CIA to continue drone attacks in Pak after getting 100% results: Leon Panetta

LAHORE - Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Director Leon Panetta has reportedly said that the CIA will continue staging drone attacks in Pakistan, a private TV channel reported.

In his meeting with the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) Director General Shuja Pasha, Panetta said that the CIA was achieving 100 per cent results through the drone attacks, even though the alliance forces respect Pakistan’s sovereignty, the Daily Times reported.

During the meeting, Pasha asked Panetta to provide secret information to the Pakistan Army, adding that the country’s armed forces would conduct operations based on the secret tip-offs provided by the CIA.

As part of its covert war in Afghanistan, the CIA has launched 20 drone attacks in Pakistan thus far in September, the most ever during a single month, and more than twice the number in a typical month.

An American official revealed that the recent strikes had been aimed at several groups, including the Haqqani network, Al Qaeda and the Pakistani Taliban, as the United States hoped to “keep the pressure on as long as we can.”

But the CIA’s campaign has also raised concerns that the drone strikes are fuelling anger in the Muslim world. The Times Square bomber told a judge that the CIA drone campaign was one of the factors that led him to attack the Americans. (ANI)