CIA activities in the Near East, North Africa, South and Southwest Asia
Encyclopedia
The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency
Central Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency is a civilian intelligence agency of the United States government. It is an executive agency and reports directly to the Director of National Intelligence, responsible for providing national security intelligence assessment to senior United States policymakers...

 conducts activities in the areas commonly called the "Middle East", or more precisely, North Africa, the Near/Middle East, and South and Southwest Asia.

North Africa

1966 National Intelligence Estimate on the Maghreb

The 1966 National Intelligence Estimate
National Intelligence Estimate
National Intelligence Estimates are United States federal government documents that are the authoritative assessment of the Director of National Intelligence on intelligence related to a particular national security issue...

 on the Maghreb
Maghreb
The Maghreb is the region of Northwest Africa, west of Egypt. It includes five countries: Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, and Mauritania and the disputed territory of Western Sahara...

 states as its goal, "To examine and assess trends and problems of the individual Maghreb states and of the area as a whole over the next two or three years." It continues "The three Maghreb states share a certain sense of identity, but this tends to be overshadowed by the differences between them. Some modest forms of economic cooperation are developing, but over the next few years nothing approaching economic integration or political unity is in sight." See the individual countries for details on the estimates pertaining directly to them.

"France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 will continue to be the single most important foreign influence in the Maghreb. The cultural link is likely to persist for some time, and France is the principal trading partner of each of the three countries. Algeria will continue to be the most favored by French subsidies and other economic aid, though throughout the area these will decrease over the longer term. None of the Maghreb countries is likely to become closely involved in the affairs of the Eastern Arab or sub-Saharan African states."

"Both Morocco
Morocco
Morocco , officially the Kingdom of Morocco , is a country located in North Africa. It has a population of more than 32 million and an area of 710,850 km², and also primarily administers the disputed region of the Western Sahara...

 and Tunisia
Tunisia
Tunisia , officially the Tunisian RepublicThe long name of Tunisia in other languages used in the country is: , is the northernmost country in Africa. It is a Maghreb country and is bordered by Algeria to the west, Libya to the southeast, and the Mediterranean Sea to the north and east. Its area...

 have border disputes with Algeria
Algeria
Algeria , officially the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria , also formally referred to as the Democratic and Popular Republic of Algeria, is a country in the Maghreb region of Northwest Africa with Algiers as its capital.In terms of land area, it is the largest country in Africa and the Arab...

, and both fear that Algeria may try to dominate North Africa. Algeria, on the other hand, fears that Morocco and Tunisia, backed by Western powers, might attempt to encircle it. These attitudes have contributed to a North African arms race, with Algeria receiving large amounts of Soviet arms, and Morocco and Tunisia pressing for extensive military aid from Western powers, particularly the US. Algeria's military capabilities are now greater than those of Morocco and Tunisia combined, and we believe Algeria would seek additional Soviet arms if a major build-up of Moroccan or Tunisian forces occurred.

"Despite the tensions among the Maghreb states, none is likely to mount a deliberate major armed attack against a neighbor during the period of this estimate. Limited border conflicts may occur, but they would probably be localized and of short duration."

1972 FRUS summary

"Early in President Richard Nixon
Richard Nixon
Richard Milhous Nixon was the 37th President of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. The only president to resign the office, Nixon had previously served as a US representative and senator from California and as the 36th Vice President of the United States from 1953 to 1961 under...

's first term, officials monitoring U.S.-North African relations had grounds for some satisfaction. U.S. ties with Morocco, Tunisia, and Libya
Libya
Libya is an African country in the Maghreb region of North Africa bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to the east, Sudan to the southeast, Chad and Niger to the south, and Algeria and Tunisia to the west....

 were firm. Although Algeria had not yet resumed diplomatic relations broken during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, its economic links with the United States were expanding. Yet for all North African governments, friendly or otherwise, the Arab-Israeli issue complicated relations with Washington. The conflict was a major factor in continuing Algerian resistance to reestablishing formal ties with Washington. In Libya, a military junta, pledging internal reform and espousing Arab nationalism and the Palestinian cause, overthrew the unpopular pro-western monarchy in September 1969. Thereafter, the administration’s concern over Israeli sensibilities influenced its decision not to fulfill its aircraft contract with the Libyan government, to the detriment of U.S.-Libyan relations. In Morocco, Washington was allied with King Hassan
Hassan II of Morocco
King Hassan II l-ḥasan aṯ-ṯānī, dial. el-ḥasan ettâni); July 9, 1929 – July 23, 1999) was King of Morocco from 1961 until his death in 1999...

