News

News

Published

March 15, 2013

Written by

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

The Pakistani government denied it secretly consents to strikes. (Photo: stephenpend)

The Pakistani government estimates at least 400 civilians have been killed in drone strikes – a figure close to the Bureau’s own findings.

In evidence to  Ben Emmerson QC, UN special rapporteur on counter-terrorism,  the Pakistan Ministry of Foreign Affairs has said that CIA drones have killed at least 2,200 people in the country including at least 400 civilians.  This is close to the Bureau’s low range estimate of 411.

The figures were disclosed to Emerson as he made a three-day visit to the country. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which compiled the figures, said a further 200 of the total dead were likely to be civilians too.

The US drone campaign in Pakistan… involves the use of force on the territory of another state without its consent and is therefore a violation of Pakistan’s sovereignty.’Ben Emmerson QC

The US has consistently denied this level of non-combatant death, most recently claiming civilian casualties were ‘typically in single digits’ for each year of the nine-year campaign in Pakistan.

The Bureau estimates that 411-884 civilians are among 2,536-3,577 people reportedly killed in CIA drone strikes in Pakistan, based on its two-year analysis of news reports, court documents, field investigations and other sources.

Related story: Covert War on Terror – the datasets

Senior Pakistani government representatives met with Emmerson, who is investigating the legal and ethical framework of drone strikes.

In a statement released after his visit, Emmerson said: ‘The position of the government of Pakistan is quite clear. It does not consent to the use of drones by the United States on its territory and it considers it to be a violation of Pakistan’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.

‘As a matter of international law the US drone campaign in Pakistan is therefore being conducted without the consent of the elected representatives of the people, or the legitimate government of the state. It involves the use of force on the territory of another state without its consent and is therefore a violation of Pakistan’s sovereignty.’

Pakistan used the special rapporteur’s visit to mount a full-blooded attack on the justifications given by US officials for the drone campaign, particularly the claim that it is ‘unwilling or unable’ to tackle terrorist groups in the tribal regions bordering Afghanistan. The Pakistani government ‘made it quite clear’ to Emmerson that this suggestion was ‘an affront to the many Pakistani victims of terrorism’.

The US has claimed it has a right to carry out strikes on those who are plotting against the US and its interests, including troops fighting in Afghanistan – but officials said Pakistan bore the brunt of terror attacks, and aimed to tackle this through ‘law enforcement with dialogue and development’. Terrorism has cost Pakistan $70bn in the past decade, killing 7,000 soldiers and policemen and 40,000 civilians, the government disclosed.

Related story: Pakistan drone statistics visualised

‘Interference by other states’ harmed Pakistan’s counter-terrorism efforts, the officials complained.

Emmerson said: ‘Pakistan has also been quite clear that it considers the drone campaign to be counter-productive and to be radicalising a whole new generation, and thereby perpetuating the problem of terrorism in the region.’

Drone strikes are undermining public confidence in Pakistan’s democratic process, they added. This is particularly problematic in the context of upcoming elections scheduled for May.

Emmerson said: ‘It is time for the international community to heed the concerns of Pakistan, and give the next democratically elected government of Pakistan the space, support and assistance it needs to deliver a lasting peace on its own territory without forcible military interference by other States.’

A group of maliks (tribal elders) from North Waziristan, the Pashtun tribal region most often hit by drone strikes, told Emmerson civilian drone deaths were a ‘commonplace occurrence’, particularly among adult men, who were often killed ‘carrying out ordinary daily tasks’. Traditional Pashtun forms of dress and the custom of adult men carrying guns makes it hard to distinguish between civilians and members of the Pakistani Taliban.

‘The Pashtun tribes of the [tribal] area have suffered enormously under the drone campaign,’ said Emmerson. Civilian deaths in drone strikes were contributing to radicalisation of youths in the region, officials and maliks told him.

Kat Craig, legal director of campaign group Reprieve, said: ‘The UN’s statement today is an unequivocal warning that the CIA drones programme is not only completely unwanted by the Pakistani government but is irrefutably illegal. More worryingly, it is shredding apart the fabric of life in Pakistan, terrorising entire communities. The special rapporteur’s job is to balance the need for counter-terrorism with the need to protect basic human rights – what he has revealed today is that this balance is far, far from being achieved.’

Related story: UN launches major investigation into civilian drone deaths

The Pakistani government said at least 330 strikes had taken place on its territory. The Bureau has counted 365 to date; the disparity may be because the Bureau counts missiles that hit more than an hour apart as individual strikes. We also count missiles that hit separate locations in close proximity as individual strikes, while the government may count these as a single strike.

Emmerson was asked to investigate drone strikes by the UN Human Rights Council after nations including Russia, China and Pakistan requested action at a session last June. He will make recommendations to the UN General Assembly in the autumn.

Separately, today the CIA lost a three-year Freedom of Information battle to keep information about its drone programme secret. The CIA had argued it could not release documents relating to the drone programme to the American Civil Liberties Union as even acknowledging its existence endangered national security. But a federal court ruled that since the government already acknowledges the programme, this argument will not stand.

Published

March 15, 2013

Written by

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

Gamal Sakr blames government for son’s death. (Image: Susannah Ireland, Independent)

The parents of a British-born man killed by a US drone strike after being stripped of his UK citizenship have spoken out for the first time – to say they will never forgive the British Government for his death.

Mohamed Sakr was born and brought up in London before he was targeted and killed in February 2012 in Somalia.

Now his Egyptian-born parents Gamal and Eman Sakr, who have lived in Britain for 35 years, have accused ministers of betraying this country’s democratic values.

Speaking to the Bureau of Investigative Journalism from their London home, the couple said they believe their son was left vulnerable to the attack after the government stripped him of his British citizenship months before he was killed.

“This is the hardest time we have ever come across in our family life,’ Mr Sakr said in tears. “I’ll never stop blaming the British government for what they did to my son. They broke my family’s back.”

Mohamed Sakr as a teenager. Image: Sakr family, all rights reserved.

The comments follow the revelations by the Bureau and published in the Independent that the Home Secretary Theresa May has ramped up the use of powers allowing her to strip UK citizenship from dual nationals without first proving wrongdoing in the courts.

Related article: Former British citizens killed by drone strikes after passports revoked

The investigation revealed the Coalition government has stripped 16 people, including five born in Britain, of their UK passports. Two, including Sakr, were later killed by drone strikes and one was secretly rendered to the United States.

The law states that the government cannot make someone stateless when it removes their citizenship. But Egyptian-born Mr and Mrs Sakr say their son Mohamed never had anything other than a British passport, despite in principle having dual nationality.

In September 2010 the family received notification that the government intended to remove their son’s British citizenship, on the grounds that he was ‘involved in terrorism-related activity’.

I’ll never stop blaming the British government for what they did to my son. They broke my family’s back. Mohamed was everything to us.’Eman Sakr

It was the first known instance in modern times of a British-born person being stripped of his nationality. His family insist that the action meant Mohamed, who was in Somalia, was left effectively stateless and stranded.

His mother still can’t quite believe it happened. ‘I was shocked. It never crossed my mind that something here in Britain would happen like this, especially as Mohamed had no other passport, no other nationality. He was brought up here, all his life is here.’

Mohamed’s parents were so worried that their other sons might also lose their British citizenship that they renounced the entire family’s dual Egyptian nationalities, shortly after they were told that Mohamed had been deprived of his citizenship.

‘I did this for the protection of the family, because they grew up here, they were all born here. And I felt that for them it was my responsibility to protect them. It was the only way I could protect them against that stupid law,’ says Mr Sakr.

