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

Published

February 3, 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.

Noor Khan’s legal challenge to drones in the English courts was rejected this month (Photo: Reprieve).

January was the first month in two years without a drone strike in Pakistan.

The first civilian casualty of the year was reported in a possible drone strike in Yemen.

A rare drone strike – the second in three months – hit Somalia.

Pakistan

January 2014 actions

Total CIA strikes in January: 0

Total killed in strikes in January: 0

All actions 2004 – January 31 2014

Total Obama strikes: 330

Total US strikes since 2004: 381

Total reported killed: 2,537-3,646

Civilians reported killed: 416-951

Children reported killed: 168-200

Total reported injured: 1,128-1,557For the Bureau’s full Pakistan databases click here.

January was the first calendar month without a strike since December 2011, when US-Pakistan relations hit a nadir.

At the end of 2011 the CIA stopped strikes in Pakistan amid a diplomatic crisis caused by a series of incidents. The year had seen the arrest of a CIA contractor in Lahore, the secret US raid to kill Osama bin Laden, and the death of 24 Pakistani border guards in a botched Nato airstrike in November. At that point strikes paused for 55 days.

This month, the Bureau published a leaked Pakistani document showing details of more than 300 CIA attacks between 2006 and late 2013. It is the most complete official record of the covert campaign to be placed in the public domain. Although overall casualties closely match independent estimates such as the Bureau’s, the routine recording of civilian casualties stops suddenly at the start of 2009. And several entries in the document appear to contradict the rare public statements on individual strikes released by the US.

January 23 marked five years since the first drone strike of the Obama presidency. A Bureau analysis shows that under Obama the US has launched over 390 drone strikes in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia, killing 2,400 – six times more than his predecessor President Bush. However the number of people killed on average in each strike has fallen during Obama’s two terms.

The Pakistan Taliban (TTP) carried out a series of attacks in January. The bombing of a military convoy killed more than 20 soldiers – the bloodiest single Taliban attack on the army, according to the Financial Times. Three polio workers were killed in Karachi. And a suicide bomber killed 13 people in a market near the Pakistan army headquarters in Rawalpindi.

The Pakistan military has carried out strikes around Miranshah and Mir Ali in North Waziristan. Pakistan Air Force attacks have reportedly killed dozens of alleged militants, including three Germans and 33 Uzbeks in one incident. There have been reports of civilian casualties and thousands more fled the region.

Prime minister Nawaz Sharif dispatched a team to negotiate with the Taliban, despite having indicated earlier in the month that he was ready to take the fight to the militants. To date, the Pakistan military has not launched an all-out assault in North Waziristan like the 2009 attacks on Swat and South Waziristan.

Imran Khan’s opposition party PTI continues to block a key supply line into Afghanistan, despite warnings from US defence secretary Chuck Hagel in December that Pakistan could lose billions of dollars in military aid if the blockade continues.

Also this month, the Court of Appeal in London stopped a Pakistani citizen’s legal challenge to discover if UK officials are complicit in CIA drone strikes in Pakistan. For two years, Noor Khan has been trying to get English courts to examine whether UK officials at GCHQ share information about targets in Pakistan with the CIA, and whether this could therefore make British spies complicit in murder or war crimes.

Yemen

January 2014 actions

Confirmed US drone strikes: 0 Further reported/possible US strike events: 4 Total reported killed in US operations: 0-7Civilians reported killed in US strikes: 0-1

All actions 2002 – January 31 2014*

Confirmed US drone strikes: 59-69

Total reported killed: 287-423Civilians reported killed: 24-71Children reported killed: 6Reported injured: 74-185

Possible extra US drone strikes: 87-106

Total reported killed: 306-486

Civilians reported killed: 24-47

Children reported killed: 6-8

Reported injured: 79-110

All other US covert operations: 12-77Total reported killed: 144-377Civilians 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.

At least four possible US drone strikes hit Yemen in January, all in the first half of the month. An unnamed farmer was reportedly among the 6-7 killed in these attacks.

Several media sources reported that the farmer was walking home early on the morning of January 15 when US drones targeted a vehicle carrying alleged members of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). Although the car’s passengers were injured, the farmer – or bystander – was reportedly the only person killed. This account was later contradicted by a ‘well-informed source’ who told al Hayat the strike killed alleged al Qaeda member Abdel Majid al Shahry – a Saudi national.

Two men injured in the first reported US strike of January were civilians, according to their parents. The wounded men were identified as Adnan Saleh al Taysi and Ibrahim Hussein al Aarif. As many as 10 members of the al Taysi family reportedly died in a drone strike that hit a wedding convoy in December. Up to 15 civilians were killed in this US attack on December 12. This month US officials confirmed an investigation into the claims of civilian deaths is underway.

The final reported strike this month, also on January 15, killed 3-4 people in Wadi Abeeda. Mohammed Saeed Jardan, an alleged militant and local to the area, was reportedly among the dead.

Also this month, three peers from the Conservatives, Labour and Liberal Democrats tabled amendments to the Defence Reform Bill that would increase scrutiny of US forces based in the UK. The draft reforms include establishing scrutiny groups to ensure US operations in Britain comply with domestic law. The proposed changes were prompted by reports that bases in the UK are part of the US drone war in Yemen and Somalia.

Somalia

January 2014 actions

Total reported US operations: 1Total killed in strikes in January: 2-9

All actions 2007 – January 31 2014

US drone strikes: 5-11Total reported killed: 11-39Civilians reported killed: 0-16Children reported killed: 0Reported injured: 2-24

All other US covert operations: 8-15Total reported killed: 48-150Civilians reported killed: 7-42Children reported killed: 1-3Reported injured: 13-21Click here for the Bureau’s full data on Somalia.

The US military launched its first drone strike of the year in Somalia, killing 2-9 people. It was the first reported US action in the country since October 2013.

The attack targeted al Shabaab leader Ahmed Abdi Godane, according to anonymous US officials. But a source in the African Union peacekeeping force said Godane survived the attack. Several sources said Sahal Iskudhuq, a senior al Shabaab figure, was killed. He may have been meeting Godane ‘right before the attack‘.

Unnamed US officials told CNN the US had targeted Godane in the strike. One of them said he posed a threat to US interests in the region. As Sarah Knuckey reported, this appeared to contradict a restriction on drone attacks set out in a summary of President Obama’s new rules, released in May 2013. The summary read: ‘The United States will use lethal force only against a target that poses a continuing, imminent threat to US persons.’

Also this month, the UN-backed African Union Mission in Somalia (Amisom) announced more than 4,000 Ethiopian soldiers had become part of the peacekeeping force. Ethiopia unilaterally invaded Somalia in 2007, and remained in the country for two years, nominally supporting the central government against the Islamic Courts Union, a loose affiliation of clans and groups that governed most of the country. Al Shabaab was a peripheral member of the ICU at the time.

