Counterterrorist Pursuit Team: 3,000 Man CIA Paramilitary Force Hunts Militants In Afghanistan...

[Amerigo Vespucci]

Source: Huffington Post

WASHINGTON — The CIA has trained and bankrolled a well-paid force of elite Afghan paramilitaries for nearly eight years to hunt al-Qaida and the Taliban for the CIA, according to current and former U.S. officials.

Modeled after U.S. special forces, the Counterterrorist Pursuit Team was set up in the months following the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in 2002 to penetrate territory controlled by the Taliban and al-Qaida and target militants for interrogations by CIA officials.

The 3,000-strong Afghan teams are used for surveillance and long-range reconnaissance missions and some have trained at CIA facilities in the United States. The force has operated in Kabul and some of Afghanistan's most violence-wracked provinces including Kandahar, Khost, Paktia and Paktika, according to a security professional familiar with the program.

The security official and former intelligence officials spoke about the Afghan force on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the sensitive information.

Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/09/22/counterterrorist-pursuit-_n_734961.html

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Counterterrorist Pursuit Team: 3,000 Man CIA Paramilitary Force Hunts Militants In Afghanistan, Pakistan

[Roy Rolling]

1. and yet, bin laden survives

Perhaps they need a "surge" to be effective. LOL

On the other hand, they are doing such a good job not a single skyscraper in Afghanistan has been attacked by al-Quaida hijackers flying commercial jets into them.

[formercia]

2. I remember something like that in Central America

called the Contras.

We know how that turned out.

[Arctic Dave]

3. LOL, exactly.

Isn't this how this entire thing started. By forming, whats the word I'm looking for, you know, some kind of base or something.

[Ex Lurker]

4. more like the Vietnam-era SOG teams

it's a CIA program, but I suspect the actual Americans on the ground are Green Berets leading indigenous mercenaries.

[L.Torsalo]

9. I was going to ask

what the difference was between this group and a group of death-squad members?

[retired af major]

5. I distinctly remember ...

how well the use of Afghan mercenaries worked for us when the US tried to find bin Laden at Tora Bora. Sigh.

[leveymg]

6. Did we learn nothing from UBL and the Mujaheddin? Will we reinvade AFG to get the CPT in 10 years?

Blow-back, deja vu, redux.

The cycle repeats itself, forever. And then over again.

[Bragi]

7. And we'll be spending our great-grandkids tax money

Wheeee!!

[leveymg]

8. to fight more secret wars with classified budgets in places that no one knows, for reasons we forgot

Round and round we go . . . History is mostly involution, not revolution.

[bemildred]

10. Death squads.

Same old same old.