‘No member of my family ever had an Egyptian passport,’ says Mr Sakr. ‘For the kids it never crossed my mind that they would have anything other than their British passports. I know they are British, born British, they are British, and carried their British passports.’

Mr Sakr at his home in London. (Image: Susannah Ireland, Independent).

Mr and Mrs Sakr have thrived in Britain, running a successful business. They moved here from Egypt 35 years ago thinking it was a good place to raise a family.

‘It was democratic, and compared to where I was before in Egypt that was a big gap,’ Mr Sakr explains. ’There was no dictator here, no bad laws like there were back home, so we decided to start a new life.’

Mohamed was born in London in 1985 and grew up as a normal, sporty child. ‘He was very popular amongst his friends, yet very quiet at the same time, very polite, he was just a normal child,’ recalls Eman.

As he got older his parents had worried about him getting into trouble.  ‘He loved going out, he loved to dress up, to wear the best clothes, he liked everything to be top range,’ recalls Mr Sakr.

‘I used to tell him, after midnight there’s no good news. So I’d say, “Make sure you are home before 12”. He said “OK, OK I’ll try, you know,”’ said his mother.

In his early twenties he calmed down and in 2007 set up an executive car valeting business. His parents thought their son would follow in his father’s entrepreneurial footsteps.

I was shocked. It never crossed my mind that something here in Britain would happen like this, especially as Mohamed had no other passport, no other nationality. He was brought up here, all his life is here.’Eman Sakr

But in the summer of the same year Mohamed travelled to Saudi Arabia on what his parents say was a pilgrimage ‘with a couple of friends and their wives’, before heading to Egypt to join his family on holiday. From there, the Sakrs say, Mohamed and his younger brother also visited the family of a girlfriend in Dubai.

His actions were innocent, the family insists. But Mohamed was questioned for ‘at least three hours’ by immigration officials on his return to the UK. The questions focused on the countries he had visited and his reasons for going there.

‘He told them, “I didn’t plan to visit all these countries ­- it’s just how my summer has happened,”’ his mother recalls.

It’s thought that UK counter-terrorism officials were becoming concerned that a group of radicalised young men was emerging in the capital, influenced by British Islamists who had returned home after fighting in Somalia.

The Sakrs both say that their eldest son became the subject of repeated police ‘harassment’ in which he was stopped on numerous occasions by plain-clothes officers.

After one incident Mohamed told his mother ‘They’re watching me momma, everywhere I go they watch me.’ The family became convinced that their phones were being tapped.

Mohamed was spending a lot of time with a friend he had met when he was 12 – Bilal al­-Berjawi. The two had lived in adjacent flats.

The childhood friends would both lose their British citizenship weeks apart in 2010 – and would die weeks apart too, in covert US airstrikes.

Berjawi’s Lebanese parents had brought him to London as a baby, and like Sakr, Berjawi had drawn the attention of Britain’s counter-terrorism agencies.

Mohamed Sakr

The Sakr family insists they were not aware of any wrongdoing on Mohamed’s part, despite frequent trouble with the police.

In February 2009 Berjawi and Sakr visited Kenya for what they told their families was a ‘safari’.

Both were detained in Nairobi, where they were said to have been interrogated by British intelligence officials. The authorities suspected them of terrorism-related activities.

They were released and only deported back to the UK because both, at that time, still had their British citizenship.

While the two were still being detained in Kenya, police arrived at the London family home with a search warrant.

Cards left behind by officers identify them as members of SO15,­ the Met’s counter-terrorism squad. Mr Sakr says he was shocked to be told that the family might have to vacate their home for up to two weeks while officers searched. The indignant family found themselves put up in the nearby Hilton hotel.

Two days later the family was allowed home. And shortly afterwards Mohamed and Bilal were deported back to Britain.

He was very popular amongst his friends, yet very quiet at the same time, very polite, he was just a normal child.’Eman Sakr

Mr Sakr challenged his son: ‘I was asking questions, why has this happened and Mohamed said “Daddy, it’s finished, it will never happen again. It’s all done and dusted.” So I just put a cap on it and continued with a normal life.’

Mohamed’s mother insisted on accompanying him to a mosque so she could hear the sermons he was listening to.

‘I wanted to hear what they’re saying, I was always on top of this, always. I wanted to know why the police were after him, why?’ says Mrs Sakr. ‘So he used to take me to different mosques, and the sermons were normal, nothing unusual.’

In October 2009, with ever-growing trouble with the British authorities, Mohamed and Berjawi decided to slip out of the country. Neither told their families that they were leaving, or where they were going.

‘The police came asking “Where is Mohamed?” And I said “I don’t know.” That was the honest answer, I didn’t know where my son was,’ says Mr Sakr.

Months later Mohamed phoned his parents from Somalia. Both he and Berjawi were now living in a country gripped by civil war between radical Islamists and a rump UN-backed government.

While it’s been reported that both men were drawn to terrorist-linked groups, the Sakrs say the pair had innocent connections with the troubled east African nation. Berjawi had married a Somali woman in London, and Sakr at one time had also been engaged to marry a Somali girl.

Although both were killed by the US, most of the allegations against Sakr and Berjawi remain secret.

Some information has emerged, however. In November 2009, the pair were named along with a third British man in a Ugandan manhunt, accused of ‘sneaking into the country’ to plot terrorist activities. Later the men were linked to deadly bombings in that country’s capital.

The letter seen by the Bureau informing Mohamed’s family that he was losing his citizenship states he was ‘involved in terrorism-related activity’ and for having links with ‘Islamist extremists’, including his friend Bilal al-Berjawi.

For the kids it never crossed my mind that they would have anything other than their British passports. I know they are British, born British, they are British, and carried their British passports.’Gamal Sakr

The Sakrs remain defensive about these claims. ‘Have they done anything? Have they been caught in anything? Have they been caught in any action? Do they have any evidence against them that they have been involved in this or that? I haven’t seen. And they haven’t come up with it,’ says Mr Sakr.

‘It says they took his freedom away because he knew Bilal! Does it mean that because I know a bad person it means I’m bad, or know good people that I’m good? He’d known Bilal since he was 12 years old!,’ says Mohamed’s mother.

Related story: Graphic detail: How UK government has used its powers of banishment

At first Mohamed wanted to fight the deprivation order, and his family hired lawyers in the UK. But they were told that in order to mount an effective appeal Mohamed would need to return to Britain.

Letter from the Home Office. 

His parents say he was too scared to come back.

‘He said, “Daddy, it is impossible for me,”’ says Mr Sakr. “He said, “If I go from here, they’ve already taken my passport from me, maybe they will catch me somewhere, and you will never hear from me again.” He knew something could happen to him.’

In February 2012, news agencies reported that a high-ranking Egyptian al Qaeda official had been killed in a US drone strike in Somalia.

It would be days before the family realised those reports actually referred to their son.

Mr Sakr says: ‘Their hands were washed. And that’s what they claimed when the news first came. They announced that Mohamed was Egyptian [cries]. That’s why they tried to show to the rest of the world, “He’s an Egyptian. He’s not British.”

‘Intelligence killed millions of Iraqis on the basis of wrong information. If we go and kill everyone based on intelligence information, then we are not living in the world of democracy and justice. We are living in the world of “Who has the power and who has the weapons to kill,”’ Mr Sakr rails.

‘If you’re not happy about a dictator or about rules or freedom of speech, and then you come to a country like Britain which we know for hundreds and hundreds of years has talked of democracy and freedom, and laws and justice. And suddenly you find there’s no justice, no freedom of speech, no democracy.’

