| Ander Nieuws week 52 / Midden-Oosten 2014 | Document published by Wikileaks reveals agency's own internal review found key counter-terrorism strategy "may increase support" for the groups it targets Common Dreams December 18, 2014 Jon Queally Wikileaks on Thursday has made public a never-before-seen internal review conducted by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency that looked at the agency's drone and targeted assassination programs in places like Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, and elsewhere. The agency's own analysis, conducted in 2009, found that its clandestine drone and assassination program was likely to produce counterproductive outcomes, including strengthening the very "extremist groups" it was allegedly designed to destroy. Here's a link to the document, titled Best Practices in Counterinsurgency: Making High-Value Targeting Operations an Effective Counterinsurgency Toolocument (pdf). In one of the key findings contained in the CIA report, agency analysts warn of the negative consequences of assassinating so-called High Level Targets (HLT). "The potential negative effect of HLT operations," the report states, "include increasing the level of insurgent support [... ], strengthening an armed group's bonds with the population, radicalizing an insurgent group's remaining leaders, creating a vacuum into which more radical groups can enter, and escalating or de-escalating a conflict in ways that favor the insurgents." Wikileaks points out that this internal prediction "has been proven right" in the years since the internal review was conducted near the outset of President Obama's first term. And despite those internal warnings - which have been loudly shared by human rights and foreign policy experts critical of the CIA's drone and assassination programs - Wikileaks also notes that after the internal review was prepared, "US drone strike killings rose to an all-time high." Reached by the Washington Post on Thursday for response, CIA spokesperson Kali J. Caldwell said the agency would not comment "on the authenticity or content of purported stolen intelligence documents." According to a statement released by Wikileaks: The report discusses assassination operations (by various states) against the Taliban, al-Qa'ida, the FARC, Hizbullah, the PLO, HAMAS, Peru's Shining Path, the Tamil's LTTE, the IRA and Algeria's FLN. Case studies are drawn from Chechnya, Libya, Pakistan and Thailand.Given exclusive access to the CIA document ahead of its public release, the Sydney Morning Herald's Philip Dorling reported earlier on Thursday: According to a leaked document by the CIA's Directorate of Intelligence, "high value targeting" (HVT) involving air strikes and special forces operations against insurgent leaders can be effective, but can also have negative effects including increasing violence and greater popular support for extremist groups.This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License Original link | Ander Nieuws week 52 / Midden-Oosten 2014 | |