November 7, 2002	Thursday	Ramazan 1,1423

WASHINGTON: For years, the debate raged within the CIA: Should the United States hunt down and kill its terrorist foes, or would Israeli-style “targeted killings” only invite retribution and feed an endless cycle of violence?

The debate ended on Sunday, current and former intelligence officials said, when the CIA incinerated a car full of Al Qaeda operatives in northern Yemen with a laser-guided Hellfire missile.

“There was discussion about this for years in the CIA,” said one former agency official with extensive experience in the Middle East. “The discussion is now over and the operations have begun.”

The risks remain. Even those who applauded Sunday’s strike said in interviews on Tuesday that it is sure to inflame militant Muslims, including those belonging to the Al Qaeda network, and expose US diplomats and other overseas officials to possible retaliation. The attack triggered outrage in some quarters of the Arab world and forced US officials into the difficult position of defending a tactic it has criticized Israel for using.

But Bush administration officials said that they see those risks and diplomatic discomforts as worth enduring when confronted with an opportunity to kill a high-ranking Al Qaeda figure linked to previous attacks and considered likely to be planning more.

In fact, US officials and top Pentagon advisers said on Tuesday that Al Qaeda should expect more of the same. “We’ve got new authorities, new tools and a new willingness to do it wherever it has to be done,” one administration official said.

Neither the CIA nor the White House would publicly confirm the US role in the strike, which is believed to have killed Qaeda Sinan Harithi, who is suspected of being involved in the 2000 bombing of the Cole destroyer, an attack in which 17 US sailors died. But administration officials openly relished what was widely viewed as a significant and symbolic US victory.

Deputy Defence Secretary Paul Wolfowitz called the strike “a very successful tactical operation. We’ve got to keep the pressure on everywhere we’re able to,” he said on CNN.

White House spokesman Ari Fleischer declined to discuss the attack specifically but said: “The president has talked about a shadowy war where terrorists are going to try to hide. ... We’re going to be on the lookout for them when they emerge.” Sunday’s mission was in keeping with the so-called Bush doctrine that, among other things, commits the nation to pre-emptive military strikes in the US-declared war on terrorism.

It was carried out by an unmanned CIA surveillance plane armed with laser-guided missiles. The Predator drones had been patrolling Yemen in recent months, tracking the movements of dozens of Al Qaeda figures who have been operating in the country’s barren northern territory. Until Sun-day, US strikes on suspected Al Qaeda members had been confined to the war theatre in Afghanistan. Elsewhere, the CIA’s activities had appeared to consist mainly of assisting in raids and other operations conducted jointly with foreign intelligence services.

At the State Department, spokesman Richard Boucher refused to discuss the attack in Yemen and trod carefully around questions on whether US involvement in the strike contradicts long-standing US disapproval of so-called targeted killings. The State Department has repeatedly criticized Israel for using such tactics against Palestinians. Asked whether the United States has altered its opinion, Boucher replied, “Our policy on targeted killings in the Israeli-Palestinian context has not changed.”

He went on to say that the US position reflects concern that such killings harm prospects for peace negotiations. Those reasons, he said, “do not necessarily apply in other circumstances.”

Pre-emptive strike: Isr-aeli scholars rejected such distinctions and said the attack in Yemen is tantamount to a US endorsement of the Israeli policy of pre-emptive attacks on militant foes. The US shift, the scholars said, shows that the Bush administration has rejected the long-held American view that refraining from violence offers at least some protection from retaliation.

“Israel knows that it’s going to be attacked no matter what it does,” said Barry Rubin, head of the Global Research and International Affairs Center. “The US situation has become more like the Israeli situation. It is the impact of Sept. 11.” Current and former intelligence officials said reprisals are possible, if not inevitable.

“Not everybody has been gung-ho about going out and doing this,” said a former CIA official previously involved in high- level counter-terrorism missions. “It may be the right policy, but it’s not going to be without consequences.’

Others, however, said Sept 11 showed that US restraint earned it no protection from Al Qaeda and that the show of force in Yemen was long overdue.

“Maybe they’ll try to do something else to us,” another former senior CIA official said. “The fact is, we’ve been getting shot at for the last 30 to 40 years. The weaker they think you are, the more they’ll go after us.”

The attack in Yemen prompted criticism from some in the Arab world. The London-based Arab newspaper Al Quds al Arabi carried an editorial on Tuesday condemning the attack.

“We believe the Americans are adopting the Israeli style of bombing — it is appalling,” editor Adelbari Atwan wrote. “This is not the work of a civilized democratic power but in the style of Osama bin Laden.”

Atwan predicted that the attack will antagonize Arabs and “will encourage membership (in) Al Qaeda.”

Harithi had been under US surveillance for months. A onetime bodyguard to Osama bin Laden, he was believed to be Al Qaeda’s operational leader in Yemen, where many Al Qaeda members have fled from war-torn Afghanistan.

Some former intelligence officials said the strike is certain to deliver a psychological blow to Al Qaeda, perhaps explaining why word of US involvement in the attack leaked so quickly from the Bush White House.

“You want to take credit for this operation,” said one former CIA official. It sends a message that Al Qaeda “is not even safe in North Yemen. That’s the back of the beyond. Al Qaeda owns that lawless border area, and I’m sure they’ve been wandering around there with impunity.”

Others were skeptical that Islamic militants would be cowed even by an impressive display of US weaponry. “I’m not sure you can frighten them,” another former CIA operative said. “They do crazy better than we do.”

Some CIA veterans said the attack was in keeping with a long tradition of ambitious clandestine operations. James Woolsey, director of the CIA in the early 1990s, harkened back to World War II, before the agency had even been created.

“We broke the Japanese code and sent up aircraft to shoot down Adm. Yamamoto’s plane and killed him,” Woolsey said. “It was a targeted killing of one of their greatest military figures.” —Dawn/LAT-WP News Service (c) Los Angeles Times