In response to the Bureau’s original report, a Home Office spokeswoman said: ‘Citizenship is a privilege not a right. The Home Secretary has the power to remove citizenship from individuals where she considers it is conducive to the public good.’

Asked whether intelligence was provided to foreign governments, she said: ‘We don’t comment on intelligence issues. Drone strikes are a matter for the states concerned.’

A version of this piece was published in the Independent newspaper.

Follow Chris Woods on Twitter.

Incident date

March 1, 2013

Incident Code

USSOM025-C

LOCATION

Kol, near Bula Xawa, Gedo, Somalia

Two airstrikes by an unknown belligerent hit the nomadic settlement of Kol, near the city of Bulla-Xama, in southwestern Somalia’s Gedo region, killing a mother and her two children and injuring five others, a young man who fled the settlement following the strike told the Kenyan group Journalists for Justice. According to a report, Black

Summary

First published
March 1, 2013
Last updated
December 15, 2024
Strike status
Single source claim
Strike type
Airstrike
Civilian harm reported
Yes
Civilians reported killed
3
(2 children1 woman)
Civilians reported injured
5
Cause of injury / death
Heavy weapons and explosive munitions
Airwars civilian harm grading
Weak
Single source claim, though sometimes featuring significant information.
Suspected belligerent
Unknown
Suspected target
Unknown
Named victims
3 named, 1 familiy identified
View Incident

Published

March 1, 2013

Written by

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

John Brennan – leading proponent of the drone programme

and the CIA’s director-designate (C-Span).

CIA drones kill two alleged al Qaeda commanders in two strikes on Pakistan.

US operations drop to zero in Yemen a year after President Saleh was ousted from power.

No operations reported in Somalia.

Pakistan

February 2013 actions

Total CIA strikes in February: 2

Total killed in strikes in February: 9-14, of whom 0-2 were reportedly civilians

All actions 2004 – February 28 2013

Total Obama strikes: 312

Total US strikes since 2004: 364

Total reported killed: 2,534-3,573

Civilians reported killed: 411-884Children reported killed: 168-197

Total reported injured: 1,172-1,463For the Bureau’s full Pakistan databases click here.

Two CIA drone strikes hit Pakistan this month, killing at least nine people. This is a significant drop from January when six strikes reportedly killed 27-54 people.

On February 7 John Brennan, Barack Obama’s nominee for CIA director, went before the Senate Intelligence Committee for his confirmation hearing.

The two Pakistan strikes book-ended the Brennan hearing. The first hit the day beforehand, destroying a house and killing alleged Pakistan Taliban (TTP) militants. It coincided with a Pakistan Air Force raid on TTP positions in Orakzai Tribal Agency.

The second strike took place the day after the hearing finished – alleged TTP militants were reportedly targeted once again. A house was hit near the border between North and South Waziristan, killing at least six people. Abu Majid al Iraqi and Yemeni ‘bomb expert‘ Sheikh Abu Waqas (35), alleged al Qaeda commanders, were reportedly among the dead.

Not since 2009 have US drones so consistently targeted the TTP. On February 2, TTP militants targeted a Pakistan Army outpost, killing up to 35. A Taliban spokesman said the attack was ‘revenge’ on the Pakistani state which he accused of ‘co-operating with the US in its drone strikes that killed our two senior commanders, Faisal Khan (Ob306) and Toofani (aka Wali Mohammed Mehsud, Ob307)’.

Yemen

February 2013 actions

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

All actions 2002 – February 28 2013*

Total confirmed US operations: 54-64

Total confirmed US drone strikes: 42-52

Possible additional US operations: 135-157

Of which possible additional US drone strikes: 77-93

Total reported killed: 374-1,112

Total civilians killed: 72-178

Children killed: 27-37Click 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 were no reported drone strikes or any other US covert actions in Yemen this month – in marked contrast to January, when up to eight US strikes killed as many as 38 people.

This is the first month without a reported US strike since early 2012. In fact the Bureau’s data shows that no US drone or airstrike has ever been reported in the month of February.

US operations peaked in spring last year but halted during protests

and political upheaval in February 2012 and 2013.

February also marked the first anniversary of the ousting of Ali Abdullah Saleh. The deal that lead to Saleh being replaced by his deputy Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi followed months of brutally repressed protests. Anniversary demonstrations were again met with violence by security services, especially in southern Yemen, and at least three people were killed in clashes.

Also in February, the New York Times finally reported that CIA drones fly over Yemen from a base in Saudi Arabia. It emerged that the paper, among other leading US media outlets, had suppressed this detail at the request of the White House, even though it was first reported by The Times of London in 2011.

Al Jazeera’s Listening Post on the CIA’s once-secret Saudi base.

A Russian-made Yemen Air Force fighter-bomber crashed in a central Sanaa neighbourhood on February 19. Buildings were set on fire and 12 people died, including two children. It was described as an incident of ‘heartrending absurdity‘ that reinforced how decrepit and unfit for purpose much of the Yemen Air Force remains.

Somalia

February 2013 actions

Total reported US operations: 0

All actions 2007 – February 28 2013

Total US operations: 10-23

Total US drone strikes: 3-9Total reported killed: 58-170Civilians reported killed: 11-57

Children reported killed: 1-3

Click here for the Bureau’s full data on Somalia.

Once again there were no reported US operations in Somalia – the sixth consecutive month without an apparent strike. It remains extremely difficult to obtain credible information regarding military actions in the country, even for intelligence agencies.

This month saw al Shabaab return to Twitter after falling foul of the website’s terms of use. New profiles replace English and Arabic predecessors that were blocked after they were used to broadcast images of dead French commandos and threats to kill Kenyan hostages.

Other news

US military expansion in Africa continues with President Obama sending 100 soldiers to Niger. The Sahel state is host to the US’ latest drone base, a response to growing militancy in the region and ongoing hostility in Mali.

John Brennan went before the Senate Intelligence Committee as the President’s nominee for director of the CIA. Brennan promised to bring greater transparency to the drone programme, saying drone strikes are ‘a last resort to save lives, when there’s no other alternative.’

Oversight and transparency of the drone programme remain prominent concerns. This has led some, including chair of the Senate Intelligence committee Dianne Feinstein and former US defence secretary Robert Gates, to suggest a secret court be formed to provide some oversight to the targeted killing programme. And officials have told reporters the administration is considering moving control of some drone strikes from the CIA to the Pentagon. However strikes in Pakistan would remain under the Agency’s control.

Bureau changes

It is now two years since the Bureau began compiling data on US covert drone strikes in Pakistan. Our work has expanded significantly to cover the conflicts in Yemen and Somalia, with more than 500 incidents now recorded across many data sets. As the Bureau embarks on its new project, Naming the Dead, we have recently completed an audit of our Pakistan drone strike data to ensure consistency across all of our work. This has led to a small fall in our minimum number of reported civilian casualties, mostly a result of our reclassifying some strikes to better reflect our sources.

We have also made more overt the sourcing for all reports of civilian casualties, and have introduced yearly tables into the data. Our Methodology also now spells out more clearly our processes when handling reports of civilian deaths.

Follow Chris Woods, Alice Ross and Jack Serle on Twitter.

To sign up for monthly updates from the Bureau’s Covert War project click here.

In February and March, support the Bureau’s Naming the Dead project, identifying those killed in drone strikes, through the Freedom of the Press Foundation. Click here to donate.

