Here We Go Again: The US Has Resumed Drone Strikes In Pakistan

If you thought the US was ramping down its lethal drone war in Pakistan, think again.

Until this week, the skies over Pakistan had been quieter than usual. Noticeably absent? The buzz of US hunter-killer drones. Indeed, there wasn't a single American drone strike logged in Pakistan since December 25, 2013, according to The Long War Journal. This led some to believe the US was maybe, finally starting to rein in its borderless shadow wars.

But, on Sunday, terrorists attacked the Karachi international airport in Pakistan, killing 37.

The response was a one-two punch: A pair of US drone missile strikes on Wednesday and Thursday pummeled targets in North Waziristan, the same Taliban-controlled tribal area that has taken the brunt of the Obama's administration's drone war, now in its fifth year. The successive strikes killed at least 16 militants, according to Pakistan's Dawn newspaper.

A pair of strikes after nearly a half-year of silence doesn't necessarily mean the US is ramping up its lethal drone program in Pakistan to match the number of strikes it carried out in the past—there were 122 strikes in 2010, according to figures from the Washington-based New America Foundation. Those strikes have killed many militants, but they have also historically hit houses, killing untold hundreds of innocent men, women, and children.

By all accounts, America's lethal dronings will continue to take a marked downturn. Despite quietly approving the attacks, Pakistan's leaders have begun to publicly rail against the US program. More recently, after the Pakistani goverment began peace negotiations with the Taliban in Pakistan, the US effectively put its lethal drone campaign there on hold, The Wall Street Journal reports.

But the latest strikes indicate that the US isn't ready to retire its Predator and Reaper drones completely. To hear the US tell it, those drones proved long ago to be something like the technological magic wand against the specter of terrorism.

"Washington considers drones to have been highly effective against militants in Pakistan's tribal areas," the Journal adds.

That's what makes this week's drone strikes so unsurprising.

"Pakistan remains a hub for al Qaeda and allied movements operating along the AfPak border and beyond," one unnamed US intelligence official told LWJ. "al Qaeda's General command is still operating there, and is staffed by a new and dangerous generation of leaders. Zawahiri and his staff are still operating in Pakistan."

We can only guess if that official is with the Central Intelligence Agency, the agency that the New York Times is reporting was behind the strikes. Drones, of course, are what turned the CIA into a full-on paramilitary outfit. In other words, what's played out over the past few days in the craggy tribal lands of North Waziristan, Pakistan, is about as close an affirmation as we can get that the Agency won't give up its drone war anytime soon.