, partly for his "moderate" stand on issues like the Arab-Israeli question. Yet as Hassan moved Morocco towards more representative government, he warned that Morocco’s firm support for the United States could change. Even Tunisia, a staunch U.S. ally, pushed Washington for a more energetic pursuit of Middle East
Middle East
The Middle East is a region that encompasses Western Asia and Northern Africa. It is often used as a synonym for Near East, in opposition to Far East...

 peace, but was disappointed.

"The challenge for the North African states was to forge beneficial relations with the United States, the USSR, and France, while still maintaining their independence. Washington's support of Israel, however, strained North African-U.S. relations. Regional governments pressed the United States to resolve the Middle East crisis and attempted to defuse the issue themselves. In 1969, Morocco hosted two conferences, one Islamic and one Arab, in an attempt to seize the initiative on the Middle East from Arab "radicals" and bolster its fellow "moderates." Arab nationalists took heart from the Libyan coup in September 1969, and it prompted U.S. officials to reexamine trends and options in North Africa in January 1970.

"U.S. analysts concluded that Algeria and Morocco were likely to remain politically stable in the near future, in the latter case due to King Hassan’s tight grip on power. However, in Tunisia, where the ailing President Bourguiba was likely to step down, and Libya, where an inexperienced military junta ruled, the reports predicted political turmoil. Still, without a major Arab-Israel war or western disengagement, analysts saw no significant likelihood of Soviet dominance of the area. The National Security Council (NSC) Interdepartmental Group agreed in 1970 that, to maintain its regional interests, the United States should continue an active relationship with all North African governments, but also welcome a Western European presence. Since U.S. influence was limited by Washington’s close identification with Israel, Western Europe, particularly France, could provide the counterpoise to the Soviets in North Africa. THE END

Middle East

Arabian Peninsula

On November 5, 2002, Al-Qaeda
Al-Qaeda
Al-Qaeda is a global broad-based militant Islamist terrorist organization founded by Osama bin Laden sometime between August 1988 and late 1989. It operates as a network comprising both a multinational, stateless army and a radical Sunni Muslim movement calling for global Jihad...

 operatives Abu Ali al-Harithi, Kamal Derwish and others in a car traveling through Yemen
Yemen
The Republic of Yemen , commonly known as Yemen , is a country located in the Middle East, occupying the southwestern to southern end of the Arabian Peninsula. It is bordered by Saudi Arabia to the north, the Red Sea to the west, and Oman to the east....

 were killed in a targeted killing
Targeted killing
Targeted killing is the deliberate, specific targeting and killing, by a government or its agents, of a supposed terrorist or of a supposed "unlawful combatant" who is not in that government's custody...

 by a missile launched from a CIA-controlled Predator drone
RQ-1 Predator
The General Atomics MQ-1 Predator is an unmanned aerial vehicle used primarily by the United States Air Force and Central Intelligence Agency...

.
On September 30, 2011 Anwar al-Aulaki, a Yemeni-American U.S. citizen and al-Qaeda member, was killed by an air attack carried out by the Joint Special Operations Command. After several days of surveillance of al-Aulaki by the Central Intelligence Agency
Central Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency is a civilian intelligence agency of the United States government. It is an executive agency and reports directly to the Director of National Intelligence, responsible for providing national security intelligence assessment to senior United States policymakers...

, armed drone
Unmanned aerial vehicle
An unmanned aerial vehicle , also known as a unmanned aircraft system , remotely piloted aircraft or unmanned aircraft, is a machine which functions either by the remote control of a navigator or pilot or autonomously, that is, as a self-directing entity...

s took off from a new, secret American base in the Arabian Peninsula, crossed into northern Yemen and unleashed a barrage of Hellfire missiles at al-Aulaki's vehicle. Samir Khan
Samir Khan
Samir ibn Zafar Khan was the Pakistani American editor and publisher of Inspire magazine, an English language online magazine reported to be published by al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula , in which he authored articles such as "Make a Bomb in the Kitchen of Your Mom"...

, a Pakistani-American al-Qaeda member and editor of the jihadist Inspire
Inspire (magazine)
Inspire is an English language online magazine reported to be published by the organization al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula . The use of the magazine is to increase the availability of their message without challenges to their value system. The magazine is one of the many ways AQAP uses the...

magazine, also reportedly died in the attack. The combined CIA/JSOC drone strike was the first in Yemen since 2002 — there have been others by the military’s Special Operations forces — and was part of an effort by the spy agency to duplicate in Yemen the covert war which has been running in Afghanistan and Pakistan. .

The Levant

South Asia

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