March 2014 Update: US covert actions in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia

Published

April 1, 2014

Written by

Alice Ross and Jack Serle

This page is archived from original Bureau of Investigative Journalism reporting on US military actions in Yemen, Somalia, Pakistan and Afghanistan.

US drones were under scrutiny at the UN Human Rights Council this month (UN Photo/Jean-Marc Ferré)

There have been no reported drone strikes in Pakistan for more than three months

Strikes hit Yemen at an intensity not seen since July 2013

Another month without a US operation in Somalia, while African Union forces make advances

Naming the Dead identifies sixteen people killed by CIA drones in Pakistan

Pakistan

March 2014 actions

Total CIA strikes in March: 0

Total killed in strikes in March: 0

All actions 2004 – March 31 2014

Total Obama strikes: 332

Total US strikes since 2004: 383

Total reported killed: 2,296-3,718

Civilians reported killed: 416-957

Children reported killed: 168-202

Total reported injured: 1,089-1,639For the Bureau’s full Pakistan databases click here.

There has not been a drone strike in Pakistan for 96 days. The current pause is almost twice as long as 54-day break at the end of 2011.

Islamabad and the Pakistan Taliban (TTP) continued to hold peace talks but violence persisted on the part of both the state and militants. The Pakistan Air Force bombed the tribal regions and militants struck at the heart of the Pakistani capital.

On March 1 the TTP announced a month-long ceasefire. The next day the Pakistan government bombed Taliban commander Maulvi Tamanchey’s base in Khyber tribal agency, killing at least five. Pakistan blamed Tamanchey for killing 12 people in an attack on a polio vaccination team.

The day after the Khyber strike, suicide bombers and gunmen killed 11 people in an attack on the courts district of Islamabad. The TTP disowned the killings but a group called Ahrar ul Hind, reportedly a Taliban proxy, claimed responsibility for the attack. In addition, six Frontier Corps soldiers were killed three days later on March 5 – reportedly carried out by TTP-associated group Ansar ul Majahideen.

While there were no drone strikes in Pakistan, over the border five Afghan National Army soldiers were reportedly killed by US military drones. US military officials subsequently said manned aircraft were involved in the attack, in eastern Afghanistan.

Also this month, 26 members of the UN Human Rights Council (HRC) adopted a resolution, proposed by Pakistan, that called on states to be more transparent in recording drone strikes and casualties. Yemen and Switzerland were among the co-sponsors of the resolution.

The US, UK and France voted against the resolution. Several Nato members abstained, including Germany, Italy and the Czech Republic.

The resolution also called on the High Commissioner for Human Rights to organise an expert panel to examine the law around drone strikes. This was one of UN special rapporteur Ben Emmerson’s recommendations in his final report on drones.

Emmerson presented the report to the HRC this month. It included eight key legal questions. He told the HRC meeting in Geneva these ‘need to be urgently debated and if possible resolved’.

This month the Bureau finished reconciling information gained from a Pakistani document leaked to the Bureau that records drone strikes in Pakistan. The document corroborated two strikes recorded in the Bureau’s database as possible CIA drone strikes.

Yemen

March 2014 actions

Confirmed US drone strikes: 2 Further reported/possible US strike events: 4 Total reported killed in US operations: 4-19Civilians reported killed in US strikes: 0-1

All actions 2002 – March 31 2014*

Confirmed US drone strikes: 61-71

Total reported killed: 293-430

Civilians reported killed: 30-74

Children reported killed: 6

Reported injured: 76-187

Possible extra US drone strikes: 92-111

Total reported killed: 311-501

Civilians reported killed: 24-44

Children reported killed: 6-9

Reported injured: 81-114

All other US covert operations: 13-77

Total reported killed: 148-377

Civilians reported killed: 59-88

Children reported killed: 24-26

Reported injured: 22-115Click here for the full Yemen data.

* All but one of these actions have taken place during Obama’s presidency. Reports of incidents in Yemen often conflate individual strikes. The range we have recorded in US drone strikes and covert operations reflects this.

There were two confirmed drone strikes in Yemen this month, killing at least four people. These are the first confirmed US attacks this year.

In addition, there were four further, possible US attacks. These six attacks killed19 people in the space of 11 days. Covert bombings in Yemen have not seen this level of intensity since an international terror alert in July and August last year spurred the US to launch nine drone attacks in 15 days, killing at least 31 people.

Two attacks this month killed members of the Shabwan tribe. The first strike of the month killed Jaber Saleh al Shabwani, an alleged al Qaeda member, approximately 19-years old. He was the son of a respected Yemeni businessman in the oil industry. Jaber Saleh’s fellow tribesmen and alleged al Qaeda members Mohammed Jabir al Shabwani and Ebad al Shabwani, reportedly a friend of Jaber Saleh. Ebad was reportedly driving the car destroyed in the strike. His family later denied he was a part of al Qaeda and said he was a 16-year old boy.

The six attacks this month hit targets in four provinces – Abyan, Mareb, Shabwa, and Jawf – a vast area that forms a central band across the country from the Gulf of Aden to the Saudi Arabian border. Three quarters of all recorded attacks in Yemen have hit in these provinces.

Also this month, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula shot dead a man accused of being a spy. The group released a video of the alleged spy’s confession. Amin Abdullah Muhammad al Mualimi confessed to planting tracking chips on vehicles that killed seven alleged al Qaeda members in a strike at the end of 2012. His body was strung up between football goal posts in the eastern province of Hadramout as a warning to others.