During Ethiopia’s presence in the country, its troops were accused of war crimes, notably by Amnesty International. The addition of Ethiopian troops to Amisom ‘will not be popular in Somalia’, EJ Hogendoorn, a Somalia expert at the International Crisis Group, told the Bureau.

Hogendoorn said: ‘Al Shabaab was able to use the Ethiopian “occupation” for recruiting and fundraising. They received a lot of support from the diaspora not because of their ideology but because they were seen as the most effective force fighting “Ethiopian colonisation”. They will seek to do the same thing this time around.’

Naming the Dead

It emerged that US drones killed a German last year. The man, whose name has been anonymised as Patrick K, came from was from Hesse, near Hamburg and was reportedly killed in a strike on February 16 2012.

Previous reporting on the strike only mentioned unnamed Uzbeks dying. But a video purportedly produced by the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan claimed Patrick died alongside Uzbek fighters. He was reportedly approached to become a source for German intelligence before leaving for Pakistan.

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Incident Code

USSOM030-C

Incident date

January 26, 2014

Location

Haway, Lower Shabelle, Somalia

Geolocation

1.1682, 43.71413 Note: The accuracy of this location is to Village level. Continue to map

Airwars assessment

Two civilian children were reported killed and their father severely injured when a US military drone strike attack seemingly directed at nine al Shabaab members struck Hawai, Lower Shabelle, international and local media reported. The strike was said to have targeted and failed to kill Ahmed Abdi Godane.

While there initially were no reports of civilian harm, two Somali herders launched a legal case more than a year later, in November 2015, claiming they had been caught up in this strike. The men brought a war crimes suit against the Dutch government, saying the Netherlands’ spies had provided the US with the intelligence to prosecute this strike. Both men said their cattle herds were largely wiped out in the strike.  Omar Mahamud Ali – named by De Volkskrant – said the attack had killed two of his daughters. He also lost a leg. The news organisation conducted a detailed interview:

“The blow is deafening and the earth is shaking. The second blow comes right after it. He didn’t even have time to look up. The drone’s Hellfire rockets hit the land cruisers, which set them on fire. The men from the wagons are later found mutilated beyond recognition, a witness tells press agency AP. He also tells that masked men of Al Shabaab come to the place that night in the dark, screaming that God is great, to scrape the remains out of the burnt-out wagons, put them in bags, and tear them away. International media also show that the intended target Ahmed Godane will not be hit that day. He is not in the affected pick-ups. However, another leader of Al Shabaab dies: Sahal Iskuduq.

Daddy’, screams Nimo. ‘Papá.’ Immediately there is the pain. It felt like a stone was going through my leg,’ says Omar. And something had happened to my head. I couldn’t see anything anymore.’

There is smoke everywhere, there are big clouds of sand everywhere. It is the last thing he sees, before it turns black. The hard blow has just been, as Nuur runs to the place where he sees black smoke and high flames. The place where his cattle stood. He sees off-road vehicles burning.

Suddenly he sees Omar lying there.

Less than two hours ago they were talking under the big tree. They are nomads of the same clan. And now Omar lies here unconscious on the goat path. In his head are shards, and his leg is open. There is blood everywhere. Further on there are dead sheep, goats and cows. Then he sees two girls between the carcasses. Omar’s daughters.

Saharo’s body is badly damaged. Nimo has been hit in her belly, but she is still alive. Around them, the people of their tribe come running to help. Everyone has heard the blow. But the men of Al Shabaab chase them away. They don’t want any prying eyes. The nomads have to remove their dead and wounded quickly.

Nure Saharo gently lifts up Omar’s favourite daughter. She is dead. For half an hour he carries the corpse, on his way to her mother, who doesn’t know anything yet. He runs. I was scared’, Nuur later says, ‘that there would be a second attack’.

With the girl in his arms he stands before her.

‘Sabr’, he says. Be strong.

Her mother screams when she sees her daughter. But there is not much time. She washes her daughter’s body. Together they look for a white cloth, which they wrap around the girl. In the cemetery they dig a hole, but they don’t hold a ceremony. The men of Al Shabaab disapprove of that. They don’t want to put branches on the grave, Nuur says. They call out ‘Get out’.

It is unclear how much time it takes, but he only opens his eyes again in a hospital bed in Merca. There he sees his wife and Nuur together at his bedside, he says. Around them it is white. He feels a stabbing pain in his head and leg. Everything is blurred. For a moment he thinks he is home.

What is this here?’, he asks. When did I come here?

His wife is crying. Sabr’, she says to him now. Be strong. It came from above, as an act of God. He has written this. That’s how it goes in this world.’ It is her way of warning him of the story that is to come.

Saharo is dead.

And so is Nimo.”

These civilian casualty claims were not mentioned in any of the initial reports, which said the strike hit a vehicle and killed an al Shabaab commander and others about 200 miles south of Mogadishu. It emerged after the attack that Godane was near the site of the strike but escaped alive. He was killed on September 1st the same year.

The slain al Shabaab commander was named as Sahal Iskudhuq (aka Ahmed Abdulkadir). Voice of America reported Iskudhuq was one of Godane’s senior aides. Locals told RBC Radio he was a “senior figure” in Amniyat, the militant group’s intelligence unit, adding that he was a Somali who had trained abroad and “fought along with senior foreign fighters in Somalia”.

Voice of America reported Iskudhuq and Godane may have been meeting before the attack and “Godane was supposed to travel in the car that night”. The agency also reported claims “al Shabaab has since detained several people in Barawe on suspicion of spying”.

Al Shabaab commander Abu Mohamed told Associated Press Iskudhuq “had previously been in charge of kidnappings of foreigners and ransom deals for the group but recently turned to working with its intelligence unit”. Voice of America reporter Harun Maruf tweeted further details about Iskudhuq:

An anonymous US official told the VOA news agency that the target was a senior member of al Shabaab. Another said the US had “been tracking this guy for years”. Unnamed US officials also confirmed it was a US strike to Associated Press and Reuters. Somali intelligence confirmed an attack on a “dangerous” militant and added that a driver had also been killed.

Dhanaan reported the highest number of militant fatalities as it cited an unnamed eye witness who said that nine al Shabaab members were killed while adding that their car  was left completely destroyed.

Al Shabaab reportedly abducted 17 people, including four al Shabaab members, in apparent retaliation for this strike. They told an elder they were searching for people working for the US.

The incident occured in the evening.

