Escalating Drone Attacks in Pakistan

U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan on rise for 2013 By Greg Miller, Published: January 10 http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/us-drone-strikes-in-pakistan-on-rise-for-2013/2013/01

[Excerpted] The CIA has opened the year with a flurry of drone strikes in Pakistan, pounding Taliban targets along the country’s tribal belt at a time when the Obama administration is preparing to disclose its plans for pulling most U.S. forces out of neighboring Afghanistan. A strike Thursday in North Waziristan was the seventh in 10 days, marking a major escalation in the pace of attacks. Drone attacks had slipped in frequency to fewer than one per week last year....

...The rapid series of CIA strikes “may be a signal to groups that include not just al-Qaeda that the U.S. will still present a threat” after most American forces have gone, said Seth Jones, a counterterrorism expert at the Rand Corp. “With the drawdown in U.S. forces, the drone may be, over time, the most important weapon against militant groups....