Relatives of drone strike victims announced the formation of the National Organisation for Drone Victims, an advocacy group. It intends to highlight ‘the civilian impact of the covert programme’, according to legal charity Reprieve.

Somalia

March 2014 actions

Total reported US operations: 0

All actions 2007 – March 31 2014

US drone strikes: 5-8

Total reported killed: 10-24

Civilians reported killed: 0-1

Children reported killed: 0

Reported injured: 2-3

All other US covert operations: 8-11

Total reported killed: 40-141

Civilians reported killed: 7-47

Children reported killed: 0-2

Reported injured: 11-21Click here for the Bureau’s full data on Somalia.

There were no reported US operations in Somalia for the second month running. However UN-backed African Union peacekeepers Amisom has made gains against al Shabaab. Kenyan and Ethiopian troops have successfully retaken key towns, including El Bur and Hudur in central Somalia. The UN’s representative said the advances are ‘significant and geographically extensive’.

The US-trained multinational force has expanded, with up to 410 Ugandan troops reportedly being sent to the country, taking the Uaganda’s deployment to 6,223. The new troops are being deployed to guard UN institutions in Mogadishu, to ‘free the bulk of Amisom forces from escort duties to pursue al Shabaab in their hide-outs’. The move came two weeks after militants launched a bloody attack on the presidential palace in Mogadishu which is at the heart of what is supposed to be the most secure part of the city.

That attack last month demonstrated the al Qaeda-aligned militant group remains a potent threat. Al Shabaab’s economic power is significantly reduced but it retains the ability to carry out ‘almost daily operations of indiscriminate violence’, BBC Somalia editor Mary Harper told the Bureau’s podcast. This month a suicide bomber and al Shabaab gunmen killed at least 25 Amisom and Somali soldiers in an attack on a hotel in central Somalia.

Alleged Somali terrorists have been active in Kenya as well this month. On March 18 police arrested two alleged Islamist terrorists in Mombassa, They were reportedly carrying two large bombs which ‘would have caused massive destruction’ police said. The Kenyan government subsequently ordered the concentration of all Somali refugees in the country into two refugee camps, one on the Somali border and the other on the South Sudanese border. There are an estimated 1.1m Somali refugees in Kenya. Three days later, on March 31, a bomb attack left six people dead in the predominantly Somali Eastleigh neighbourhood of Nairobi.

The militants executed six men by firing squad who they accused of spying. On March 4 al Shabaab announced it had killed 29-year-old Mohammed Abdulle Gelle for helping US drones kill an al Shabaab commander in October 2013. Ahmed Abdullahi Farole, 47, was also shot dead. The militants claimed he was spying for the government in Puntland. Four others were also killed after similar accusations, including three unnamed men publicly executed in a single incident on March 28.

Naming the Dead

The Bureau has added 16 names to its Naming the Dead database. Bureau sources in Pakistan revealed the names of eleven men killed in a night strike on a house in June 2013. Four more civilians killed in the infamous ‘jirga strike’ on March 17 2011 were identified. They were named by a victims relative who was interviewed by production company Brave New Films. The transcript of the interview was given to the Bureau. A senior TTP member was identified by the Taliban as killed in a strike in October 2010.

Four new case studies have also been added to Naming the Dead. Atiyah Abd al Rahman was a Libyan, born in Misrata. CIA drones killed him in September 2011. Pakistani al Qaeda member Aslam Awan died in January 2012 in a strike that destroyed a mud-brick house. Tuersun Toheti died in August 2012 as an alleged key member of the East Turkestan Islamic Movement – a group of ethnic Uighurs fighting for an independent state in Xinjian, western China. And alleged Haqqani Network commander Sangeen Zadran was killed in strike on a house in North Waziristan.

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UK government must clarify position on drone intelligence-sharing, MPs say

Published

March 25, 2014

Written by

Alice Ross

Web link

This page is archived from original Bureau of Investigative Journalism reporting on US military actions in Yemen, Somalia, Pakistan and Afghanistan.

The £1bn Watchkeeper drone will not be used in Afghanistan, the report reveals (Photo: Defence Images)

The British government should be more transparent about intelligence-sharing that leads to covert drone strikes, say MPs in a report published today.

The call for greater transparency ‘in relation to safeguards and limitations the UK Government has in place for the sharing of intelligence’, came in a report on drones by the Defence select committee. The report acknowledged that intelligence-sharing was outside the committee’s remit and called on the Intelligence and Security Committee to examine the issue.

The report adds that it is ‘vital’ that a ‘clear distinction’ is drawn between UK drone operations and covert strikes such as those conducted by the US in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia.

The British government has refused to confirm or deny whether it shares locational intelligence with the US that could lead to drone strikes, including contesting a court case brought by Noor Khan, a Pakistani tribesman whose father was killed in an attack in March 2011.

Related story – GCHQ intel sharing for drone strikes may be ‘accessory to murder’

However, Ben Emmerson, the UN special rapporteur on counter-terrorism who has conducted a year-long investigation into the use of armed drones by the US, UK and Israel, told a parliamentary meeting last year that intelligence ties between the UK and US are so closely intertwined that it is ‘inevitable’ such sharing had taken place.

The select committee considered submissions from 21 experts and organisations including the Ministry of Defence (MoD), defence manufacturers, activist groups, and academics. Madeleine Moon MP, a Labour member of the committee, visited several British drone bases and spoke to pilots as part of the inquiry.