The victims were named as:

Family members (3)

Omar Mahamud Ali
Adult male Lost leg in action injured
Saharo
8 years old female killed
Nimo
9 years old female killed

Summary

  • Strike status
    Declared strike
  • Strike type
    Airstrike
  • Civilian harm reported
    Yes
  • Civilians reported killed
    2
  • (2 children)
  • Civilians reported injured
    1
  • Cause of injury / death
    Heavy weapons and explosive munitions
  • Airwars civilian harm grading
    Fair
    Reported by two or more credible sources, with likely or confirmed near actions by a belligerent.
  • Known attacker
    US Forces
  • Known target
    Al-Shabaab
  • Belligerents reported killed
    1–9

Sources (22) [ collapse]

Media
from sources (1) [ collapse]

  • Omar Mahamud Ali (image montage by De Volkskrant)

Geolocation notes

Reports of the incident mention that the strike took place on the plains around the village Haway. The coordinates for Haway are: 1.1682, 43.71413. Due to limited information and satellite imagery available to Airwars, we were unable to verify the location further.

US Forces Assessment:

  • Known belligerent
    US Forces
  • US Forces position on incident
    Not yet assessed

Original strike reports

US Forces
Official source

The Sand Diego Union-Triune/AP, January 27th, 2014:

"Two U.S. military officials confirmed that there was a missile strike against a senior al-Shabab leader in Somalia on Sunday. The officials wouldn't identify the target of the strike, and one of them said U.S. intelligence is still "assessing the effectiveness of the strike.""

Summary

  • Strike status
    Declared strike
  • Strike type
    Airstrike
  • Civilian harm reported
    Yes
  • Civilians reported killed
    2
  • (2 children)
  • Civilians reported injured
    1
  • Cause of injury / death
    Heavy weapons and explosive munitions
  • Airwars civilian harm grading
    Fair
    Reported by two or more credible sources, with likely or confirmed near actions by a belligerent.
  • Known attacker
    US Forces
  • Known target
    Al-Shabaab
  • Belligerents reported killed
    1–9

Sources (22) [ collapse]

More than 2,400 dead as Obama’s drone campaign marks five years

Published

January 23, 2014

Written by

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

Obama has launched over 390 covert drone strikes in his first five years in office (Pete Souza/White House).

Five years ago, on January 23 2009, a CIA drone flattened a house in Pakistan’s tribal regions. It was the third day of Barack Obama’s presidency, and this was the new commander-in-chief’s first covert drone strike.

Initial reports said up to ten militants were killed, including foreign fighters and possibly a ‘high-value target’ – a successful first hit for the fledgling administration.

But reports of civilian casualties began to emerge. As later reports revealed, the strike was far from a success. At least nine civilians died, most of them from one family. There was one survivor, 14-year-old Fahim Qureshi, but with horrific injuries including shrapnel wounds in his stomach, a fractured skull and a lost eye, he was as much a victim as his dead relatives.

Later that day, the CIA attacked again – and levelled another house. It proved another mistake, this time one that killed between five and ten people, all civilians.

Obama was briefed on the civilian casualties almost immediately and was ‘understandably disturbed’, Newsweek reporter Daniel Klaidman later wrote. Three days earlier, in his inauguration address, Obama had told the world ‘that America is a friend of each nation, and every man, woman and child who seeks a future of peace and dignity.’

Fahim Qureshi, injured in the first Obama strike

(Vocativ/YouTube).

The Pakistani government also knew civilians had been killed in the strikes. A record of the strikes made by the local political administration and published by the Bureau last year listed nine civilians among the dead. But the government said nothing about this loss of life.

Yet despite this disastrous start the Obama administration markedly stepped up the use of drones. Since Obama’s inauguration in 2009, the CIA has launched 330 strikes on Pakistan – his predecessor, President George Bush, conducted 51 strikes in four years. And in Yemen, Obama has opened a new front in the secret drone war.

For all the Bureau’s drones data: Get the data – drone wars

Lethal strikes

Across Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia, the Obama administration has launched more than 390 drone strikes in the five years since the first attack that injured Qureshi – eight times as many as were launched in the entire Bush presidency. These strikes have killed more than 2,400 people, at least 273 of them reportedly civilians.

Although drone strikes under Obama’s presidency have killed nearly six times as many people as were killed under Bush, the casualty rate – the number of people killed on average in each strike – has dropped from eight to six under Obama. The civilian casualty rate has fallen too. Strikes during the Bush years killed nearly more than three civilians in each strike on average. This has halved under Obama (1.43 civilians per strike on average). In fact reported civilian casualties in Pakistan have fallen sharply since 2010, with no confirmed reports of civilian casualties in 2013.

The decline in civilian casualties could be because of reported improvements in drone and missile technology, rising tensions between Pakistan and the US over the drone campaign, and greater scrutiny of the covert drone campaign both at home and abroad.

Obama has sharply escalated the drone campaign in Pakistan.

The apparent change in targeting  is well demonstrated by comparing a strike carried out by the Bush administration in 2006 and one seven years later under Obama. On October 30 2006 at least 68 children were killed when CIA drones destroyed a madrassa – a religious school – in the Bajaur area of Pakistan’s tribal belt. The attack was reportedly targeting then-al Qaeda second-in-command Ayman al Zawahiri. He escaped. On November 21 last year, drones again targeted a madrassa, this time in Hangu, outside the tribal regions. As many as 80 students were sleeping in the building. But the strike destroyed a specific portion of the building – just one or two rooms – and killed between six and nine people.

In Yemen, however, civilians continue to die in US drone strikes. Last year saw the highest civilian casualty rate since Obama first hit the country in 2009.

In recent years drones have come to dominate Obama’s war in Yemen as much as in Pakistan.

Drones were not the first weapon the administration turned to when it started to attack the country. On December 17 2009 a US Navy submarine launched a cluster bomb-laden cruise missile at a suspected militant camp in al Majala, southern Yemen.

The missile slammed into a hamlet hitting one of the poorest tribes in Yemen. Shrapnel and fire left at least 41 civilians dead, including at least 21 children and 12 women – five of them were pregnant. A week earlier President Obama had been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. He used his acceptance speech to defend the use of force at times as ‘not only necessary but morally justified’. He warned that ‘negotiations cannot convince al Qaeda’s leaders to lay down their arms’.

Strikes in Pakistan are carried out by the CIA. But in Yemen the CIA and the US military’s special forces unit, Joint Special Operations Command, have used various weapons including drones and conventional jets as well as cruise missiles to target al Qaeda militants.

However in recent years drones have come to dominate Obama’s war in Yemen as much as in Pakistan. President Bush ordered a single drone strike in Yemen, killing six people in 2002. Under Obama, the CIA and the Pentagon have launched at least 58 drone strikes on the country killing more than 281 people, including at least 24 reported civilians.

Opaque operations

The escalation in the drone war has happened with almost no official transparency from the White House. It took Obama three years to publicly mention his use of drones. In January 2012 he said ‘actually drones have not caused a huge number of civilian casualties’. He added: ‘For the most part they have been very precise, precision strikes against al Qaeda and affiliates.’

