Rowan Scarborough, Washington Times
The Haqqani Network, the terrorist group that the U.S. command in Afghanistan says is its most formidable enemy — worse than the Taliban or Al Qaida — has operated for a dozen years across the border in Pakistan’s North Waziristan tribal area with little to fear other than sporadic drone strikes.
Now, even the drone strikes have stopped for the family-run gang that held Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl for five years.
In 2011, President Obama authorized a volley of drone hits on Haqqani headquarters in the town of Miranshah. The strikes were supposed to be the beginning of a concerted effort to stop Haqqani terrorists from attacking Americans in Afghanistan, but the campaign was short-lived. “They could not pursue them as military planners had wanted to,” said Bill Roggio, managing editor of The Long War Journal, citing too few troops as the reason.
Attacks stopped altogether this year as the Obama administration negotiated with the Taliban, a fused ally of the Haqqani group. …Haqqani militants are responsible for improvised explosive device attacks that kill Americans across the border in provinces such as Paktia, where Sgt. Bergdahl walked away from his unit in 2009.
Sgt. Bergdahl surely will be asked all he knows about Haqqani when intelligence officers debrief him during the military’s reintegration process.
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