Published

February 27, 2013

Written by

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

Are Congressional oversight bodies really doing their ‘utmost’? (Photo L’ennnui/ Flickr)

Claims by a powerful Senate oversight committee that it is doing its ‘utmost’ to verify claims of civilian casualties from covert US drone strikes have been undermined by the discovery that it has made no contact with any group conducting field studies into civilian deaths in Pakistan.

On February 7 the CIA’s director-designate John Brennan was questioned by members of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

In her opening remarks, chair Dianne Feinstein insisted that civilian deaths from US covert strikes ‘each year has typically been in the single digits’.

Feinstein also said that ‘for the past several years, this committee has done significant oversight of the government’s conduct of targeted strikes’ and had done its ‘utmost to confirm’ civilian casualty data provided by the executive branch.

However, the Bureau can find no indication that either the House or Senate intelligence committees have sought evidence from beyond the US intelligence community, when following up claims of civilian deaths.

While public estimates of civilian deaths vary, all monitoring groups report higher than ‘single digit’ fatalities for most years. The Bureau presently estimates that at least 411 civilians have been killed by the CIA in Pakistan since 2004, for example.

 

‘Never contacted’

Professor Sarah Knuckey, who co-led the recent field investigation by New York and Stanford universities into the Pakistan strikes, confirmed that her team has never been contacted by any US government official, or Congressional oversight committee member or aide.

‘US officials have stated that they have done their utmost to verify civilian casualty numbers, and that they investigate and take seriously reports of civilian harm. These public commitments are welcome,’ Knuckey told the Bureau.

‘But if the commitments are serious, why haven’t officials followed up with the organizations and journalists who investigated strikes and collected information relevant to determining any civilian harm?’

Those concerns were echoed by Sarah Holewinski, executive director of the Center for Civilians in Conflict. Thirty months after it issued its ground-breaking report into civilian deaths, Holewinski said this week that ‘we have never been contacted by Administration officials about our research and analysis on the covert drone program.’

Why haven’t officials followed up with the organizations and journalists who investigated strikes and collected information relevant to determining any civilian harm?Professor Sarah Knuckey, New York University

‘I give him further details of some other strikes that killed civilians, and without looking at what I was giving him Hoagland insisted that he checked the figure that morning and it was still in single digits,’ said Akhbar.

Associated Press, which interviewed more than 80 civilian eyewitnesses in the tribal areas for a major report in early 2012, confirmed that no US officials had ever sought follow -up.

The Bureau’s managing editor Christopher Hird also noted that ‘We have always been happy to share and discuss our findings with others researching this subject, but in the two years of our work we have never heard from either of these committees, or their staff.”

Organisation Year Findings
Center for Civilians

in Conflict (Civic)

2010 Extensive eyewitness reports of civilian deaths
Reprieve/FFR 2010 –

present

Ongoing field work and legal cases
The Bureau 2011 –

present

Three field investigations into reported deaths
Associated Press 2012 Major field study of recent high-casualty

strikes

NYU/Stanford

universities

2012 Detailed eyewitness reports of civilian deaths

and broader impact of CIA campaign

Secure RoomBoth the House of Representatives and the Senate have committees tasked with overseeing the vast US intelligence community – including the CIA, which carries out the majority of covert drone strikes.

Most oversight is carried out in secret. However, some details have recently emerged of how the two committees seek to hold the CIA to account on the drone programme.

Senator Feinstein first revealed the process in a letter to the Los Angeles Times in May 2012.

She implied that monthly oversight had begun in January 2010, a year after Obama took office, noting that her committee ‘receive notification with key details shortly after every strike’. She added that her staff  ‘has held 28 monthly in-depth oversight meetings to review strike records and question every aspect of the program including legality, effectiveness, precision, foreign policy implications and the care taken to minimize noncombatant casualties.’

Most oversight is carried out in secret. However, some details have recently emerged of how the two committees seek to hold the CIA to account on the drone programme.

more details

According to a Los Angeles Times report on the process, oversight committee staffers gathered in a secure room at CIA headquarters ‘also sometimes examine telephone intercepts and after-the-fact evidence, such as the CIA’s assessment of who was hit.’

One senior staffer told the paper: ‘I don’t know that we’ve ever seen anything that we thought was inappropriate.’

‘Blind faith’

Sarah Holewinski of the Center for Civilians in Conflict is now urging the Congressional oversight committees to be far more pro-active in their approach – and far less dependent solely on the word of the CIA.

She noted that unlike in Afghanistan, investigations into reported civilian deaths in US covert drone operations ‘are limited to overhead surveillance, not collecting witness statements and digging in the dirt for evidence of what happened or who exactly was killed.’

And Holewinski pointed to the risk of reliance on the Agency’s own definitions of those it is killing which may not accord with international law. Noting the CIA’s use of so-called signature strikes against alleged militants, whose identity is unknown and who appear to fit certain patterns of behaviour, Holewinski told the Bureau: ‘There’s every reason to want to believe claims of such low civilian casualties caused by drone strikes.’

‘But given obstacles to knowing precisely who was killed on the ground and without real evidence to back up the claims, to believe officials’ claims would be an act of blind faith that isn’t fair to the civilians suffering losses.’

At the time of writing, Senator Feinstein’s office had not responded to requests for comment. 

Follow Chris Woods on Twitter.

Published

February 27, 2013

Written by

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

Passport cancelled: the Coalition government has stripped 16 people of their British citizenship. (Image: Shutterstock)

An investigation by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism and published in the Independent has established that since 2010 the Home Secretary Theresa May has revoked the passports of 16 individuals many of whom are alleged to have had links to militant or terrorist groups.

Critics of the programme warn that it also allows ministers to ‘wash their hands’ of British nationals suspected of terrorism who could be subject to torture and illegal detention abroad.

They add that it also allows those stripped of their citizenship to be killed or ‘rendered’ without any onus on the British government to intervene.

At least five of those deprived of their UK nationality by the Coalition government were born in Britain, and one man had lived in the country for almost 50 years.

Those affected have their passports cancelled, and lose their right to enter the UK – making it very difficult to appeal the Home Secretary’s decision.

Last night the Liberal Democrat’s deputy leader Simon Hughes said he was writing to the Home Secretary to call for an urgent review into how the law was being implemented.

The leading human rights lawyer Gareth Peirce said the present situation ‘smacked of medieval exile, just as cruel and just as arbitrary’.

Ian Macdonald QC, president of the Immigration Law Practitioners’ Association, described the citizenship orders as ‘sinister’.

‘They’re using executive powers and I think they’re using them quite wrongly,’ he said.

‘It’s not open government, it’s closed, and it needs to be exposed because in my view it’s a real overriding of open government and the rule of law.’

Laws were passed in 2002 enabling the Home Secretary to remove the citizenship of any dual nationals who had done something ‘seriously prejudicial’ to the UK, but the power had rarely been used before the current government.

The Bureau’s investigations have established the identities of all but four of the 21 British passport holders who have lost their citizenship, and their subsequent fates. Only two have successfully appealed – one of whom has since been extradited to the US.

Related story – Graphic detail: How the government used its powers of banishment

In many cases those involved cannot be named because of ongoing legal action.

It’s not open government, it’s closed, and it needs to be exposed because in my view it’s a real overriding of open government and the rule of law.Ian Macdonald QC

The Bureau has also found evidence that government officials act when people are out of the country – on two occasions while on holiday – cancelling passports and revoking citizenships.