In this period Bureau records show drones reportedly killed at least 236 civilians – including 61 children. And according to a leaked CIA record of drone strikes, seen by the McClatchy news agency, the US often did not know who it was killing. In the year after September 2010 at least 265 of up to 482 people were recorded as the documents as killed by drones ‘were “assessed” as Afghan, Pakistani and unknown extremists’.

A letter written by Attorney General Eric Holder and leaked to NBC confirmed drones had killed four US citizens living abroad. US citizen Anwar al Awlaki died in a missile strike in Yemen on September 30 2011. His 16-year-old son Abdulrahman, who was born in Detroit, was killed in a separate strike two weeks later.

In April 2013 a leaked Department of Justice memo outlined the administration’s legal justification for such killings: the US has the right to kill US citizens if they pose an imminent threat, it said. It added that determining a citizen poses an imminent threat ‘does not require the United States to have clear evidence that a specific attack on US persons and interests will take place in the immediate future’. Jameel Jaffer of the American Civil Liberties Union described the memo as a ‘chilling document’.

For the most part they have been very precise, precision strikes against al Qaeda and affiliates– President Obama

The following month President Obama made a major policy speech in which he codified the rules his administration must follow as it selects targets for drone strikes and special forces teams.

The rules are meant to constrain the use of drones. Obama said the US only carries out such attacks against individuals who pose ‘a continuing and imminent threat’ to US citizens, not ‘to punish individuals’. Obama acknowledged drone strikes had killed civilians, saying: ‘For me, and those in my chain of command, those deaths will haunt us as long as we live.’ And he added: ‘Before any strike is taken, there must be near-certainty that no civilians will be killed or injured – the highest standard we can set’.

However Bureau analysis shows more people were killed in Pakistan and Yemen in the six months after the speech than the six months before. And the casualty rate also rose over the same period.

In 2013, there were no confirmed civilian casualties in Pakistan – the first year of the drone campaign that this was the case. But in Yemen, the year ended with mass civilian casualties. On December 12, JSOC drones attacked a convoy taking a bride to her wedding. The attack destroyed several vehicles and flying shrapnel killed up to 15 civilians. It was the biggest single loss of civilian life from a US strike for more than a year. The Yemeni government initially claimed al Qaeda militants were killed. But the Yemeni government quickly negotiated reparations with the families of the victims, sending them $140,000 and 100 rifles. The US has not commented on the strike, but in an unprecedented move Washington is carrying out an investigation.

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A changing drone campaign: US covert actions in 2013

Published

January 6, 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.

2013 saw fewer drone strikes than previous years (Photo: US Air Force/Airman 1st Class Jason Epley)

In 2013 the number of drone strikes to hit Pakistan fell to the lowest levels of Obama’s presidency: 27 strikes reportedly hit the country’s tribal areas, down from a peak of 128 in 2010. And for the first time since Pakistan strikes started in 2004, there were no confirmed reports of civilian casualties.

The changes reflected growing opposition from within Pakistan, as both the political and military elites were publicly critical of the strikes. 

 The Obama administration continued 2012’s trend of limited transparency around drone strikes

In Yemen, by contrast, at least 11 civilians including 4 children died in confirmed drone attacks. This steep rise from previous years was despite the number of confirmed strikes halving since 2012. The US continued to enjoy the Yemeni government’s support for attacks on al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), now viewed as al Qaeda’s most active and dangerous franchise.

In Somalia, al Shabaab, an ally of al Qaeda, regrouped after heavy defeats in 2012 and continued launching attacks. A drone strike and two commando raids took place.

The Obama administration continued 2012’s trend of limited transparency around drone strikes. Both Obama and his new CIA director John Brennan publicly discussed the use of covert drones, but the administration remained tight-lipped on key data including casualty numbers. Officials almost always refused to discuss individual strikes, and where they did it was usually anonymously.

The administration expressed an intention to move drone strikes from the CIA to the Pentagon, but at year’s end many drone strikes – including the Pakistan campaign – remained under Agency control.

2013 in review

Ben Emmerson QC, the UN special rapporteur on counter-terrorism, announced details in January of an investigation for the UN into drone strikes. Emmerson told the Bureau the investigation is ‘a response to the fact that there’s international concern rising exponentially’ around drones. He published an interim report in October.

Drones were a key topic when John Brennan, sometimes described as the ‘architect’ of Obama’s drone policy, faced questioning from the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence in February as part of nomination proceedings for the role of CIA director. He told the committee: ‘The CIA should not be doing traditional military activities and operations.’ Days before, a leaked memo outlined the legal justification for targeting US citizens. The American Civil Liberties Union called the memo ‘a profoundly disturbing document’.

In March, Ben Emmerson visited Pakistan, where government officials told him drones had killed at least 400 civilians, and possibly as many as 600. In the country’s elections, both Nawaz Sharif’s PLM-N party and Imran Khan’s PTI made opposition to drone strikes a central part of their campaigns. The elections were blighted by violence as the Taliban attacked political gatherings.

US news agency McClatchy obtained documents in April showing the CIA’s own assessment of drone strikes in Pakistan. They showed drones were used to kill Afghans, Pakistanis, and ‘unknown’ militants, despite US assertions that drones only target senior al Qaeda members. The documents also showed that a June 2011 claim by Brennan that no civilians were killed in ‘almost a year’ was false.

Journalist Farea al-Muslimi told US Senators of the impact of drones on his native Yemen, days after a drone attacked his village, Wessab. General James Cartwright, the Pentagon’s former second-in-command, warned the US had ‘ceded the moral authority’ through its use of drones.

 President Obama delivered a high-profile speech in May defending his administration’s targeted killings

Also in April, a UK defence minister revealed British pilots had been flying drone missions as part of the US military under an ’embedding’ programme, and Britain’s first drone base opened at RAF Waddington.

President Obama delivered a high-profile speech in May defending his administration’s targeted killings. But he acknowledged that civilian casualties had occurred, describing them as ‘heartbreaking tragedies’. The administration outlined new policy guidelines, including a requirement that strikes are not carried out unless there is ‘near-certainty’ no civilians are present.

The US attorney general acknowledged the deaths of four US citizens in drone attacks under Obama – only one of whom, Anwar al Awlaki, was the intended target of the strike. Awlaki’s 16-year-old son, Abdulrahman, was among the others. He was killed two weeks after his father in 2011.

Yemen-based journalist Adam Baron reported that a 10-year-old named Abdulaziz was among those killed in Yemen in a strike on June 9. Months later, the Los Angeles Times revealed the CIA had secretly briefed Congress on the child’s death.

The Bureau published a leaked Pakistani document in July showing the tribal administration’s assessment of over 70 drone strikes between 2006 and 2009, including 147 civilians.

In August the Bureau published a major field investigation revealing the CIA appeared to have briefly revived its controversial tactic of attacking rescuers – first exposed by the Bureau in February 2012. The Bureau identified five attacks on rescuers over three months in the summer of 2012, several of which appeared to be the result of efforts to hunt al Qaeda’s second-in-command, Yahya al Libi.