‘We consider that it is of vital importance that a clear distinction be drawn between the actions of UK Armed Forces in Afghanistan and those of other States elsewhere’– Defence select committee

The Bureau submitted evidence highlighting the prominent role played by UK-piloted drones in Afghanistan – data obtained by the Bureau shows that they have carried out over a fifth of all drone strikes in the country, and the proportion of strikes carried out by UK pilots has grown over time. The Bureau’s submission outlines the need for transparency on drone strikes.

Read the Bureau’s full submission here

The report is highly supportive of British drone operations and crew, who it described as ‘experienced professional personnel with a clear purpose and keen understanding of the Rules of Engagement which govern their operations’. It notes that British-piloted drones have killed civilians in a single incident, taking place in March 2011.

Conservative MP James Arbuthnot, chair of the committee, said in a statement that pilots are ‘no video gaming “warrior geeks” as some would portray them. Despite being remote from the battle space they exhibit a strong sense of connection to the life and death decisions they are sometimes required to take.’

Drones are a ‘key capability’, the report adds, and their use has helped avoid battlefield casualties and particularly civilian casualties. This is because the ‘persistence’ of drones – the length of time they can observe a scene – means that commanders are more aware of the situation.

However, the committee emphasised the differences between British battlefield operations and the operations of ‘other States’, including covert drone strikes away from internationally recognised armed conflicts such as those carried out by the US in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia.

‘We consider that it is of vital importance that a clear distinction be drawn between the actions of UK Armed Forces operating remotely piloted air systems in Afghanistan and those of other States elsewhere. On the basis of the evidence we have received we are satisfied that UK remotely piloted air system operations comply fully with international law,’ wrote the MPs.

Related story – UK drones three times more likely than US to fire in Afghanistan

They also call on the government to clarify its position on whether covert strikes such as those in Pakistan are legal under international law.

‘The Committee calls for the Government to ‘draw a clear distinction’ between UK use of armed drones and the US use outside of International Humanitarian Law situations. The best way to do this is for the UK government to condemn such use and to be clear that any intelligence it provides the US should not be used for unlawful attacks,’ Chris Cole of campaign group Drone Wars UK told the Bureau.

The Association for Military Court Advocates warned in its submission that drones offer ‘unparallelled opportunities for secrecy’, and the committee says the MoD should be ‘as transparent as it can be… in order to build public confidence about their use’. The report quotes the Bureau’s argument that it is ‘important that the British government establishes the international precedent of publishing a fuller record of drone strikes and their impact, to the extent that is operationally secure’.

Other topics tackled in the wide-ranging report include:

• Pilots and crewThe committee spoke to pilots and crew members, who listed ‘Upgrades to the sensor suites on the Reaper’ in order to do their jobs better. Reaper is often described as having top-of-the-range sensor equipment. Crews also said they needed more staff, and the Royal Aeronautical Society described the ‘strain’ on squadrons of delivering round-the-clock drone surveillance. Crews also called for a ‘UK training system’ rather than the current ‘reliance’ on the US Air Force for training.

• FutureAir Vice-Marshal Philip Osborn said in January that the Air Force has ‘every intention’ of carrying on using Reaper after the withdrawal from Afghanistan. But the report notes that it is unclear which other unmanned aircraft the UK will continue using after the end of 2014, and calls on the MoD to clarify this.

• AutonomyThe MoD told the committee that it has no intention of using fully autonomous armed drones. ‘[C]urrent UK policy is that the operation of weapon systems will always be under human control’, the report says.

• WatchkeeperThe UK originally awarded Thales UK a contract to develop the Watchkeeper surveillance drone in 2005, with the intention of deploying it in Afghanistan. In 2008 the committee was told that Watchkeeper would be ready for use by 2013. But the report notes that the aircraft did not begin flight training until this month, and ‘it is now unlikely that Watchkeeper will be utilised in Afghanistan, the theatre for which it was originally procured’. The programme has cost ‘approximately £1bn’, the report notes.

• NamingThe report describes the term ‘drone’ as ‘inaccurate and misleading as it fails to capture either their purpose or degree of technological sophistication’. It recommends ‘remotely piloted aircraft’ (RPA) and ‘remotely piloted air(craft) system’ (RPAS) as ‘the most accurate terms’ for referring to armed drones.

The full report is here

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Drones podcast: Al Shabaab still a potent threat, says BBC’s Somalia editor Mary Harper

Published

March 14, 2014

Written by

Bureau Reporter

Web link

This page is archived from original Bureau of Investigative Journalism reporting on US military actions in Yemen, Somalia, Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Al Shabaab remain a violent threat, even in Mogadishu (Albany Associates)

Somali militant group al Shabaab are still capable of indiscriminate violence, the BBC’s Somalia editor Mary Harper told the Bureau.

Al Qaeda-affiliated al Shabaab is still a considerable threat despite almost a decade of Western interventions, including drone strikes. It remains effective because it is focusing its efforts and resources on ‘almost daily operations of indiscriminate violence’.

Listen to the podcast.

However the group ‘has definitely been weakened in terms of its economic power,’ Harper told the Bureau. The group has lost control ‘of the most commercially vibrant parts of Mogadishu’ and Kismayo, a port town ‘from which it made millions and millions from the export of charcoal and other goods’.

