Daily brief: Post – CIA shifts priorities to targeting, operations

Changing roles

The Post has an essential read from Greg Miller and Julie Tate on the shift over the past 10 years at the CIA from being a primarily analytical organization to one directly engaged in large-scale kinetic operations and the killing of counterterrorism targets (Post). According to the piece, the CIA’s Counterterrorism Center (CTC) has grown to approximately 2,000 employees, controls a fleet of 30 armed Predator and Reaper drones, and has become, in the words of an unnamed former intelligence official, "one hell of a killing machine." The CIA has also reportedly become far more closely involved in Special Operations, meshing at foreign bases with contractors and elite military personnel, whom the authors claim went into Pakistan covertly at least five times between 2002 and 2006.

At least five people have been killed in Pakistan by a suicide car bomb attack on a police checkpoint in Khyber-Puktunkhwa’s Lakki Marwat district (AFP, Dawn). Four Shi’a Muslims traveling to Peshawar were killed in Central Kurram agency Thursday when their bus was ambushed by unidentified gunmen (CNN, Dawn). In Mohmand, militants attacked a tribal leader’s compound Friday, killing three (Dawn). Also, officials in Pakistan’s tribal areas say that up to 30 boys who were picnicking in Bajaur to celebrate the end of Ramadan and accidentally crossed the border into Afghanistan have been kidnapped by Taliban militants after the boys (BBC, Dawn, AFP).

And in conversations with journalists Thursday, former Sindh province home minister Zulfiqar Mirza "declared war" on the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), and said, following his diatribe against the party last week, that he had far more information about the MQM to still "reveal" (ET).

Separation anxiety

The AP reports that Afghans are increasingly concerned about the departure of American troops from Afghanistan, and that many are transferring assets abroad or leaving out of fear of a militant takeover and backlash or civil war (AP). During a meeting in Tajikistan, the leaders of Russia, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Tajikistan called on the United States to increase its efforts to train Afghan security forces in advance of the withdrawal of international forces (AFP, Pajhwok, AP). And NPR’s Quil Lawrence evaluates the promises then-President George W. Bush made to Afghanistan during an April 2002 speech (NPR). 

Finally, Pajhwok reports that up to eight militants in Kandahar were killed Thursday when a bomb they were carrying detonated prematurely (Pajhwok).

Just for kicks

The Tribune highlights on the growing appeal of soccer among girls and young women in Pakistan’s Khyber-Puktunkhwa province (ET). While they only started playing the sport on an organized level in the area a few years ago, there are already several female soccer teams in the province, as well as a "regional" team that participates in national competitions.

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