The Bureau launched a new project, Naming the Dead, in September, aiming to identify those killed in CIA drone strikes in Pakistan. At launch it featured the names of over 550 of an estimated 2,500 or more killed in strikes. Just two of those names belonged to women.

Al Shabaab launched an attack in Nairobi, storming the Westgate shopping centre. It occupied the complex for four days, killing up to 61.

Two UN experts presented reports to the General Assembly in October. Both criticised the lack of transparency surrounding drone operations and questioned some of the legal justifications for covert strikes. The following week, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch simultaneously published field investigations into civilian casualties in Pakistan and Yemen.

In November, six months after Obama’s speech on drones, a Bureau analysis found that the rate at which people are killed in each strike on average, and reported civilian casualties, were both higher in the six months after the speech than in the six months before.

In Pakistan, a CIA strike killed Pakistan Taliban (TTP) leader Hakimullah Mehsud and a separate attack hit Pakistan’s ‘settled’ Khyber Pakhtunkhwa region. In protest, Imran Khan’s PTI named a man it claimed was the CIA’s station chief in Islamabad, and blockaded a NATO supply route into Afghanistan.

In December the UK invited reporters into its drone base at RAF Waddington in the east of England as part of efforts to increase transparency, but continued to withhold data including casualty data and information on where and when strikes took place.

In Yemen, AQAP launched a huge attack on the Ministry of Defence in the capital Sanaa, claiming there was a drone operations room inside the building. An estimated 52 were killed, including foreign medical staff in a hospital near the ministry. It later apologised for the civilian deaths. The following week, 6-15 civilians were among up to 17 people reported killed when a US military drone attacked vehicles in a wedding convoy. It was the worst single loss of civilian life in a drone strike in Pakistan, Yemen or Somalia in over a year.

Pakistan

The annual casualty rates – the average number of people killed in each CIA drone strike, in Pakistan, 2004-2013. 

As well as seeing the fewest strikes since 2007 and the fewest civilian casualties ever, the casualty rate – the number of people killed in each strike on average – fell to 4.2, the the lowest yet recorded. This is less than half the casualty rate in 2009, the first year of Obama’s presidency.

 Fifteen of the year’s 27 strikes killed named individuals, including very senior militants

Obama has now been in office for five years and has launched 330 strikes according to the Bureau’s count. President Bush launched 51 drone strikes, all during the last five years of his presidency. Under Obama, the casualty rate has been lower – 6.5 people killed in each strike on average, compared to 8 under Bush. The civilian casualty rate is 76% lower under Obama – 0.8 civilians killed per strike, compared to 3.3 under Bush.

Several possible factors could be behind these declines, including reported improvements in technology since the early years of Bush’s covert drone strikes, rising tensions between Pakistan and the US over the drone campaign, and increasing scrutiny of the covert drone campaign by the international community as well as Washington and Islamabad.

Related story – Pakistan drone strikes visualised

Fifteen of the year’s 27 strikes killed named individuals, including some very senior militants. These included Maulvi Nazir, leader of a faction of the ‘good Taliban’, so called because they had reached peace treaties with the Pakistani government; and both Hakimullah Mehsud and Wali ur Rehman, respectively the leader and second-in-command of the TTP, which continues to attack Pakistani targets. However multiple unnamed alleged militants died alongside the named commanders.

All CIA strikes in Pakistan 2013

Total strikes: 27

Total reported killed: 112-193

Civilians reported killed: 0-4

Children reported killed: 0-1

Total reported injured: 41-81

Pakistan: December 2013 actions

Total CIA strikes in December: 1

Total killed in strikes in December: 3-4, of whom 0 were reportedly civilians

All Pakistan actions 2004 – 2013

Total Obama strikes: 330

Total US strikes since 2004: 381

Total reported killed: 2,537-3,646

Civilians reported killed: 416-951

Children reported killed: 168-200

Total reported injured: 1,128-1,557For the Bureau’s full Pakistan databases click here.

Yemen

The annual casualty rates for confirmed US drone strikes in Yemen, 2011-2013.

There were 15 confirmed US drone strikes and at least 15 additional aerial strikes that may have been carried out by drones. This was a steep decline from 2012’s peak, when the US launched 29 confirmed drone strikes as it joined a Yemeni government effort to push AQAP out of territory it had occupied in the country’s south.

Related story – Yemen strikes visualised

 The casualty rate fell  by a third compared to 2012 – but the civilian casualty rate more than trebled

Nine of 2013’s confirmed drone strikes took place during a fortnight in late July and early August, after the US reportedly intercepted top-level communications between AQAP and other terrorist commanders. The US and some European allies closed more than 20 embassies in Yemen and across the Middle East and east Africa in anticipation of a possible attack, a move one counter-terrorism expert called ‘crazy pants‘.

Officials told the Washington Post and New York Times that the guidelines on targeted killings introduced in May could be relaxed ‘in response to elevated threat’. At least three civilians, including two children, were reportedly killed in the fortnight’s attacks.

And on December 12, 6-15 civilians reportedly died in an attack on a wedding procession in Radaa. Sources later told the New York Times the strike was carried out by a US military drone, although they did not acknowledge reports of civilian casualties. Two UN experts later called on the US and Yemen to account for the reports of high civilian casualties in the attack.

The casualty rate – the number of people killed on average in each confirmed drone strike – fell by a third compared to 2012, from six people per strike to four. But the civilian casualty rate has more than trebled, from 0.2 civilians killed per strike to 0.7. This is the highest annual civilian casualty rate yet recorded in Yemen.

The increase in the civilian casualty rate is partly because in previous years, attacks with high civilian casualties have been carried out by other weapons, or have not been confirmed as drone strikes. For example, a strike in December 2009 that killed more than 40 civilians was carried out by US cruise missiles, not drones. And in September 2012 a US air strike killed 12 civilians. Anonymous US officials belatedly confirmed the US military carried out the attack but it is still not known if a drone or manned aircraft was used.

The US continues its policy of not officially acknowledging individual strikes and not paying compensation to victims. The tribe attacked in the December 12 strike was compensated by the Yemeni government with $140,000 (£85,000) and a gift of 101 Kalashnikovs. Civilians harmed in US actions in Afghanistan are routinely paid far more.

All Yemen actions in 2013

Total confirmed US operations: 16

Total confirmed US drone strikes: 16

Possible additional US operations: 15-16

Of which possible additional US drone strikes: 15-16

Total reported killed: 61-167

Total civilians killed: 11-30Children killed: 4

Yemen: December 2013 actions

Confirmed US drone strikes: 1

Further reported/possible US strike events: 3

Total reported killed in US operations: 10-32Civilians reported killed in US strikes: 6-15

All Yemen actions 2002 – 2013*

Total confirmed US operations: 71-81

Total confirmed US drone strikes: 59-69

Possible additional US operations: 142-167

Of which possible additional US drone strikes: 83-102

Total reported killed: 431-1,279

Total civilians killed: 83-205

Children killed: 30-40Click 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.