The US targets ‘senior Islamist extremist operatives’ who were part of al Shabaab and al Qaeda, Harper said. However latterly she has seen a change in who is being targeted: ‘Certainly within the more recent strikes has been more to do with al Shabaab than al Qaeda. Whether that means al Qaeda’s East African leaders have abandoned Somalia, I don’t know.’

Also in this episode the Bureau’s podcast Alice Ross discusses the recent execution by militants of alleged US spies in Somalia and Yemen. And Jack Serle reports on an intense cluster of strikes in Yemen.

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Countries must investigate civilian drone death claims, says UN investigator Ben Emmerson

Published

March 12, 2014

Written by

Jack Serle

Web link

This page is archived from original Bureau of Investigative Journalism reporting on US military actions in Yemen, Somalia, Pakistan and Afghanistan.

UN investigator Ben Emmerson said investigating civilian casualties is a legal obligation (United Nations).

Yesterday UN investigator Ben Emmerson presented his latest report on drone strikes to the UN Human Rights Council (HRC) in Geneva.

Emmerson, a British lawyer and UN special rapporteur on counter-terrorism and human rights, said countries are under a ‘present and continual legal obligation’ to investigate claims of civilian deaths in drone strikes, and to publicly disclose the results of their investigations.

He said the escalation in reported drone strikes and civilian casualties in Yemen is ‘a cause for concern’. And he highlighted ‘a three-fold increase’ in civilian deaths from drone attacks in Afghanistan last year.

‘This is not a political demand for an explanation… the states responsible for these strikes are under a present and continual legal obligation.’– Ben Emmerson

Emmerson has been investigating the use of armed drones for 14 months. His report examined 37 drone strikes where there are reports of civilian casualties. The 37 is a sample of the strikes the US, UK and Israel have launched in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia and Gaza.

Related story: UN report identifies 30 drone strikes that require ‘public explanation’

The report reduces the the 37 strikes to a list of 30 in which either a single credible source or multiple sources report civilians casualties. Emmerson told the HRC these strikes require a ‘legal duty on the relevant states to provide a public explanation of the circumstances and a justification for the use of deadly force’.

He stressed: ‘this is not a political demand for an explanation’. He told delegates to the HRC: ‘In my judgement the states responsible for these strikes are under a present and continual legal obligation to disclose the results of their own fact finding inquiries or explain why it is that no such inquiries have so far taken place.’

The investigation did not conduct field research, but instead surveyed available evidence. Sixteen of the 30 strikes included in Emmerson’s report took place in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia. The Bureau has identified civilian casualties in each of them. One of the strikes, on June 23 2009, was among those identified by the Bureau when it investigated strikes in which civilians had been killed whilst attending funerals or going to help those injured in strikes.

Two other strikes in the Emmerson report, those on March 17 and June 15 2011, were included in a Bureau investigation that questioned claims made by John Brennan, then President Obama’s chief counter-terrorism adviser, that drones had gone nearly 11 months without killing civilians in Pakistan.

Related story: US must release data on civilian drone casualties, says UN report

Emmerson also referred to an interactive website produced by Forensic Architecture, based at Goldsmith’s College in London, and Situ Research in New York.

The sites of each of the 30 drone strikes included in the report are marked on an interactive map in the online platform. It combines video footage and pictures of the aftermath of the strike with witness testimony, satellite photographs and computer models to give more detailed analysis of the consequences of four of the strikes on the survivors and the surrounding area.

Emmerson intends to keep working with countries on legal issues around drone strikes and said he will update the website with fresh information.

Patterns of civilian casualties

Emmerson brought the HRC up to date on ‘the patterns of civilian casualties arising in the use of armed drones’. He noted that civilian casualties in Pakistan fell to zero in 2013 – the first time in nine years no confirmed civilian casualties were recorded.

Reports of civilian casualties have been falling since 2010 as has the civilian casualty rate – the average number of civilians reported dead in each drone strike on average.

Related story: UN launches major investigation into civilian drone deaths

There has not been a drone strike in Pakistan so far this year. Emmerson told the HRC: ‘The diplomatic and political efforts of Pakistan to bring these strikes to a halt so as to enable peace talks with the Tehrik e Taliban take place appear to have born fruit.’

Last month Rahimullah Yusufzai, a journalist and member of the Pakistani government’s negotiating team for the peace talks, told the Bureau that Islamabad had requested the hiatus.

However, ‘the picture in Afghanistan and Yemen is much less reassuring’, Emmerson said. Drones accounted for almost 40% of civilian casualties from air strikes in Afghanistan last year.

In Yemen, ‘a sharp escalation in the number of reported civilian casualties’ towards the end of 2013 is ‘a source of concern’, he added. On December 12 2013 a US military drone strike killed at least eight civilians traveling to a wedding celebration. The bride was among the injured.

International consensus

Emmerson told the HRC there is a ‘need to promote an international consensus on the core legal principles applicable to the use of armed drones in counter-terrorism operations.’

‘It’s important that a consensus now be reached, not just regionally but internationally.’ There are eight ‘key legal questions’ in his report ‘which need to be urgently debated and if possible resolved.’ To that end he recommended a panel of experts should be convened to debate these points at the September meeting of the UN HRC – something Pakistan ‘strongly endorses’, its ambassador told the meeting.

He recommended that international panel should discuss the legal issues identified in his report at the September HRC meeting.

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John Brennan marks first year at CIA amid no confirmed civilian drone deaths in Pakistan

Published

March 11, 2014

Written by

Jack Serle

Web link

This page is archived from original Bureau of Investigative Journalism reporting on US military actions in Yemen, Somalia, Pakistan and Afghanistan.

