Afterward, Hayatullah feared that he had incurred the wrath of the Pakistani authorities and told reporters, “When I published the picture of the missile I knew the government would harm me.” Hayatullah’s premonition proved to be correct; he was subsequently kidnapped by unknown people. After his tribe launched a massive search for him that included questioning the local Taliban, Hayatullah’s body was found with five bullet holes in it; his hands were bound by government-issued handcuffs.44
The Pakistani security forces were clearly sensitive to the issue of the drone strikes—so sensitive that they were willing to resort to murder to keep secret their role in them. Hundreds of Pakistani journalists subsequently protested the killing of one of their own by the country’s security forces. The Pakistani government may have also tried to keep the lid on the news that the son and nephew of the man who had given hospitality to Rabia had also been killed in the drone strike. These two were possibly the second pair of collateral damages of the Pakistani drone campaign (the first being Abu Hamza al Rabia’s wife and child, who were killed in the earlier strike).45
For their part the Americans were thrilled with the death of the third-highest ranked al Qaeda terrorist in Pakistan. National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley said, “This is law enforcement, this is not assassination. This is going against the leadership of an organization that has declared war on the United States.”46 By this time the Pakistanis had lost more than 250 soldiers fighting against the Taliban while searching for al Qaeda terrorists and were still willing to continue to live with the lie that the terrorists’ deaths were carried out by “car bombs” or “explosive mishaps.”47 Many in the ISI and military who had previously supported the Taliban had been purged. President Musharraf clearly saw the Taliban and al Qaeda (which had tried to assassinate him on several occasions) as a threat. While there had been cases of Pakistani frontier soldiers firing on U.S. troops in support of newly reorganized Afghan Taliban insurgents along the border, the Pakistani military and intelligence appeared to be tentatively throwing in its lot with the Americans.
This newfound cooperation would be strained following the next drone strike, which was aimed at none other than Ayman al Zawahiri. As it transpired, the Pakistanis had gained considerable insight into the al Qaeda number two’s movements following the interrogation of the arrested al Qaeda operative Abu Faraj al Libbi. According to Libbi, Zawahiri had found sanctuary among militants in the village of Azam Warsak in South Waziristan. He had in fact married a Pashtun woman from the region to cement his relationship with the local tribesmen. In mid-March 2004 the Pakistani army bombed Azam Warsak and later received word that Zawahiri had been injured in the bombing.48
Zawahiri then fled north to the tribal agency of Bajaur and found refuge in the village of Damadola, which was controlled by pro-Taliban militants led by Sufi Muhammad. But the CIA was not far behind, and on or around January 5, 2006, it fired a missile into a compound believed to be housing Zawahiri. The al Qaeda operative was not killed in the attack, but eight family members of a “militant cleric” who was said to have given him hospitality were.49
Then, just before January 13, 2006, word came that Zawahiri had been invited to a compound in Damadola where known terrorists had met before. On this occasion he was to celebrate the Muslim feast of Eid al Adha and have a “terrorism summit.”50 Libbi had told his interrogators that such meetings had happened in the locale before. There were “strong indications that was happening again,” and “all the intelligence signatures” said that Zawahiri himself would be there for the meeting.51 It also emerged that some of the men said to be in attendance would be important al Qaeda operatives who had been tracked by the ISI since they had entered Pakistan from Afghanistan.52
It was exactly the opportunity the CIA had been waiting for. The new CIA head, Porter Goss, personally gave the order to launch a barrage of drone missiles into the compound and was also said to have notified White House officials of the impending attack.53 According to one report, four drones took part in the subsequent strike, probably the largest flight of Predators involved in an attack to that date. As many as ten missiles were fired into the buildings thought to be housing Zawahiri and his comrades, according to Pakistani sources (this would indicate that as many as five Predators were actually involved in the attack since each Predator can carry only two Hellfire missiles).54 Once again CIA screens in Virginia lit up with explosions as the Predators sent back live feed from the FATA to their handlers.
Then reports that several high-ranking al Qaeda members had been killed began to come in. But even as the American government triumphantly proclaimed that it had killed several top terrorists, it became clear that something had gone horribly wrong.55 Although the Pakistanis initially claimed that the Americans had missed Zawahiri by no more than an hour or two, it turned out that the cautious al Qaeda number two had not attended the meeting in the first place. Instead he had decided at the last minute not to visit the compound and had sent four of his representatives in his stead.56 The representatives were there when the strike occurred. According to one Pakistani source, eleven “extremists,” including seven foreigners, were killed in the attack.57
And they were not the only ones. One survivor, Shah Zaman, who lost two sons and a daughter in the attack, said, “I ran out and saw planes. I ran towards a nearby mountain. When we were running we heard three more explosions and I saw my home being hit.”58 After the smoke cleared, it became apparent that between thirteen and thirty people had been killed in the Hellfire missile barrage, among them Zawahiri’s four representatives, said to be Egyptians.59 Their bodies were taken away by al Qaeda militants before they could be identified. The rest of the victims appeared to have been civilians (although ethicists were to ponder how innocent a civilian was if he or she was giving sanctuary or meeting with known terrorists). Regardless, as many as fourteen of the civilians killed in the drone strike were said to have come from the same family, and they included five children and women.
As word got out that three separate compounds with civilians in them had been destroyed in Damadola, the Pakistani government (whose agents had of course tracked the four important al Qaeda targets to the houses) gave a rather guarded statement: “According to preliminary investigations there was foreign presence in the area and that, in all probability, was targeted from across the border in Afghanistan.”60 This weak explanation both continued the myth that the drones were “invading” Pakistani airspace (when they were in all probability based in Shamsi and Jacobabad in Baluchistan Province) and pointed out that the Americans had actually been trying to target foreign terrorists, not Pakistani civilians.
The explanation did nothing to mollify average Pakistanis, who were infuriated by the summary execution of their compatriots by a foreign intelligence service that was notorious in the country. Interestingly, on this occasion the Pakistani government did not bother trying to cover up the CIA strike or deny that it had happened. The cat was now out of the bag; the CIA was actively killing suspected terrorists and even innocent bystanders on Pakistani soil.
The resulting uproar was not entirely unexpected considering the Pakistani public’s deep distrust of America. Some ten thousand people rallied in the port of Karachi, Pakistan’s largest city. There they chanted “Death to America” and “Stop bombing against innocent people.”61 Hundreds also gathered in the capital of Islamabad, as well as in Lahore, Multan, and Peshawar, the capital of the Pashtun-dominated North-West Frontier Province. Many burned U.S. flags and demanded the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan, while others torched the office of a U.S.-backed aid agency. In the FATA itself a group of approximately eight thousand tribesmen chanting “God is great” protested the strikes.62 The CIA had caused a major public relations disaster with a key strategic ally, all for the sake of killing four unknown al Qaeda operatives.