Somalia

Aftermath of an al Shabaab bomb attack on a Mogadishu cafe that killed 15 (AU-UN IST Photo/Stuart Price)

Al Shabaab staged a resurgence in 2013. It launched ambitious attacks including September’s brutal siege of the Westgate mall in Nairobi, and a June attack on the heavily fortified compound of the UN Development Programme in Mogadishu, killing up to 22.

 2013’s only reported drone strike saw a military drone attack a vehicle, reportedly killing an al Shabaab commander and his companion 

In July a UN report found that al Shabaab is the country’s biggest threat to security, retaining control of ’most of southern and central Somalia’. The US and UK are ‘increasingly involved in directly supporting intelligence services in “Somaliland”, “Puntland” and Mogadishu’,the investigators added.

French commandoes launched a failed attempt in January to rescue a spy held hostage by al Shabaab; at least 27 died including eight civilians. And following the Westgate mall siege, US special forces launched a pre-dawn raid in October on an al Shabaab compound. However, the troops quickly aborted the mission as they encountered stiff resistance and unexpectedly found women and children in the compound.

The only reported drone strike in 2013 took place later in October, when a military drone attacked a vehicle, reportedly killing an al Shabaab commander and his companion. However as the Bureau has previously reported, other strikes may have gone unreported. The government of neighbouring Djibouti asked the US to move its drones from the Camp Lemmonier base to one further from civilian populations after a series of crashes during takeoff and landing.

All Somalia actions in 2013

Total US operations: 2

Total US drone strikes: 1

Total reported killed: 3-10Civilians reported killed: 0

Children reported killed: 0

Somalia December 2013 actions

Total reported US operations: 0

All Somalia actions 2007 – 2013

Total US operations: 12-25

Total US drone strikes: 4-10Total reported killed: 57-180Civilians reported killed: 7-58

Children reported killed: 1-3Click here for the Bureau’s full data on Somalia.

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The Bureau talks to Jeremy Scahill about Dirty Wars and drones

Published

December 6, 2013

Written by

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

‘I don’t think we’ve scratched the surface of what’s happened’, Jeremy Scahill tells the Bureau (Photo: Civic Bakery)

Journalist and filmmaker Jeremy Scahill says that handing control of CIA drone operations to the military could lead to ‘very serious abuses’, in Drone News, the Bureau’s new drones podcast.

Scahill met the Bureau’s Alice K Ross when he was in London promoting his new film Dirty Wars, which follows Scahill through the shadowy conflicts in Afghanistan, Yemen and Somalia as he tracks the expansion of US covert lethal actions under President Obama.

Obama officials and the president himself have indicated that drone operations are to be transferred out of CIA command and into the Department of Defense, as part of moves to increase transparency around drone strikes.

But Scahill believes the move is unlikely to lead to significant improvements. ‘In some ways it could make it worse, if you look at the way US military forces have circumvented any form of effective congressional oversight. The door is wide open for very serious abuses and I think it has the potential to enable more of these strikes to take place.’

Scahill praised the Bureau’s ‘incredible work’ in tracking covert drone strikes but added that much remains unknown. ‘I don’t think we’ve scratched the surface of what’s happened because no one has access where much of this is taking place. We have no idea the scope of this – I think we only understand a tiny fraction of it.’

The podcast also includes news and analysis from the Bureau’s drones team, including Jack Serle’s report on the latest round of the first legal challenge in the English courts to the CIA’s drone campaign in Pakistan.

Listen to the latest episode of Drone News and download it from iTunes

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UK complicity in US drone strikes is ‘inevitable’, Emmerson tells parliament

Published

December 5, 2013

Written by

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

Conflict experts told British lawmakers the UK is probably complicit in the secret drone war (Jim Trodel/Flickr)

It is ‘inevitable’ British spies are sharing intelligence with the US that is then used in drone strikes, a prominent UN expert told UK politicians yesterday.

Ben Emmerson QC, who is leading an ongoing drones investigation for the UN, and Professor Michael Clarke, director-general of military think-tank Rusi, told politicians there is little doubt the UK has given the US information used in drone strikes.

There’s a reasonable presumption that the provision of information or sharing of information makes us complicit – Professor Michael Clarke

The British government has consistently refused to confirm or deny whether its spies have passed information to the US that has been used to target drone strikes in covert campaigns such as Pakistan and Yemen.

But Emmerson said that the UK and US intelligence relationship is so close that this type of information-sharing is ‘inevitable’. He added: ‘It would be absurd if it were not the case.’

UK drones have only been used to launch missiles where there is a declared war, Clarke said. According to the Bureau’s estimate the US has launched over 430 covert drone attacks in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia – beyond declared war zones such as Afghanistan.

‘The integration of information operations and sharing means that of course we share information,’ Clarke said. ‘It would be very hard to say that the information that we share about people of interest isn’t used for a drone strike.’

He added: ‘There’s a reasonable presumption that the provision of information or sharing of information makes us complicit in an American policy.’

He warned the issue is ‘coming down the track with increasing force’.

Emmerson and Clarke spoke to members of both Houses of Parliament at an event organised by the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Drones and the APPG on the UN.

Related story: Consensus grows among UN states for greater transparency on drone civilian deaths

A Pakistani tribesman is currently challenging the UK’s silence on its alleged complicity in the CIA’s lethal drone campaign in Pakistan. Noor Khan’s father was one of as many as 40 civilians killed in a CIA strike in March 2011. His lawyers claim British spies who share intelligence with their CIA counterparts could be complicit in murder or war crimes if that information is used to target drone strikes.

The UK High Court rejected the case in 2012 saying that it could ‘imperil international relations‘. But as the Bureau reported yesterday, Khan is appealing and the latest stage of this unprecedented legal challenge is now before the Court of Appeal.

Canada, New Zealand and Australia also have close intelligence sharing relationships with the US. These countries with the US and UK make up the so-called Five Eyes, an alliance of Anglophone countries established after the second world war.

It emerged this summer that Australia’s Pine Gap spy base has provided the US with the intelligence across the eastern hemisphere. It has intercepted radio transmissions from Pakistan and used the intelligence to fix the location of suspects, feeding this information into the CIA drone programme, according to the reports.

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November 2013 Update: US covert actions in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia

Published

December 3, 2013

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.

CIA drones destroyed part of a madrassa in Hangu district – the first strike outside Pakistan’s tribal areas. (Reuters/Syed Shah)

CIA drones kill one of the most senior militants in Pakistan.

