CIA Director William Panetta
CIA Director Leon Panetta has said that there are between 50 and 100 Al Queda members in Afghanistan.
“I think at most, we’re looking at maybe 50 to 100, maybe less,” Panetta said on the Sunday morning political talk show This Week. “There’s no question that the main location of Al Qaeda is in tribal areas of Pakistan.”
Panetta said there is “no question” that the Taliban “is engaged in greater violence right now” than when Obama took office.
“In some ways, they are stronger, but in some ways, they are weaker as well,” he said, noting that the U.S. is “undermining their leadership, and that I think is moving in the right direction.”
Afghanistan
But as a result of the pressure put on Al Qaeda leadership in Pakistani tribal areas, Panetta said, leadership of terrorist group is “probably at its weakest point since 9/11 and their escape from Afghanistan into Pakistan.”
Panetta said that Osama bin Laden is in “the tribal areas in Pakistan,” where the terrain is “probably the most difficult in the world.” The US has not had “precise” information on bin Laden’s whereabouts since “the early 2000s,” Panetta added.
“Since then, it’s been very difficult to get any intelligence on his exact location,” he said.
Asked to describe what winning in Afghanistan would look like, Panetta responded, “Winning in Afghanistan is having a country that is stable enough to ensure that there is no safe haven for Al Qaeda or for a militant Taliban that welcomes Al Qaeda.”
Panetta also defended the CIA’s actions in the region, asserting that “there is no question that we are abiding by international law and the law of war.”
This was the first interview Panetta has given a Sunday morning talk show since being named CIA Director by Obama in January 2009.
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