WASHINGTON — The U.S. military has launched a program of armed Predator drone missions against militants in Pakistan that for the first time gives Pakistani officers significant control over routes, targets and decisions to fire weapons, U.S. officials said.
The joint effort is aimed at getting the government in Islamabad, which has bitterly protested Predator strikes, more directly engaged in one of the most successful elements of the battle against Islamist insurgents.
It also marks a broad new role for the U.S. military in hunting the Taliban and its Al Qaeda allies, who pose a growing threat to both Pakistan and Afghanistan. For years, that task has been the domain of the CIA, which has flown its own Predator missions over Pakistan.
Under the new partnership, a separate fleet of U.S. drones operated by the Defense Department will be free for the first time to venture beyond the Afghan border under the direction of Pakistani military officials, who are working alongside American counterparts at a command center in Jalalabad, Afghanistan.
"This is about building trust," said a senior U.S. military official, speaking on condition of anonymity because the program has not been publicly acknowledged. "This is about giving them capabilities they do not currently have to help them defeat this radical extreme element that is in their country."
The program represents a significant departure from how the war against the Taliban has been fought for most of the last seven years. The heavy U.S. military presence in Afghanistan has been largely powerless to pursue the Islamic extremists who routinely escape into Pakistan.
But the initiative carries serious risks for Pakistan, which is struggling to balance a desire for more control over the Predators with a deep reluctance to become complicit in U.S. drone strikes on its people.
Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari, on a visit to Washington last week, reiterated his nation's request for its own fleet of Predators. U.S. officials have all but ruled that out, and they described the new, jointly operated flights as an effective compromise.
Pakistani officials said Tuesday that they were working with U.S. officials to better utilize the American technology. In a statement, Husain Haqqani, Islamabad's ambassador to Washington, said Pakistan remained concerned that the "unilateral" CIA drone strikes violated the nation's sovereignty.
