An Excerpt From the Book 'Spooked: How The CIA Manipulates The Media And Hoodwinks Hollywood'

The lobby of CIA headquarters in McLean, Virginia, on August 14, 2008. REUTERS/LARRY DOWNING

Nicholas Schou, Newsweek: Outing The CIA's "Undertaker"

The following is an excerpt of Spooked: How the CIA Manipulates the Media and Hoodwinks Hollywood (Hotbooks/Skyhorse), which will be published on June 28, 2016.

Remote even by the standards of Pakistan’s tribal areas, the Shawal Valley is surrounded by steep mountains that descend into thick forests interspersed with boulder-strewn alpine rivers. The valley is one of the final redoubts of Al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters who fled Afghanistan after the U.S. invasion. Numerous Pakistani military offensives have so far failed to dislodge the militants, although their ranks have been depleted by hundreds of American drone strikes.

In the weeks leading up to an operation in the Shawal Valley on January 2015, CIA-operated drones filmed four men coming and going from a building, who appeared to of military service age. Anonymous U.S. officials later told The New York Times that the agency had analyzed so-called “pattern of life” evidence to determine that the compound was being used by militants. The CIA said it had also intercepted cellphone calls and had obtained other intelligence indicating the four men were “Al-Qaeda operatives and possibly members of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan.”

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WNU Editor: I suspect that there are some active (and retired) CIA officers who are not happy with this book .... and a few reporters (many that I use for this blog) who are equally feeling uncomfortable.