John Brennan accepted President Obama’s nomination as CIA director on January 7 2013. (Peter da Souza/White House)

John Brennan has now completed his first year as director of the CIA. In that time there has not been a confirmed report of a civilian casualty from a CIA drone strike in Pakistan, according to an analysis of Bureau drone strike data.

The frequency of drone attacks and casualty rates – the number of people killed in each strike on average – have been declining in Pakistan since 2010, the Bureau’s data shows. Civilian casualties have also declined. These trends have continued through Brennan’s tenure at CIA headquarters in Langley.

And there has not been a reported drone strike for more than two months in Pakistan.

There are several possible causes for the falls in frequency and death tolls of drone attacks on Pakistan, including increased public scrutiny of the drone campaign, and the mood within Pakistan, where drones – and particularly civilian casualties – have become increasingly politically controversial.

Brennan was closely involved in the drone campaign for years before taking over at Langley, having served since January 2009 as President Obama’s chief counter-terrorism adviser. Obama’s inauguration that month heralded a considerable increase in the frequency of drone strikes and the numbers of people killed.

This analysis of the Bureau’s data, from 2004 to the most recent attack on Christmas Day 2013, shows that two previous directors, Michael Hayden and Leon Panetta, oversaw the bloodiest period in the CIA’s drone programme in Pakistan.

Highly influential

Though Brennan has been in post for only a year, he has been a highly influential figure in Obama’s covert wars since before the president’s inauguration.

‘There are things the agency has been involved in since 9/11 that in fact have been a bit of an aberration from the traditional role’– John Brennan

In the weeks after the election, Obama made Brennan his chief adviser on counter-terrorism. From an office in the basement of the White House, Brennan began to craft the policies and procedures for targeted killings beyond the boundaries of ‘hot’ battlefields like Afghanistan.

CIA drones targeted Pakistan more times in President Obama’s first year in office than in the previous five years combined. But officials were reportedly trying to find ways to codify the lethal strikes in those first few months of the new administration.

It was Brennan who reportedly told Obama about the catastrophic failure of the first two CIA drone strikes of his presidency, according to Newsweek reporter Daniel Klaidman’s book Kill or Capture. On January 23 2009 CIA drones hit two houses in Pakistan’s tribal belt but both attacks missed their intended targets. At least 14 civilians were reportedly killed.

The career intelligence officer has spoken publicly in defence of the US’ use of drones. On June 29 2011 he said during a speech that US strikes in Pakistan were ‘surgically precise’ and had not killed a civilian since August 30 2010. The Bureau’s data shows this claim was untrue – the CIA killed at least 72 civilians in 117 strikes in that time. In April 2012 he defended the use of drones against al Qaeda as legal, ethical and wise.

The drone programme generally seems to be subject to external influence. At the time of writing there has not been a strike in Pakistan for 75 days. This is the longest gap between drone strikes and follows a request from Islamabad to suspend attacks during protracted peace talks between the Pakistani government and the Pakistan Taliban, according to anonymous US officials.

The declining frequency of strikes, which has continued during Brennan’s tenure as CIA director, could be due to external factors such as the fractious US-Pakistani relationship, or it could indicate the CIA’s gradual disengagement from targeted killings.

At his confirmation hearings for the post of CIA director, Brennan alluded to possible changes in the agency’s role in the covert drone war. He told the committee: ‘There are things the agency has been involved in since 9/11 that in fact have been a bit of an aberration from the traditional role.’

He added: ‘The CIA should not be doing traditional military activities and operations.’

In the year since, there have been several suggestions that the CIA would lose control of the drone campaign over Pakistan to the Pentagon’s elite and secretive unit, Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC).

Though it does appear the US is taking greater care in its drone strikes in Pakistan, US drones killed, on average, more civilians per strike in Yemen last year than any year before. There have been two confirmed US drone strikes already in 2014, killing at least five people, and possibly a further seven attacks killing at least nine.

Both the CIA and JSOC operate drones over Yemen and the Bureau cannot always identify which strikes are by the military and which by the CIA. However the CIA reportedly flies lethal operations from a drone base in Saudi Arabia.

Past directors

The CIA has had seven different directors in the nine years since the first strike in Pakistan. Leon Panetta was director from February 2009 to June 2011 – a time in the job that ‘would be known for the CIA’s aggressive – some would come to believe reckless – campaign of targeted killings’, according to New York Times reporter Mark Mazzetti in his book The Way of the Knife.

The casualty rates from drone strikes in Pakistan for each CIA director from 2004 to December 25 2013 (click to enlarge).

Panetta reportedly had a close relationship with Obama. According to both Klaidman and Mazzetti, two months after the CIA killed Baitullah Mehsud, the leader of the Pakistan Taliban, Panetta reportedly went to the White House with a list of requests that would drastically expand the CIA’s targeted killing programme. President Obama granted each demand, reportedly saying: ‘The CIA gets what it wants.’

There were more drone strikes during Panetta’s tenure than all other CIA directors combined. The intensity of the drone campaign meant a considerable number of people were killed. In total at least 1,482 people were killed in 223 strikes – at least 212 of them reportedly civilians.

Panetta’s predecessor, Michael Hayden, was director from 2006 to February 2009. In that time the CIA launched little over a fifth of the strikes they would go on to carry out under Panetta. But strikes under Hayden were far bloodier. The total casualty rate during Panetta’s time was over six people killed in each strike on average, and one civilian killed in each strike on average. Under Hayden drones were killing on average over eight people per strike and more than three civilians per strike.