Those targeted include Bilal al-Berjawi, a British-Lebanese citizen who came to the UK as a baby and grew up in London, but left for Somalia in 2009 with his close friend British-born Mohamed Sakr, who also held Egyptian nationality.

Both had been the subject of extensive surveillance by British intelligence, with the security services concerned they were involved in terrorist activities.

Once in Somalia, the two reportedly became involved with al Shabaab, an Islamist militant group with links to al Qaeda. Berjawi was said to have risen to a senior position in the organisation, with Sakr his ‘right hand man’.

In 2010, Theresa May stripped both men of their British nationalities and they soon became targets in an ultimately lethal US manhunt.

In June 2011 Berjawi was wounded in the first known US drone strike in Somalia and last year he was killed by a drone strike – within hours of calling his wife in London to congratulate her on the birth of their first son.

Sakr, too, was killed in a US airstrike in February 2012, although his British origins have not been revealed until now.

Sakr’s former UK solicitor said there appeared to be a link between the Home Secretary removing citizenships, and subsequent US actions.

‘It appears that the process of deprivation of citizenship made it easier for the US to then designate Sakr as an enemy combatant, to whom the UK owes no responsibility whatsoever,’  Saghir Hussain told the Bureau.

Macdonald added that depriving people of their citizenship ‘means that the British government can completely wash their hands if the security services give information to the Americans who use their drones to track someone and kill them.’

Campaign group CagePrisoners is in touch with many families of those affected. Executive director Asim Qureshi said the Bureau’s findings were deeply troubling for Britons from an ethnic minority background.

‘We all feel just as British as everybody else, and yet just because our parents came from another country, we can be subjected to an arbitrary process where we are no longer members of this country any more,’ he said.

‘I think that’s extremely dangerous because it will speak to people’s fears about how they’re viewed by their own government, especially when they come from certain areas of the world.’

Related story: When being born British isn’t enough

Liberal Democrat Hughes said that while he accepted there were often real security concerns, he was worried that those who were innocent of Home Office charges against them and were trying to appeal risked finding themselves in a ‘political and constitutional limbo’.

‘There was clearly always a risk when the law was changed seven years ago that the executive could act to take a citizenship away in circumstances that were more frequent or more extensive than those envisaged by ministers at the time,’ he said.

‘I’m concerned at the growing number of people who appear to have lost their right to citizenship in recent years. I plan to write to the Home Secretary and the Home Affairs Select Committee to ask for their assessment of the situation, the policy both in general and in detail, and for a review of whether the act working as intended.’

Gareth Peirce said the present situation ‘smacked of medieval exile’.

‘British citizens are being banished from their own country, being stripped of a core part of their identity yet without a single word of explanation of why they have been singled out and dubbed a risk,’ she said.

Families are sometimes affected by the Home Secretary’s decisions. Parents may have to choose whether their British children remain in the UK, or join their father in exile abroad.

In a case known only as L1, a Sudanese-British man took his four British children on summer holiday to Sudan, along with his wife, who had limited leave to remain in the UK. Four days after his departure, Theresa May decided to strip him of his citizenship.

Appeals are heard at Siac, a semi-secret court held at the Royal Courts of Justice (Photo: Shutterstock)

With their father excluded from the UK and their mother’s lack of permanent right to remain, the order effectively blocks the children from growing up in Britain.At the time of the order the children were aged eight to 13 months.The judge, despite recognising their right to be brought up in Britain, ruled that the grounds on which their father’s citizenship was revoked ‘outweighed’ the rights of the children.

Mr Justice Mitting, sitting in the semi-secret Special Immigration Appeals Commission, said: ‘We accept that it is unlikely to be in the best interests of the Appellant’s children that he should be deprived of his British citizenship… They are British citizens, with a right of abode in the United Kingdom.

‘They are of an age when that right cannot, in practice, be enjoyed if both of their parents cannot return to the United Kingdom.’

Yet he added that Theresa May was ‘unlikely to have made that decision without substantial and plausible grounds’.

In another case, a man born in Newcastle in 1963 and three of his London-born sons all lost their citizenship two years ago while in Pakistan.

An expert witness told Siac, the semi-secretive court which hears deprivation appeals, that those in the family’s situation may be at risk  from the country’s government agencies and militant groups. Yet Siac recently ruled that the UK ‘owed no obligation’ to those at risk of ‘any subsequent act of the Pakistani state or of non-state actors [militant groups] in Pakistan’.

The British government can completely wash their hands if the security services give information to the Americans who use their drones to track someone and kill them.Ian Macdonald QC

The mother, herself a naturalised British citizen, now wants to return here in the interests of her youngest son, who has developmental needs. Although 15, he is said to be ‘dependent upon [his mother and father] for emotional and practical support’. His mother claimed he ‘has no hope of education in Pakistan’. But the mother has diabetes and mobility problems that mean she ‘does not feel able to return on her own, with or without [her son].’

Mr Justice Mitting ruled that the deprivation of citizenship of the family’s father had ‘undoubtedly had an impact on the private and family life of his wife and youngest son, both of whom remain British citizens’.

But he added that the father posed such a threat to national security that the ‘unavoidable incidental impact’ on his wife and youngest son was ‘justifiable’, and dismissed the appeal.

A Home Office spokeswoman said: ‘Citizenship is a privilege not a right. The Home Secretary has the power to remove citizenship from individuals where she considers it is conducive to the public good. An individual subject to deprivation can appeal to the courts.’

She added: ‘We don’t routinely comment on individual deprivation cases.’

Asked whether intelligence was provided to foreign governments, she said: ‘We don’t comment on intelligence issues. Drone strikes are a matter for the states concerned.’

A law unto herself: How the Home Secretary has the power to strip British citizenship

The Home Secretary has sole power to remove an individual’s British citizenship. The decision does not have to be referred through the courts.

From the moment the Home Secretary signs a deprivation of citizenship order, the individual ceases to be a British subject – their passport is cancelled, they lose the diplomatic protections Britain extends to its citizens, and they must apply for a visa to re-enter the country.

The Home Secretary can only deprive an individual of their citizenship if they are dual nationals. The power cannot be used if by removing British citizenship it renders an individual stateless.

The Home Secretary, Theresa May can use the power whenever she deems it ‘conducive to the public good’. She can act based on what she believes someone might do, rather than based on past acts.

The only way to challenge an order is through retrospective appeal. Where the deprivation is on national-security grounds, as in almost every known case, appeals go to the semi-secret Special Immigration Appeals Commission (Siac).

Siac hears sensitive, intelligence-based evidence in ‘closed’ proceedings – where an individual and their legal team cannot learn the detail of the evidence against them. Instead, a special advocate – a carefully vetted barrister – challenges the government’s account.  But once they have seen the secret material they cannot speak with the defendant without the court’s permission, making cross-examination ‘pretty useless’, in the words of former special advocate Ian Macdonald.

Related article: The Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC) explained

The government has long been able to remove the citizenship of those who acquired it in cases such as treason, but the power to do so to British-born individuals was introduced after 9/11 in the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002. This allowed the Home Secretary to strip the nationality of those who had ‘done anything seriously prejudicial’ to the country. At that point, no deprivation order had been issued since 1973.

Following the July 7 bombings, the law changed again, so citizenship could be stripped if it is deemed ‘conducive to the public good’. Conservative MPs called this a ‘watered-down test’ – but the Conservative-led coalition government has embraced the power, issuing over three times as many orders as under Labour.

Follow Chris Woods and Alice K Ross on Twitter.

