Washington, June 30: The United States’ three top investigative agencies - the National Security Agency, the CIA and the Defence Intelligence Agency – are reportedly working in conjunction with Pakistani intelligence sleuths in targeting the Taliban leadership in Waziristan area of Pakistan.

According to a report by an investigative report in the US daily ‘New Yorker’, the attacks on the Taliban are launched with utmost care, ensuring that the American troops are not hit. And such attacks, with enough investigative inputs from Pakistani intelligence agencies, have proved successful, as, in the past several top Taliban leaders had been eliminated.

“We have to be really careful in calling in the missiles. We have to hit certain houses at certain times. The people on the ground are watching through binoculars a few hundred yards away and calling specific locations, in latitude and longitude. We keep the Predator loitering until the targets go into a house, and we have to make sure our guys are far enough away so they don’t get hit,” the daily Times quoted the report as saying.

A former official said reportedly said that one of the most prominent victims of the programme was Abu Laith al-Libi, a senior Taliban commander who was killed on January 31, in a missile strike that also killed 11 other people.

The programme is executed by professionals from the National Security Agency, the CIA and the Defence Intelligence Agency who are “right in there with the Special Forces and Pakistani intelligence, and they’re dealing with serious bad guys”, said the report.

Earlier, around three months back, another US daily the Washington Post had reported that there has been an increase in the number of successful strikes against the Taliban and other insurgent units in Pakistan’s Tribal Areas, and that in response the Taliban had killed “dozens of people” suspected of providing information to the US and its allies on the whereabouts of Taliban leaders. Many of the victims were thought to be American spies, and their executions — a beheading, in one case — were videotaped and distributed by DVD as a warning to others, the paper had reported. (ANI)