Secret order allows U.S. raids abroad

WASHINGTON — The U.S. military since 2004 has used broad secret authority to carry out nearly a dozen previously undisclosed attacks against al-Qaida and other extremists in Syria, Pakistan and elsewhere, say senior U.S. officials.

These military raids, typically carried out by Special Operations forces, were authorized by a classified order that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld signed in 2004 at the direction of President Bush, the officials said. It gave the military new authority to attack al-Qaida anywhere in the world, and a more sweeping mandate to conduct operations in countries not at war with the United States.

In 2006, for example, a Navy Seal team raided a suspected extremists' compound in the Bajur region of Pakistan, according to a former top CIA official. Officials watched the entire mission — captured by the video camera of a remotely piloted Predator aircraft — in real time in the CIA's headquarters in Virginia 7,000 miles away.

Some of the military missions have been conducted in close coordination with the CIA, according to senior U.S. officials, who said that in others, like the Special Operations raid in Syria on Oct. 26 of this year, the military commandos acted in support of CIA-directed operations.

But as many as a dozen additional operations have been canceled in the past four years, after senior administration officials decided they were too risky or diplomatically explosive.

More than a half-dozen officials, including current and former military and intelligence officials as well as senior Bush administration policymakers, described details of the 2004 military order on the condition of anonymity. Spokesmen for the White House and the Defense Department declined to comment.

Apart from the 2006 raid into Pakistan, the U.S. officials wouldn't talk about the nearly dozen previously undisclosed attacks, except to say they were carried out in Syria, Pakistan and other countries.

They said there were no raids into Iran using that authority, but they suggested U.S. forces had carried out reconnaissance missions in Iran using other classified directives.

According to a senior administration official, the authority was spelled out in a classified document called "al-Qaida Network Exord," or execute order, that streamlined the approval process for the military.

The 2004 order was a step marking the evolution of how the U.S. government sought to kill or capture al-Qaida terrorists. It was issued after the Bush administration had granted America's intelligence agencies sweeping power to secretly detain and interrogate terrorism suspects in overseas prisons and to conduct warrantless eavesdropping.

The 2004 order identifies 15 to 20 countries, including Syria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen and several other Persian Gulf states, where al-Qaida militants were believed to be operating or to have sought sanctuary, a senior administration official said.

Even with the order, each mission requires high-level government approval. Targets in Somalia, for instance, need at least the approval of the defense secretary, while targets in a handful of countries, including Pakistan and Syria, require presidential approval.

The Pentagon has exercised its authority frequently in recent years, dispatching commandos to countries including Pakistan and Somalia.

22 killed in blasts

during rush hour

BAGHDAD — A suicide bomber struck today in the middle of a crowd gathered around the site of a separate explosion that had gone off moments earlier in the Iraqi capital, and both blasts killed at least 22 people and wounded 42 others, police said.

The twin blasts occurred moments apart during the morning rush hour in the Kasrah section of Azamiyah neighborhood in the northern part of Baghdad.

Police said the first explosion was in a car. The second happened when a suicide bomber detonated an explosive belt in the middle of a crowd that had gathered around the vehicle.

Police officials who gave the toll spoke on condition of anonymity.

The Associated Press