The first reported airstrikes in Yemen in three months kill alleged foreign fighters.

More African peacekeepers will go to Somalia as al Shabaab remains a threat to security.

Eighteen people killed by CIA drones are added to Naming the Dead.

Pakistan

November 2013 actions

Total CIA strikes in November: 3

Total killed in strikes in November: 11-19, of whom 0 were reportedly civilians

All actions 2004 – November 30 2013

Total Obama strikes: 329

Total US strikes since 2004: 380

Total reported killed: 2,534-3,642

Civilians reported killed: 416-951

Children reported killed: 168-200

Total reported injured: 1,127-1,556For the Bureau’s full Pakistan databases click here.

Three CIA drone strikes hit Pakistan, killing at least 11 people including the leader of the Pakistan Taliban (TTP) and several alleged senior Haqqani Network members. The attacks sparked popular protests and condemnation from the government and political parties.

On November 1 (Ob327) the US killed Hakimullah Mehsud, leader of the Pakistan Taliban (TTP). Islamabad said it had started peace talks with the TTP and this strike had snuffed out any chance of a negotiated settlement. However an official TTP spokesman denied the group had had any contact with the government.

Mullah Fazlullah was elected to lead the TTP after Mehsud’s death. As the leader of the Swat Taliban, he ordered the shooting of schoolgirl activist Malala Yousfuzai. He is nicknamed Mullah Radio, for his diatribes broadcast on illegal FM radio, and the Butcher of Swat, for the uncompromising way his forces dealt with dissent when his group occupied the region between 2007 and 2009. The group promised to avenge Mehsud’s death with a wave of attacks on the Pakisani state and security forces.

A second strike 20 days later (Ob328) killed at least six including Ahmad Jan – an alleged senior Haqqani Network commander – in the Hangu district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province. It is believed to be the first time a strike has taken place in Pakistan’s ‘settled’ areas as all previous strikes have hit either Pakistan’s tribal regions or the frontier regions that act as a buffer zone between tribal and settled areas.

The opposition politician Imran Khan called on the government to block Nato supply routes in and out of Pakistan in protest. Khan’s party the PTI filed a First Incident Report at the local police station in Hangu. It claimed civilians were killed and injured in the attack – including four children. Six days after the strike it named two men as responsible for their ‘murder’: CIA director John Brennan and a man PTI said is the CIA station chief in Islamabad. A previous CIA station chief was forced to return to Washington in 2010 after being named in another legal complaint over drone strikes.

The CIA struck again on November 29 (Ob329) around a day after the PTI said it had outed Washington’s top spy in Pakistan. It killed 1-3 people and injured up to two more. Reports suggested the dead were members of the Punjabi Taliban. The News reported an alleged militant named Aslam (aka Yaseen) was injured in the attack. Aslam is allegedly connected to attacks on Pakistani military installations in Rawalpindi and Afghanistan.

November also saw the six-month anniversary of a major policy speech given by President Barack Obama in Washington on May 23. An analysis by the Bureau shows that there were fewer drone strikes in Pakistan in the six months after the speech compared to the previous six months – 13 between May and November 23, compared with 18 in the previous six months. But each strike killed more people on average.

This went against the trend of the last three years: the average number of people killed in each strike has been falling since 2009 when on average over 11 people were killed in every strike. In the six months before the speech, an average of 3.5 people were killed in each strike. Since the speech this has risen to almost five.

Yemen

November 2013 actions

Confirmed US drone strikes: 0 Further reported/possible US strike events: 2-3 Total reported killed in US operations: 15-17Civilians reported killed in US strikes: 0

All actions 2002 – November 30 2013*

Confirmed US drone strikes: 55-65

Total reported killed: 269-389Civilians reported killed: 21-56Children reported killed: 5Reported injured: 67-150

Possible extra US drone strikes: 83-102

Total reported killed: 302-481

Civilians reported killed: 23-48

Children reported killed: 6-9

Reported injured: 81-108

All other US covert operations: 12-77Total reported killed: 148-377Civilians reported killed: 60-88Children reported killed: 25-26Reported injured: 22-114Click 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.

After a three-month pause, up to three possible drone attacks occurred in Yemen, but none can as yet be confirmed as US operations.

The first attack, on November 19, killed five alleged al Qaeda militants who were named as Abu Habib al Yemen, Yemeni; Abu Salma al Russi, Russian; Abu Suhaib al Australi, Australian; Wadhah al Hadhrami from Hadramout in Yemen; and Hamam al Masri, Egyptian. A Yemeni journalist told the Bureau these were nom de guerre, explaining that al Qaeda fighters take their names from the first name of their eldest son and their birthplace.

A single source reported a possible strike on November 20 in the same province, Hadramout. And the final strike of the month, on November 26, killed 12 alleged al Qaeda militants travelling in a car through the southern province of Abyan. Yemen’s government claimed responsibility for the strike. However as the Bureau has previously reported, the Yemen Air Force is incapable of a precision strike on a moving vehicle.

It emerged that the CIA knew it had killed a civilian in a strike in June, and the Agency had secretly briefed Congress on the death. The CIA destroyed a car on June 7; it later emerged that a child aged 6-13 was in the car. An investigation by McClatchy at the time of the attack had identified the child as Abdulaziz, the 10-year old brother of Hassan al-Saleh Huraydan, an alleged militant.

Abdulaziz was one of at least six civilian casualties in the six months since President Obama gave his set-piece speech in May. The President said the US only takes lethal action when it is almost certain there will be no civilians killed or injured.

A man whose civilian relatives were killed in a 2012 drone strike visited Washington. Faisal Ahmed bin Ali Jaber spoke at a Congressional briefing about a drone strike that killed his nephew Waleed Abdullah bin Ali Jaber, a policeman, and Salem Ahmed bin Ali Jaber, his brother-in-law an imam and outspoken critic of al Qaeda.

He said he had travelled to the US capital ‘to find out who was responsible for the deaths of Salem and Waleed, and I want to know if someone will be held accountable for their deaths’. Salem and Waleed were killed on August 29 2012. Three al Qaeda members had travelled to their village to remonstrate with Salem over an anti-al Qaeda sermon he had given. The five were talking when drones fired several missiles, killing them all.

Somalia

November 2013 actions

Total reported US operations: 0

All actions 2007 – November 30 2013

US drone strikes: 4-10Total reported killed: 9-30Civilians reported killed: 0-15Children reported killed: 0Reported injured: 2-24

All other US covert operations: 8-15Total reported killed: 48-150Civilians reported killed: 7-42Children reported killed: 1-3Reported injured: 13-21Click here for the Bureau’s full data on Somalia.

No US operations were reported in Somalia.

However there were reports of al Shabaab attacks. The militant group assaulted a police station near Mogadishu killing and wounding at least 23 people. Six Somali policemen and four Djiboutian peacekeepers were among the dead.