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February 2014 Update: US covert actions in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia

Published

March 4, 2014

Written by

Alice Ross and Jack Serle

Web link

This page is archived from original Bureau of Investigative Journalism reporting on US military actions in Yemen, Somalia, Pakistan and Afghanistan.

US drones launched no attacks in Pakistan for the second month in a row

(Photo: US Air Force photo/Senior Airman Andrew Lee).

Pakistan military attacks Pakistan Taliban as the pause in drone strikes enters its third month.

One possible drone strike hits Yemen. More details of December 12 wedding strike emerge.

No US operations are reported in Somalia.

Pakistan

February 2014 actions

Total CIA strikes in February: 0

Total killed in strikes in February: 0

All actions 2004 – February 28 2014

Total Obama strikes: 330

Total US strikes since 2004: 381

Total reported killed: 2,412-3,701

Civilians reported killed: 416-951

Children reported killed: 168-200

Total reported injured: 1,122-1,606For the Bureau’s full Pakistan databases click here.

There has been no report of a drone strike in Pakistan since Christmas Day, making this the longest pause in drone strikes in the country since 2007.

Unnamed US officials said the attacks have been stopped during peace talks between the Pakistan government and the Pakistan Taliban (TTP). Rahimullah Yusufzai, the Pakistani journalist who is part of the negotiating team, confirmed to the Bureau that Islamabad had requested the pause: ‘Pakistani officials have discussed this with the US ambassador [to Pakistan] and said that serious talks would be derailed by a drone strike,’ he said.

On February 17 peace talks collapsed following unremitting violence by the TTP. The militants killed scores of people, including 23 members of the Frontier Corps, before the negotiations eventually halted.

The Pakistan military has carried out several air attacks on North Waziristan, targeting militant positions. There have been reports of heavy civilian casualties as well as claims that leading Taliban commanders have been killed. As many as 50,000 people have been displaced from North Waziristan by the threat of a Pakistan Army offensive.

Unnamed officials told reporters that the Obama administration is considering whether to authorise the killing of a US citizen, who is reportedly in hiding in Pakistan. This would be the second time the administration has taken such steps – the previous occasion was before the death of New Mexico-born preacher Anwar al Awlaki, who was eventually killed by a drone in Yemen in September 2011. The New York Times identified the potential target as a bombmaker who operates under the nom de guerre Abdullah al Shami.

A blockade of Nato supplies crossing into Afghanistan from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province in protest at drone strikes ended on February 27 after 98 days. The blockade was organised by PTI, the opposition party led by Imran Khan.

Local media reported that CIA director John Brennan secretly met Chief of the Army Staff General Raheel Sharif on February 21. It also emerged that General Lloyd Austin, chair of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, also met General Sharif days beforehand, and the men had discussed sealing the Afghan border in the event of a full-scale Pakistani offensive against militants in North Waziristan.

Kareem Khan, an anti-drones activist whose brother and son were killed in a drone strike, was removed from his home by uniformed and plain-clothes men days before he was due to travel to Europe. He was held for nine days and alleges he was tortured. After his release, he went ahead with his trip to Europe, addressing politicians in Berlin, the Hague and London alongside tribal journalist Noor Behram. He also gave an interview to the Bureau’s podcast.

Members of the European Parliament overwhelmingly voted in favour of a motion calling on EU states not to ‘perpetrate unlawful targeted killings or facilitate such killings by other states’. And legal charity Reprieve filed a complaint with the International Criminal Court accusing US allies of being complicit in war crimes.

UN special rapporteur Ben Emmerson published the second report of his year-long investigation into drone strikes. This included details of 30 drone strikes that ‘cross the threshold’ of requiring a ‘public explanation’ on the part of the state that carried them out. Eight of the strikes were in Pakistan, while a further six were in Yemen and one was in Somalia.

Yemen

February 2014 actions

Confirmed US drone strikes: 0 Further reported/possible US strike events: 1 Total reported killed in US operations: 0-4Civilians reported killed in US strikes: 0

All actions 2002 – February 28 2014*

Confirmed US drone strikes: 60-70

Total reported killed: 293-429

Civilians reported killed: 30-75

Children reported killed: 6

Reported injured: 74-185

Possible extra US drone strikes: 88-107

Total reported killed: 305-487

Civilians reported killed: 24-43

Children reported killed: 6-8

Reported injured: 79-112

All other US covert operations: 13-77Total reported killed: 148-377Civilians reported killed: 59-88Children reported killed: 24-26Reported injured: 22-115Click here for the full Yemen data.

* All but one of these actions have taken place during Obama’s presidency. Reports of incidents in Yemen often conflate individual strikes. The range in the total strikes and total drone strikes we have recorded reflects this.

There was one reported possible US drone strike in Yemen this month, though it is not clear if this was carried out by a different weapon, and whether the US or another party carried out the attack.

There are few confirmed details of the attack. But local and international media reported that an airstrike killed 0-4 people on February 3. The victims were not identified in media reports. Most sources alleged they were al Qaeda members, but one source said they could have been civilians.

More details emerged on the bloody strike on a wedding convoy on December 12 last year. Human Rights Watch (HRW) investigated the attack, reporting that it appears to violate several of the policy guidelines for targeted killing introduced by President Obama in May 2013. The investigation highlighted claims by multiple sources that some or all of the dead were civilians, but US officials told Associated Press an internal investigation had found that all the dead were allegedly members of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP).

