THE rate of strikes by pilotless United States "drone" aircraft on insurgents in Pakistan is rising under Barack Obama and could pick up further after a White House review of regional war strategy, according to analysts.
There have been 39 drone strikes in Pakistan since the US president took office not quite nine months ago, according to a tally of reports from Pakistani security officials, local government officials and residents.
That compares with 33 strikes i
n the 12 months before he was sworn in on 20 January.
The air strikes, many using "Hellfire" missiles, are credited with killing Pakistani Taleban leader Baitullah Mehsud in August, a much-lauded success that has stoked renewed interest in the potential of robotic warfare.
But as the White House reviews hi-tech counter-terrorism options in Pakistan and Afghanistan, critics of drone technology are questioning the effectiveness of targeted killings and the usefulness of a campaign fanning anti-US sentiment.
Henry Crumpton, a former official at the CIA and the state department, called the Pakistan strikes "one of the most widely known secrets the CIA has".
The CIA and the Pentagon refuse to discuss the programme, which remains highly unpopular in Pakistan. The air strikes are seen as a violation of national sovereignty and are blamed for killing scores of civilians there.
So, even as the US ramps up the training of controllers for the pilotless drones and acquisitions of so-called "unmanned aerial systems," it is doing so quietly.
Pilotless aircraft are far cheaper than manned fighter jets and can track and target insurgents in places where US troops on the ground cannot. Their missions also pose no risk to US pilots, who can control them remotely from offices thousands of miles away.
The technology is attractive for the same reason in Afghanistan, as US commanders look to keep casualties low.
"It's safe to say that (the defence department's] inventory of these aircraft is going to continue to grow, and continue to grow pretty robustly over the next five years," said its deputy director, Dyke Weatherington.
Among the "combat-ready" drones are about 100 Predator aircraft and some 15 bigger, faster Reapers that are deployed in support of combat operations, Mr Weatherington said.
The Website www.longwarjournal.com estimates that 447 people were killed in Pakistan in air strikes between January and September this year. It says one in three strikes killed so-called high-value targets, while less than 10 per cent of the fatalities were civilians. But others claim the civilian death toll may be much higher.
CIA director Leon Panetta signalled after moving into his post that the strikes, first ramped up under the Bush administration last September, had been successful and would continue.
US vice-president Joe Biden is advocating increased use of drones against al-Qaeda targets in Pakistan and Afghanistan in the White House review of war strategy, sources say.
Proponents say the drones have had the added effect of spreading fear among militants – they widely believe the CIA has managed to implant captured fighters with location devices, before releasing them in order to track targets for the aircraft more accurately.
But even supporters acknowledge that the drone strikes cannot dismantle al-Qaeda by themselves and have not netted leaders near the stature of Osama bin Laden or his No2, Ayman al-Zawahari. That would require better intelligence.
Peter Singer, of the Brookings Institution in Washington DC, questioned whether the US wasn't rooting out some insurgents just to see others pop up elsewhere – as in the children's game "whack-a-mole".