** In February and March, support the Bureau’s Naming the Dead project, which aims to identify those killed in drone strikes. Click here to donate. **

Published

February 8, 2013

Written by

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

Brennan talks with Obama in the president’s private dining room, 2010 (Photo: White House)

John Brennan, the incoming director of the Central Intelligence Agency, told US senators last night that the CIA does not carry out covert drone strikes ‘to punish terrorists for past transgressions’. He insisted instead that they are only used ‘as a last resort to save lives’.

In a lengthy confirmation hearing before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI), Brennan answered questions on topics ranging from torture and classified leaks to an abortive attempt in 1998 to kill Osama bin Laden.

Dianne Feinstein, chair of the SSCI, also used the nomination hearings to claim the tally of civilians killed by drones was typically in the ‘single digits’ for every year of the covert campaign. Brennan accused those of suggesting otherwise as spreading ‘falsehoods’.

Brennan is viewed as one of the chief architects of the rapid expansion of the drone programme under President Obama.

Focus on dronesThe opening of the three-hour hearing was repeatedly interrupted by activists from peace group Code Pink, protesting against the administration’s use of unmanned strikes, before Feinstein ordered the chamber to be cleared.

As each senator had a chance to question Brennan, the focus returned frequently to the controversial covert drone campaign.

In her opening remarks, Democrat Feinstein called for ‘increased transparency around targeted killing’ but said few civilians were killed in strikes.

‘The figures we have obtained from the executive branch, which we have done our utmost to verify, confirm that the number of civilian casualties that have resulted from such strikes each year has typically been in the single digits,’ she said.

In 2012 reported civilian casualties dropped significantly in Pakistan, with the Bureau recording a minimum of seven civilians killed. However, in almost all other years the reported civilian death toll has been significantly higher.

Feinstein’s claim only appears reconcilable with what is publicly known of drone strike casualties if all adult males are considered combatants. This is a definition used by the White House according to a report in the New York Times in May 2012, which revealed that under Obama the term militant was used for all adult males in a strike zone unless intelligence posthumously proved them innocent.

‘Falsehoods’Brennan used the hearing to mount a robust defence of drone usage, saying: ‘I think there is a misimpression on the part of some American people who believe that we take strikes to punish terrorists for past transgressions. Nothing could be further from the truth. We only take such actions as a last resort to save lives when there’s no other alternative to taking an action that’s going to mitigate that threat.’

He said opposition to the programme was based on ‘a misunderstanding of what we do as a government, and the care that we take and the agony that we go through to make sure that we do not have any collateral injuries or deaths’.

Activists were reacting to ‘a lot of falsehoods’ about civilian drone casualties, he added. ‘I do see it as part of my obligation… to make sure the truth is known to the American public and to the world.’

But critics rejected Feinstein’s claim of ‘single digit’ civilian casualties. Jennifer Gibson, who oversees the Pakistan drones project of legal charity Reprieve, said: ‘Last night, Brennan made repeated pledges to make the US drone programme more transparent. He can start by releasing the evidence upon which senator Feinstein repeatedly made claims of single-digit civilian deaths.

‘These are claims the administration has made before, claims which several independent sources, including two leading US universities, have found false.’

Reprieve supported the UK court case of Noor Khan, a Pakistani tribesman whose father was among an estimated 31-42 civilians killed in one strike alone, on Datta Khel, Pakistan on March 17, 2011.

Due process

Brennan acknowledged concerns expressed by independent senator Angus King about the lack of due process surrounding drone strikes that kill US citizens, but argued the US’s ‘judicial tradition’ was distinct from ‘decisions made on the battlefield’. He added that the decision to strike was not based on past guilt. Instead, he said, ‘we take action to prevent further action’.

‘The CIA should not be doing traditional military activities and operations’

– John Brennan

The judicial basis for drone strikes was a major focus in advance of the hearing. On the morning of the hearing, senators on the committee – though not their staff – were permitted for the first time to see the full 50-page classified legal opinions justifying drone strikes that kill US citizens.

Previously senators had only seen a 16-page Justice Department white paper, despite being responsible for holding the CIA to account. The white paper was leaked by NBC News on Monday and drew criticism for what the memo itself referred to as a ‘broader concept’ of the type of imminent threat that could justify killing US citizens without judicial approval.

Obama’s decision to release the legal opinions followed a letter on Monday from 11 members of the US Senate, who demanded to see the documents with the barely veiled threat: ‘The executive branch’s co-operation on this matter will help avoid an unnecessary confrontation that could affect the Senate’s consideration of nominees for national security positions.’

But in the hearing senators were largely muted on the legal ramifications of the drone programme.

Chris Coles, of campaign group Drone Wars UK, said: ‘Once the Code Pink protesters were ejected, the lack of any serious challenge to the notion that drones were a precise tool, carefully and legally used, was shocking.

‘Here was an opportunity to hold the CIA to account for its flagrant violation of international law – including the killing of hundreds of Pakistani civilians – but time and again, Brennan, one of the chief architects of drone warfare was merely thanked for his “valuable service”.’

Aberration

Brennan used the hearing to hint at a shift in the role of the CIA away from its increasingly paramilitary role. In response to concerns from Democratic senator Barbara Mikulski that the agency had seen ‘mission creep’ towards functions that more properly belonged to military special operations, Brennan appeared to agree: ‘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 said, pledging to re-examine the role of the CIA if approved. ‘The CIA should not be doing traditional military activities and operations,’ he added.

Although the session saw some tough questioning, particularly around Brennan’s discussions of security matters with the press, it ended with endorsements of the prospective CIA director from Feinstein and others. The committee will make its formal decision after a closed hearing on February 12.

Support Naming the Dead, the Bureau’s major new investigation, by donating to the Freedom of the Press Foundation.

Published

February 1, 2013

Written by

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

A fully armed Reaper taxis before a mission (US Air Force – Sgt Brian Ferguson).

In Pakistan a heavy CIA drone campaign targeted both so-called ‘good’ and ‘bad’ Taliban. Three senior militants were among the dead.

Yemen was hit by the highest number of airstrikes in one month since June 2012, though none have been formally confirmed as US operations.

No US operations were reported in Somalia.

The United Nations also launched a major investigation into the legality and casualties of drone strikes by the United States, Britain and Israel.

Pakistan

January 2013 actions

Total CIA strikes in January: 6

Total killed in strikes in January: 27-54, of whom 0-2 were reportedly civilians

All actions 2004 – January 31 2013

Total Obama strikes: 310

Total US strikes since 2004: 362

Total reported killed: 2,629-3,461

Civilians reported killed: 475-891

Children reported killed: 176

Total reported injured: 1,267-1,431For the Bureau’s full Pakistan databases click here.

The CIA began 2013 with six drone strikes in nine days – more in any single month since August 2012.

With double the strikes hitting Pakistan this month compared with January last year, 2013 could see renewed intensity in the CIA drone programme.

The month’s first strike killed powerful Taliban commander Maulvi (or Mullah) Nazir, ‘perhaps the most prized feather in [the] cap’ of the drone programme to date, according to one commentator. Nazir co-ordinated attacks on Nato and Afghan forces in Afghanistan and had long been a target of the CIA.

However his group refrained from terrorist attacks within Pakistan, earning the label ‘good’ Taliban. Brigadier Asad Munir, a retired commander of the ISI, told the Bureau his death could cause serious problems for Islamabad. He said peace with Nazir was essential since Pakistan’s army cannot simultaneously fight both Nazir’s militants and the TTP – the so-called ‘bad’ Taliban behind numerous lethal attacks in Pakistani cities.

