While President Obama is keen on rolling back the Bush administration policies on Guantanamo Bay, black detention sites, and all related legal decisions pertaining to the war, one area he has not backed away from is targeting al Qaeda operatives inside Pakistan’s Taliban-controlled tribal areas. Today, unmanned Predators struck in two locations in North and South Waziristan, killing at least 20 people according to the initial reports. There is not word if senior al Qaeda or Taliban leaders were killed. The attacks took place just four days after President Obama took office, and one day after he appointed a special envoy to Pakistan and Afghanistan. U.S. intelligence believes al Qaeda has reconstituted its external operations network in Pakistan’s tribal areas, and has struck at these external cells in an effort to disrupt al Qaeda’s external network and decapitate the leadership. Today’s dual strikes show Obama plans to continue these attacks. While he can politically afford to close Gitmo and the black sites (these decisions will take a long time to implement) he cannot afford to back down from hitting al Qaeda’s safe havens. Nearly every terror plot against the West has been hatched from Pakistan’s tribal areas, and he would be held responsible for any successful attack against the U..S if he ended the decapitation campaign.
