US forces mounted secret Pakistan raids in hunt for al-Qaida

Former Nato officer reveals secret night operations in border region which America kept quiet

Declan Walsh in Islamabad, The Guardian/UK, Dec 21, 2009

Demonstrators in Quetta protest against US threats to extend drone strikes into the Balochistan region, which US military chiefs fear is becoming a Taliban ‘hub’. Photograph: Banaras Khan/AFP/Getty Images

American special forces have conducted multiple clandestine raids into Pakistan’s tribal areas as part of a secret war in the border region where Washington is pressing to expand its drone assassination programme.

A former Nato officer said the incursions, only one of which has been previously reported, occurred between 2003 and 2008, involved helicopter-borne elite soldiers stealing across the border at night, and were never declared to the Pakistani government.

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Tags: CIA-led drone strikes, Pakistan, Pakistanis, raids into Pakistan, South Waziristan, Taliban, United States