In the process of investigating the strike, HRW spoke to President Abdel Rabbo Mansur al Hadi. The Yemeni leader said the UK, US, Yemen and Nato all participate in a secret ‘joint operations control room’ in Yemen’s capital, from which individuals who are ‘going to be targeted’ are identified. A Nato official denied it was involved in any such operations room. The UK declined to comment.

AQAP threatened more violence against the Yemeni security forces, and reportedly killed a cleric who spoke out against AQAP. There were claims a new shoe bomb threat to the US was being planned in Yemen.

It became clear that a tentative ceasefire signed between warring factions in the north of Yemen could collapse. And at the end of the month reports surfaced that Yemeni soldiers and Houthi separatists clashed, reportedly for the first time since 2010. It is not clear what this means for the planned political transition to a federal republic, made up of six states with more political and economic freedom from central government in Sanaa.

Somalia

February 2014 actions

Total reported US operations: 0

All actions 2007 – February 28 2014

US drone strikes: 5-8

Total reported killed: 10-24

Civilians reported killed: 0-1

Children reported killed: 0

Reported injured: 2-3

All other US covert operations: 8-11Total reported killed: 40-141Civilians reported killed: 7-47Children reported killed: 0-2Reported injured: 11-21Click here for the Bureau’s full data on Somalia.

There were no reported US operations in Somalia this month, but the US is reportedly increasing operations in the Horn of Africa. The BBC reported US troops are launching missions from Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti with increasing frequency.

Al Shabaab, the local militant group that has declared loyalty to al Qaeda, carried out an assault on the presidential compound, Villa Somalia, in the heavily fortified diplomatic and government quarter of Mogadishu. A spokesman for the militants said: ‘We sent well-trained mujahedin from our special forces to bring us the president dead or alive.’ The attack killed 12, nine of whom were alleged militants, according to the New York Times.

Also this month, the chief of Kenya’s defence force told journalists the FBI is holding the bodies of al Shabaab militants who attacked the Westgate Mall in Nairobi last year. General Julius Karangi said only four men took control of the upmarket Westgate shopping complex in September 2013, killing more than 60 people.

In February the Bureau completed an audit of its database of covert US operations in Somalia. Owing to the huge difficulties of reporting from the country, some of the incidents relied on single sources. We have now classed these as unconfirmed strikes, in line with the Bureau’s methodology. This has led to a fall in the number of strikes and casualties recorded in the tally. The unconfirmed strikes are still presented in the timeline, with the suffix ‘c’ added to the strike’s code.

Naming the Dead

The Bureau published a detailed case study of Jude Kenan Mohammad, who the US identified last year as one of four US citizens to have been killed in drone strikes under President Obama. And Kareem Khan shared with the Bureau previously unreported details about Khaliq Dad, a stonemason, and his brother Asif Iqbal, who both died in a strike on December 31 2009.

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UN report identifies 30 drone strikes that require ‘public explanation’

Published

March 1, 2014

Written by

Alice Ross

Web link

This page is archived from original Bureau of Investigative Journalism reporting on US military actions in Yemen, Somalia, Pakistan and Afghanistan.

A UN counter-terrorism expert has published the second report of his year-long investigation into drone strikes, highlighting 30 strikes where civilians are reported to have been killed.

The report, by British lawyer Ben Emmerson QC, identifies 30 attacks between 2006 and 2013 that show sufficient indications of civilian deaths to demand a ‘public explanation of the circumstances and the justification for the use of deadly force’ under international law.

Emmerson analysed 37 strikes carried out by the US, UK and Israel in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia and Gaza, to arrive at a ‘sample’ of strikes that he believes those nations have a legal duty to explain.

States must ‘conduct a prompt, independent and impartial fact-finding inquiry and to provide a detailed public explanation of the results’ – Ben Emmerson

Britain and the US conduct strikes as part of the armed conflict in Afghanistan, and the US also conducts covert strikes in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia.

Although Israel has never officially acknowledged using armed drones, Emmerson met with Israeli officials in the course of preparing his report and lists seven attacks in Gaza among those requiring investigation.

This report expands on an argument for the legal obligation for states to investigate and account for credible claims of civilian casualties, which Emmerson first laid out in his previous report, presented to the UN General Assembly in October.

Related story – US must release data on civilian drone casualties, says UN report

He writes: ‘in any case in which there have been, or appear to have been, civilian casualties that were not anticipated when the attack was planned, the State responsible is under an obligation to conduct a prompt, independent and impartial fact-finding inquiry and to provide a detailed public explanation of the results.’

A February 2010 attack in Afghanistan serves as a ‘benchmark’ of the kind of disclosure that should follow claims of civilian casualties.

After a US drone attack on a convoy of trucks reportedly killed up to 23 civilians, the International Security Assistance Force (Isaf), which runs international operations in Afghanistan, partially declassified the findings of its internal investigation. Emmerson writes that this report strongly criticised the crew’s actions and revealed ‘a propensity to “kinetic activity” [lethal action]’.

This level of transparency is rare.

The most recent incident featured in Emmerson’s report is a December 2013 attack that hit a wedding procession near Rada’a in Yemen, killing at least 12. Multiple sources have identified numerous civilian casualties among the dead, including a Human Rights Watch investigation published last week.

Three unnamed US officials told Associated Press after the publication of Human Rights Watch’s report that an internal investigation had found only alleged militants were killed – but no results of this investigation have yet been officially released.

