NEW YORK, Feb 21: With two missile strikes over the past week, the Obama administration has expanded the covert war run by the Central Intelligence Agency inside Pakistan, attacking a militant network seeking to topple the Pakistani government, according to the New York Times.

The strikes, the newspaper said on Saturday, represented another sign that President Barrack Obama was continuing, even extending the scope of the Bush administration policy in using American spy agencies against terrorism suspects in Pakistan, as he had promised to do during his presidential campaign.

At the same time, Mr Obama had begun to scale back some of the Bush policies on the detention and interrogation of terror suspects, which he has criticised as counter-productive.

The newspaper said that the missile strikes on training camps run by Baitullah Mehsud represented a broadening of the American campaign inside Pakistan, which had been largely carried out by drone aircraft.

Under President Bush, the United States frequently attacked militants from Al Qaeda and the Taliban involved in cross-border attacks into Afghanistan, but had stopped short of raids aimed at Mehsud and his followers, who had played less of a direct role in attacks on American troops.

The paper pointed out that Mehsud was identified early last year by both American and Pakistani officials as the man who had orchestrated the assassination of Benazir Bhutto. Mr Bush included Baitullah Mehsud’s name in a classified list of militant leaders whom the CIA and American commandos were authorised to capture or kill.

It is unclear why the Obama administration decided to carry out the attacks which, American and Pakistani officials said, had occurred last Saturday and again on Monday, hitting camps run by Mehsud’s network.

The Saturday’s strike was aimed specifically at Mehsud, but he was not killed, according to Pakistani and American officials, the paper said.

The Monday’s strike, officials told the paper, was aimed at a camp run by Hakeem Ullah Mehsud, a top aide to the militant.

By striking at the Mehsud network, the United States may be seeking to demonstrate to President Asif Zardari that the new administration is willing to go after the insurgents of greatest concern to the Pakistani leader.

Civilian govt at risk

But American officials may also be prompted by growing concern that the militant attacks are increasingly putting the civilian government of Pakistan, a nation with nuclear weapons, at risk.

For months, Pakistani military and intelligence officials have complained about Washington’s refusal to strike at Baitullah Mehsud, even while CIA drones struck at Al Qaeda figures and leaders of the network run by Jalaluddin Haqqani.