US aborted mission

WASHINGTON, JULY 8: A secret US military operation which was started in the early 2005 to capture senior members of Al Qaeda in Pakistan’s tribal areas was aborted at the last minute after top Bush administration officials decided it was too risky and could jeopardise relations with Pakistan, according to intelligence and military officials.

The target was a meeting of Qaeda leaders that intelligence officials thought included Ayman al-Zawahri, Osama bin Laden’s top deputy and the man believed to run the terrorist group’s operations.

But the mission was called off after Donald H Rumsfeld, then the Defense Secretary, rejected an 11th-hour appeal by Porter J Goss, then the CIA Director, officials said. Members of a Navy Seals unit in parachute gear had already boarded C-130 cargo planes in Afghanistan when the mission was cancelled, said a former senior intelligence official involved in the planning.

Rumsfeld decided that the operation, which had ballooned from a small number of military personnel and CIA operatives to several hundred, was cumbersome and put too many American lives at risk. He was also concerned that it could cause a rift with Pakistan, the officials said.

The decision to halt the planned “snatch and grab” operation frustrated some top intelligence officials and members of the military’s secret Special Operations units, who say the US missed a significant opportunity to try to capture senior Qaeda members.

Their frustration has only grown over the past two years, they said, as Al Qaeda has improved its abilities to plan global attacks and build new training compounds in Pakistan’s tribal areas.

In recent months, the White House has become increasingly irritated with Pakistan’s President, General Pervez Musharraf, for his inaction on the growing threat of the Taliban and Al Qaeda.

About a dozen current and former military and intelligence officials were interviewed for this article, all of whom requested anonymity because the planned 2005 mission remained classified.

Spokesmen for the Pentagon, the CIA and the White House declined to comment. It is unclear whether President Bush was informed about the planned operation.