US hitting Haqqani and Al Qaeda

The stepped up pace of CIA attacks in Pakistan “is taking a serious toll” on al Qaeda’s operational capabilities, CIA Director Leon E Panetta has said.

The stepped up pace of CIA attacks in Pakistan “is taking a serious toll” on al Qaeda’s operational capabilities, CIA Director Leon E Panetta has said. “The basis for that increased pace is intelligence, whether and also just the threat streams we're getting on potential attacks in Europe”, the CIA chief was quoted as saying by the Los Angeles Times.

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The agency has also moved up “more hardware” to the region because of which it has been able to ramp up the pace of these operations, Panetta said apparently hinting that the US may have moved advanced killer drones to bases in Pakistan.

But, the CIA chief said it was unclear whether operations in Pakistan had thwarted potential threat against Europe.

Panetta did not specifically mentioned drone strikes in Pakistan because the US government does not officially own up the programme. But it is well known that the drones are main tool that the agency uses to target militants in that country.