Information is particularly scarce for activity in Somalia, Emmerson notes. The only strike from the country in the report is the February 2012 strike that killed former British citizen Mohamed Sakr, whose case the Bureau has reported on as part of its investigation into the British government’s deprivation of citizenship.

Neither the US nor the UK routinely publish details of their drone operations. The UK states that it has killed civilians in only one incident in Afghanistan, a March 2011 strike that killed four civilians.

The US has repeatedly dismissed the Bureau’s estimate that at least 400 civilians have died in Pakistan drone strikes as ‘ludicrous’; the CIA director John Brennan has said that claims of high civilian casualties amount to ‘disinformation’.

Emmerson notes that operations that kill civilians are not necessarily illegal under international law, but states have a duty of transparency where there are credible allegations of non-combatants being harmed.

The report does not take a position on the legality of drone strikes away from the battlefield, but says there is an ‘urgent and imperative need’ for international agreement on the legal arguments advanced in favour of covert lethal action.

The US has argued that its strikes are legal on two grounds: they are legitimate acts of self-defence against an imminent threat, and they are part of an armed conflict against an enemy, al Qaeda, and its ‘associated forces’. Emmerson asks a series of questions – about the thresholds for action in self-defence, the definition of ‘imminent’ threat, al Qaeda’s current state, and more – on which he says the international community must reach consensus.

Last week the European Parliament voted 534 to 49 in favour of a motion calling on the EU to develop a ‘common position’ on drone strikes and other targeted killings.

To date, Europe has remained largely silent on the issue, but the motion expressed ‘grave concern’ over drone strikes ‘outside the international legal framework’ and called on member states not to ‘facilitate such killings by other states’.

The UK has refused to clarify whether it shares intelligence with the US that could lead to drone strikes in Pakistan; in January the Court of Appeal ruled that any attempt to force the government to disclose such information could endanger international relations. In December, Emmerson told a meeting in parliament that such intelligence-sharing is ‘inevitable’ owing to the closeness of the relationship between the US and UK. ‘It would be absurd if it were not the case,’ he added.

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CIA chief pressed to support annual count of drone casualties

Published

February 5, 2014

Written by

Alice Ross

Web link

This page is archived from original Bureau of Investigative Journalism reporting on US military actions in Yemen, Somalia, Pakistan and Afghanistan.

The CIA director and other intelligence chiefs were urged to increase transparency over covert drone operations by members of the House intelligence committee yesterday.

Adam Schiff, a Democratic Party congressman, called on CIA director John Brennan, to support an annual report detailing the number of alleged militants and civilians killed each year. This would enable the administration to ‘correct the record at times where there are misleading claims of civilian casualties’, he added, without providing detailed information to enemies of the US.

Brennan said this was ‘certainly a worthwhile recommendation’, but he refused to explicitly back it, insisted that the decision rested with the administration.

He added: ‘There’s a lot of debate about what is the basis for those determinations [of civilian and combatant casualties], and those numbers, so it’s something again I would defer to the administration on’.

Yesterday he emphasised his past efforts to increase transparency around the secretive campaign: ‘When I was at the White House [where he was Obama’s adviser on counter-terrorism] … I spoke repeatedly publicly about the so-called drones – remotely piloted aircraft – that had become an instrument of war and I spoke about that to the extent that I could.’

Brennan has repeatedly attacked ‘misinformation’ over civilian death tolls from drone strikes but the US administration has consistently refused to publish anything more detailed than lump-sum estimates of deaths. Where the US has published such estimates they are significantly below all independent estimates, including those assembled by the Bureau, Washington think-tank the New America Foundation, and security blog the Long War Journal.

Related story – Incoming CIA boss says drone strikes are ‘last resort’

Drones and targeted killing were a recurring theme as the heads of five US intelligence agencies faced members of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence as part of a wide-ranging hearing over international threats to the US. The committee is one of two Congressional bodies charged with overseeing the activities of the intelligence community.

Schiff’s Democrat Party colleague Jan Schakowsky said that public attempts to debate the use of drones were ‘thwarted by a lack of transparency’.

She added: ‘This year both Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have conducted serious research and raised very legitimate concerns about the consequences of the drone programme on US security yet the government has not responded.’

The hearing opened with committee chair Mike Roberts criticising Obama’s drone policy guidelines, introduced in May 2013, as an ‘utter and complete failure’. He claimed they were ‘today, right now, endangering the lives of Americans at home and our military overseas’.

The guidelines included a restriction on targeting when civilian casualties were a possibility, and an insistence that lethal action should be a last resort, taken only when capture was not possible.

A Bureau analysis of the six months following the introduction of the guidelines found that in Yemen, the number of incidents that killed civilians had actually risen.

Schakowsky asked a series of questions of Clapper and Brennan about the controversial practice of signature strikes, in which unidentified individuals are targeted by drones based on suspicious behaviour.

Clapper conceded that the US’ use of signature strikes could pose a threat to the nation if other forces developed drones of their own.

Schakowsky asked: ‘Do you believe that the signature strike model, if adopted by other countries that are developing an armed drone programme, can be a threat to the US?’

Clapper responded: ‘It could be – but I would have to comment, to the extent that is possible here, on the great care that is exercised by the US. And so I would hope in being very precise about which targets we strike, so I would hope as other countries acquire similar capabilities that they follow the model that we have for the care and precision that we exercise.’

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