Despite this, Pakistan’s response to the strikes in January was muted – notably so, according to Associated Press, as loud protestations had followed almost every strike in 2012.

This could indicate that relations between the allies have improved from their 2012 nadir. The CIA may also have tried to mollify Islamabad by killing senior TTP commander Wali Muhammad Mahsud and announcing that Maulana Fazlullah, commander of the Swat Taliban, is now high on its kill list. The Swat Taliban shot schoolgirl Malala Yousafzai and launches attacks on Pakistan from its bases in Afghanistan. Islamabad has repeatedly called on Nato and Afghan forces to crack down on the group.

A third high-value target death in January was of senior al Qaeda paramilitary commander Sheikh Yaseen al Kuwaiti, reportedly killed at home with his wife and daughter by eight missiles.

Yemen

January 2013 actions

Confirmed US drone strikes: 0 Further reported/possible US strike events: 8 Total reported killed in US operations: 0-38Civilians reported killed in US strikes: 0-7Children reported killed in US strikes: 0-2

All actions 2002 – January 31 2013*

Total confirmed US operations: 54-64

Total confirmed US drone strikes: 42-52

Possible additional US operations: 135-157

Of which possible additional US drone strikes: 77-93

Total reported killed: 374-1,112

Total civilians killed: 72-178

Children killed:  27-37Click 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.

Eight strikes hit Yemen in January, the most in a month since June 2012 when US attacks on al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) began to slow from their May peak.

News reports named 12 alleged militants killed in the strikes. Up to two children also reportedly died when a wayward airstrike missed its intended target, hitting Abdu Mohammed al-Jarrah‘s house. This is the first credible report of child casualties since a US strike killed 12 civilians, three of them children, on September 2, 2012.

It remains unclear who is behind the recent strikes. September was the last time the Bureau noted a confirmed US operation in Yemen, although Yemen’s state media appears to have stopped claiming that the ‘barely functional‘ Yemen Air Force is responsible for every strike. Attacks are now officially described simply as airstrikes.

There were more allegations that the Royal Saudi Air Force (RSAF) is striking AQAP. A report claimed the RSAF targeted an AQAP training camp on January 22, right on the Saudi-Yemeni border. But it was also reported that US drones launched the strike, with help from Saudi intelligence.

An anonymous US intelligence official told the Times that Saudi jets have been striking other targets in Yemen in support of US operations – an allegation promptly denied by the Saudis. The paper reported that Saudi jets may have carried out a botched strike on May 15 2012 that killed 12-26 civilians. There were also questions raised regarding a September 2 strike by an unidentified aircraft that killed 12 civilians – three of them children. However, it emerged on Christmas Day that US drones or jets had carried out that attack.

In a rare display of opposition to the drone programme, Yemeni human rights minister Hooria Mashhour told Reuters the country should change its counter-terrorism strategy. Without directly mentioning drones, she advocated moving away from air strikes to ground operations to target AQAP ‘without harming civilians and without leading to human rights violations’.

On January 28 Sanaa sent up to 7,000 troops with tanks to drive AQAP-linked militants out of the central province of al Bayda and to free hostages including two Finnish and one Austrian. AQAP countered, sending ‘several hundred’ reinforcements to the province. At least 2,500 civilians have reportedly been displaced.

Somalia

January 2013 actions

Total reported US operations: 0

All actions 2007 – January 31 2013

Total US operations: 10-23

Total US drone strikes: 3-9Total reported killed: 58-170Civilians reported killed: 11-57

Children reported killed: 1-3

Click here for the Bureau’s full data on Somalia.

 

January was the fifth consecutive month without a reported US strike. But al Shabaab showed it remains a threat to Mogadishu, launching a suicide attack on the presidential palace. The bomber was reportedly ‘an al Shabaab defector‘ with a gate pass and a National Security Force identity card. He detonated his suicide vest, killing two soldiers, after it was uncovered in a routine search.

The US provided ‘limited technical support‘ to a failed French attempt to rescue a spy held hostage by al Shabaab since 2009. Five French helicopters carried 50 commandos into Somalia. US Air Force jets entered Somali airspace in support, although they did not fire their weapons. The French operation was reportedly timed to coincide with the French air and ground offensive in northern Mali, though Paris denied the two operations were linked.

France said militants executed the captured secret service officer, known by his alias Denis Allex, during the assault. Seventeen alleged militants, including their commander Sheikh Ahmed were reportedly killed.

But in the course of the night assault, French commandos also reportedly killed eight civilians, including a child and both his parents. One French commando was also killed and another wounded. Al Shabaab said the injured soldier subsequently died of his wounds in their custody, and posted pictures on Twitter of the dead commando as proof.

After al Shabaab also tweeted an image of the dead French spy, and threatened to kill two Kenyan hostages its account was suspended.

UN investigation

UN special rapporteur Ben Emmerson QC announced that the UN will investigate covert CIA and Pentagon strikes in Yemen, Pakistan and Somalia. He will also look at strikes by the UK and US in Afghanistan, and by Israel in the occupied Palestinian territories.

Emmerson has assembled a team of experts to scrutinise some 25 strikes, examining the legal framework for targeted killings and claims of civilian deaths. One area they are expected to explore is the deliberate targeting of rescuers and funeral-goers by the CIA in Pakistan, a tactic revealed in an investigation by the Bureau for the Sunday Times.

The UN’s Human Rights Council asked its special rapporteurs to investigate drone strikes after nations including Russia, China and Pakistan called for action last June. Emmerson will present his recommendations to the General Assembly in October.

Follow Chris Woods, Alice Ross and Jack Serle on Twitter.

To sign up for monthly updates from the Bureau’s Covert War project click here.

Published

January 24, 2013

Written by

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

Ben Emmerson QC addresses reporters in London (Photo: TBIJ)

A UN investigation into the legality and casualties of drone strikes has been formally launched, with a leading human rights lawyer revealing the team that will carry out the inquiry.

The announcement came as the latest reported US drone strike in Yemen was said to have mistakenly killed two children.

Ben Emmerson QC, the UN’s special rapporteur on human rights and counter-terrorism, told a London press conference that he will lead a group of international specialists who will examine CIA and Pentagon covert drone attacks in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia.

The team will also look at drone strikes by US and UK forces in Afghanistan, and by Israel in the Occupied Territories. In total some 25 strikes are expected to be examined in detail.

The senior British barrister will work alongside international criminal lawyers, a senior Pakistani judge and one of the UK’s leading forensic pathologists, as well as experts from Pakistan and Yemen. Also joining the team is a serving judge-advocate with the US military ‘who is assisting the inquiry in his personal capacity.’

Emmerson told reporters: ‘Those states using this technology and those on whose territory it is used are under an international law obligation to establish effective independent and impartial investigations into any drone attack in which it is plausibly alleged that civilian casualties were sustained.’

But in the absence of such investigations by the US and others, the UN would carry out investigations ‘in the final resort’, he said.

Related story – UN team to investigate civilian drone deaths

Early signs indicate Emmerson’s team may have assistance from relevant states. He told journalists that Britain’s Ministry of Defence was already co-operating, and that Susan Rice, the US’s ambassador to the United Nations, had indicated that Washington ‘has not ruled out full co-operation.’

Those states using this technology and those on whose territory it is used are under an international law obligation to establish effective independent and impartial investigations into any drone attack in which it is plausibly alleged that civilian casualties were sustained.’Ben Emmerson QC

The UN Human Rights Council last year asked its special rapporteurs to begin an investigation after a group of nations including Russia, China and Pakistan requested action on covert drone strikes. Emmerson told the Bureau: ‘It’s a response to the fact that there’s international concern rising exponentially, surrounding the issue of remote targeted killings through the use of unmanned vehicles.’