The Guardian reported that after a turbulent period of infighting the militant group is rebuilding its strength, while unnamed officials told the paper the African Union peacekeeping operation is stalling.

The UN and African Union have agreed to send in more troops to bolster the peacekeeping force, Amisom, by over 4,000 in the new year. More than 17,500 African Union troops are already on the ground fighting alongside the Somali security forces. A spokesman from the peacekeepers told the Bureau in December the force will review and renew its overall strategy, or Concept of Operations (ConOps), in Somalia.

There has been speculation that troops from neighbouring Ethiopia will be part of this surge. Ethiopia has had a sizeable force in Somalia off and on since 2007. However the two countries have a fractious history. The Amisom spokesman said during the ConOps review the countries already contributing troops – Uganda, Burundi, Djibouti, Sierra Leone and Kenya – would be asked to send in more soldiers. If they do not contribute more men then the numbers will be made up by other African Union members. However the spokesman did not know which other countries would be approached.

Naming the Dead

The Bureau has added 18 more names to the Naming the Dead database this month. Fifteen of these emerged in press and think tank reports of the three drone strikes in the month. The Bureau gained a further three names during a research trip to Pakistan in October 2013 (Ob113).

New case studies include those of five civilian chromite miners, and a profile of Ibne Amin, a commander in the Swat Taliban and former right-hand man of the TTP’s new leader, Mullah Fazlullah.

Follow Alice Ross and Jack Serle on Twitter.

Sign up for updates on the covert drone war investigation or download the Bureau’s drones podcast.

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New analysis questions constraint on US drone strikes

Published

November 26, 2013

Written by

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

The Bureau analyses President Obama’s drone strike guidelines six months on from his speech setting out the rules. (Pete Souza/White House).

Six months after President Obama laid out US rules for using armed drones, a Bureau analysis shows that covert drone strikes in Yemen and Pakistan have killed more people than in the six months before the speech.

Each drone strike kills more people on average in both countries. The number of strikes fell across the two countries in the six months after the speech compared with the six months before, yet the overall death toll increased.

 ‘To say a military tactic is legal, or even effective, is not to say it is wise or moral in every instance.’

– President Obama

This analysis will raise questions about how much Obama’s new rules constrain the drone programme, as he claimed it would in his speech.

On May 23 Obama explained how a new policy will govern the use of drones. He said using drones for targeted killing is legal, but added: ‘To say a military tactic is legal, or even effective, is not to say it is wise or moral in every instance.’

He said: ‘The same human progress that gives us the technology to strike half a world away also demands the discipline to constrain that power – or risk abusing it.’

The President’s remarks, and a background briefing to the media by unnamed administration officials, led some to report the US was ending the controversial practice of signature strikes – strikes which target groups of unidentified individuals based on their behaviour.

However in the weeks after the speech, analyst Micah Zenko wrote: ‘There is no evidence that signature strikes will be reduced or ended based upon anything the Obama administration has recently stated.’

The speech and briefings fuelled reports that the US military – in the form of the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) – would soon be given responsibility for carrying out drone strikes outside Afghanistan.

But six months later the CIA is reportedly still carrying out strikes in Pakistan and Yemen. It was reported this week that the administration is trying to find a way to merge the CIA and Pentagon drone programmes.

According to the Washington Post the ambition is to allow the CIA to keep running a fleet of drones but put JSOC in charge of the final, lethal step in a strike sequence, known as the finish.

Get the data: Obama 2013 Pakistan drone strikes

Obama’s speech addressed ‘criticism about drone strikes’, saying the US only carries out such attacks against individuals who pose ‘a continuing and imminent threat’ to US citizens, not ‘to punish individuals’.

He added: ‘before any strike is taken, there must be near-certainty that no civilians will be killed or injured – the highest standard we can set’.

Civilians have been killed in US strikes in the past, the President said. The day before the speech, Attorney General Eric Holder published a letter to Congress saying those killed included a 16-year-old US citizen, Abdulrahman al Awlaqi.

In Yemen, civilians have reportedly been killed in drone strikes after the speech. Between six and seven civilians were reported killed, two of whom were said to be children.

It also emerged this month that the US knew it had killed civilians in strikes after the speech. The LA Times reported that the CIA briefed Congress about civilian casualties, including a child aged 6-13 who had been riding in a car with his older brother, an alleged militant, when the drones attacked. The CIA reportedly did not know he was in the car at the time.

Other reports have identified the child as Abdulaziz, younger brother of Hassan al-Saleh Huraydan, an alleged AQAP commander.

Every confirmed US drone strike in the past six months came in a 15-day period in late July and August, when eight attacks took place.

The bombardment was more intense than any period in Yemen since mid-2012 when the US was providing air support to Yemeni forces as they fought an al Qaeda insurgency. The group established its own ‘Islamic emirate‘ in several towns and villages in southern Yemen, exploiting a security vacuum during popular unrest in 2011.

Although other aerial attacks have been reported it is not clear whether they were carried out by drones or manned aircraft.

The 2013 onslaught of strikes was a response to a perceived terror threat the US reportedly believed was coming from Yemen. Washington reacted to intelligence of an impending attack by closing over 20 embassies and consulates in Africa and the Middle East and launching a barrage of drone strikes.

The attacks killed at least 29 people, many of them identified as al Qaeda members. But only three of them were described in reports as significant leaders in the group.

Against the prevailing trend

There were fewer drone strikes in Pakistan in the six months after May 23 compared to the previous six months – 13 between May and the present, compared with 18 in the previous six months. But each strike killed more people on average.

This went against the prevailing trend: the average number of people killed in each strike has been falling since 2009 when over 11 people were killed on average in every strike. That was down to fewer than five people killed on average in each attack at the end of 2012. In the six months before the speech, an average of 3.5 people were killed in each strike. Since the speech this has risen to almost five.

There were no confirmed reports of civilian deaths in the six months after the speech. However this could be a continuing trend rather than a direct consequence of the speech. Total civilian casualties have been falling since 2009, and the average number of civilian deaths in each strike has also been declining over the past four years.

The attacks in Pakistan have killed some named high-profile members of the Haqqani Network and Pakistan Taliban, the TTP.

Hakimullah Mehsud, leader of the Pakistan Taliban, was the most high-profile target in the past six months. A CIA drone killed him on November 1. He became leader in 2009 when his predecessor, Baitullah Mehsud, was killed by US drones. Following this attack, Hakimullah sent a suicide bomber to attack a CIA base in Khost, on the border in Afghanistan.

The attack killed seven CIA officers. He had been wrongly reported to have been killed on at least three previous occasions.

Since Obama’s speech, drones have also killed both Mullah Sangeen Zadran, the Taliban shadow governor of Paktika province in Afghanistan, and Ahmad Jan, the shadow finance minster in Paktika, both of the Haqqani Network.

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