaders ensconced in Pakistan, using drones and other tactics employed to kill al Qaeda operatives over the past 10 years.

“We kill them. We use drones to kill them, just like we did al Qaeda,” said retired Army Gen. Jack Keane, just back from a two-week tour of the battlefield and consultations with U.S. commanders. “The president has to change the policy and issue a ‘finding’ that this is a covert operation under the province of the Central Intelligence Agency.”

A White House spokesman declined to comment Wednesday.

Gen. Keane pointed out one of the great ironies of the long war inAfghanistan: The main U.S. foe is the Taliban, but senior Talibanleaders have untouchable safe havens in Quetta and Peshawar.

Taliban leaders in Pakistan work out of command centers and conduct conferences, or shuras, with lower-level commanders on tactics for killingNATO troops and bringing down the elected government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

 “A lot of these guys command from the rear, if you will, telling their guys by orders what to do and what not to do,” a U.S. briefer said to visiting officers last year. 

Until now, the U.S. has not targeted senior Taliban leaders for fear of alienating Pakistan, whose intelligence service helped put the Taliban in power inAfghanistan in the 1990s.Pakistan will not target them because of tribal loyalties and fears that such action could destabilize the country via a militant uprising. 

What Gen. Keane is recommending is a war campaign in which the intelligence community, principally the CIA and the National Security Agency, focus spies, communications intercepts and satellites onTaliban commanders inside Pakistan. Once a commander is located, a Predator drone would be sent to kill him with a Hellfire missile. 

“If we don’t start targeting the Taliban leadership now … the risk is much too high in terms of our ability to sustain the successes that we’ve had. We cannot let that Afghan Taliban leadership that lives in Pakistancontinue to preside over this war and recruit and provide resources,”Gen. Keane said....

Pakistan has done such a good job of alienating the US, that it makes little sense to worry about their feelings while they are giving sanctuary to the enemy.  Take out the Taliban leadership where ever they are found.