Related story – Obama terror drones: CIA tactics in Pakistan include targeting rescuers and funerals

Emmerson said he expects to make recommendations to the UN general assembly by this autumn. His team will also call for further UN action ‘if that proves to be justified by the findings of my inquiry’.

He added: ‘This is not of course a substitute for effective official independent investigations by the states concerned.’

One area the inquiry is expected to examine is the deliberate targeting of rescuers and funeral-goers by the CIA in Pakistan, as revealed in an investigation by the Bureau for the Sunday Times.

In October 2012 Emmerson said: ‘The Bureau has alleged that since President Obama took office at least 50 civilians were killed in follow-up strikes when they had gone to help victims and more than 20 civilians have also been attacked in deliberate strikes on funerals and mourners. Christof Heyns [UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial killing] … has described such attacks, if they prove to have happened, as war crimes. I would endorse that view.’

The American Civil Liberties Union welcomed the UN inquiry, and called on the US to aid investigators. ‘Whether it does or not will show whether it holds itself to the same obligation to co-operate with UN human rights investigations that it urges on other countries,” said Jamil Dakwar, director of the ACLU’s Human Rights Programme.

Who’s who on the UN’s team

Dr Nat Cary – One of the UK’s most respected forensic pathologists, Cary is the president of the British Association of Forensic Medicine and has worked on high-profile cases including the second autopsy of Ian Tomlinson and that of Joanna Yeates. He is an expert in injuries caused by explosions.

Imtiaz Gul – Gul is an eminent observer of terrorism and security in Pakistan. The executive director of the Islamabad-based Center for Research and Security Studies, which tracks terrorist activity and violence throughout Pakistan, he is also a prominent journalist. He has written four books on al Qaeda, the Taliban and Pakistan’s militants, and is a regular contributor to both Pakistani and international titles.

Abdul-Ghani Al-Iryani – A long-established analyst of and commentator on Yemeni politics, Iryani also leads the Democratic Awakening Movement. This campaign group, formed as President Saleh’s regime weakened during the Arab Spring, campaigns for human rights, strong civil society and the rule of law in Yemen.

Professor Sarah Knuckey – Human rights lawyer Knuckey runs the Global Justice Clinic at New York University’s law school. Last year she co-authored a major study into the impact of drones on civilians, Living Under Drones, which found that the CIA’s drone campaign in Pakistan had a ‘damaging and counterproductive’ effect on those who lived within the strike zone.

Lord Macdonald QC – A former director of public prosecutions for the UK government, Liberal Democrat peer Ken Macdonald is a leading defence barrister at Matrix Chambers, where Emmerson also practices. He has authored a major review of governmental counter-terrorism policy. He is chair of legal charity Reprieve’s board of trustees.

Sir Geoffrey Nice QC – A war crimes specialist, Nice spent eight years as a prosecutor at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, culminating in leading the team that prosecuted Slobodan Milosevic. Many of his cases still centre on international law and war crimes – and last year he caused controversy by questioning whether Sudan’s President Bashir was responsible for genocide in Darfur.

Captain Jason Wright – The US Army lawyer who defended Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in his trial for plotting the September 11 attacks, Wright spoke out about his client’s torture in Guantanamo Bay. He is now a judge-advocate with the US military and is assisting the inquiry in a personal capacity, Emmerson noted at the investigation’s launch.

Justice Shah Jehan Khan Yousafzai – Yousafzai has spent two decades as senior judge in the circuit of Peshawar high court, working in towns and cities adjacent to the Pakistani tribal regions that have been the epicentre of covert drone warfare. Peshawar high court has heard high-profile legal challenges to the drone campaign.

Jasmine Zerini – A former diplomat, Zerini is a specialist in Pakistan and Afghanistan, having worked as deputy director for South Asia for the French foreign ministry.

[/stextbox]

Incident date

January 19, 2013

Incident Code

USYEM144-C

LOCATION

وادي عبيدة, Wadi Obeida, Ma'rib, Yemen

A suspected US drone strike in Wadi Obeida, Ma’rib governorate on January 19th 2013 between 11 o’clock at night and midnight killed up to four civilians, with conflicting reports that in fact up to six Al Qaeda militants were killed. According to Mareb Press, the strike hit and destroyed a vehicle that Al Qaeda seized

Summary

First published
January 19, 2013
Last updated
December 15, 2024
Strike status
Likely strike
Strike type
Airstrike, Drone Strike
Civilian harm reported
Yes
Civilians reported killed
0 – 4
Cause of injury / death
Heavy weapons and explosive munitions
Airwars civilian harm grading
Weak
Single source claim, though sometimes featuring significant information.
Suspected belligerent
US Forces
Suspected target
Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP)
Geolocation
Neighbourhood/area
Belligerents reported killed
4–6
View Incident

Incident date

January 19, 2013

Incident Code

USYEM143-B

LOCATION

وادي عبيدة, Wadi Abida, Ma'rib, Yemen

On January 19th 2013, before 11pm, the second of three alleged US drone strikes hit the  Al Shabwan Wadi Abidah region of the Marib governorate, killing as many as three militants. Marib Press, Yemen Observer, and Enduring American World View corroborated that one of the reported militants killed was Ismaeel Bin Saeed Bin Jameel and

Summary

First published
January 19, 2013
Last updated
December 15, 2024
Strike status
Likely strike
Strike type
Airstrike, Drone Strike
Civilian harm reported
No
Civilians reported killed
Unknown
Cause of injury / death
Heavy weapons and explosive munitions
Suspected belligerent
US Forces
Suspected target
Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP)
Geolocation
Neighbourhood/area
Belligerents reported killed
2–3
View Incident

Incident date

January 19, 2013

Incident Code

USYEM142-N

LOCATION

وادي عبيدة, Wadi Abida, Ma'rib, Yemen

On January 19th 2013, between 7 and 10:30 pm, the first of three alleged US drone strikes in the Wadi Abidah region in al-Hatik in Marib struck an orange farm in the populated Al-Masil area in Al Dsaleel, Ra’ed Fadi Abdullah. There were no reported casualties, civilian or militant but according to eyewitnesses, the strike

Summary

First published
January 19, 2013
Last updated
December 15, 2024
Strike status
Likely strike
Strike type
Airstrike, Drone Strike
Infrastructure
Agriculture
Civilian harm reported
No
Civilians reported killed
0
Cause of injury / death
Heavy weapons and explosive munitions
Suspected belligerent
US Forces
Suspected target
Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP)
Geolocation
Neighbourhood/area
View Incident

Incident date

January 12, 2013

Incident Code

SOM016a-1

LOCATION

Bulo Marer, Somalia

French commandos failed to a rescue a French spy held hostage by al Shabaab since 2009. Paris claimed the militants executed the captured secret service agent, known by his alias Denis Allex, during an assault by 50 Special Forces troops. However al Shabaab’s media wing said the hostage survived. Seventeen alleged militants were reportedly killed

Summary

First published
January 12, 2013
Last updated
December 15, 2024
Strike status
Declared strike
Strike type
Airstrike
Civilian harm reported
Yes
Civilians reported killed
8
(2 children2 women3 men)
Causes of injury / death
Heavy weapons and explosive munitions, Small arms and light weapons
Airwars civilian harm grading
Fair
Reported by two or more credible sources, with likely or confirmed near actions by a belligerent.
Known belligerent
French Military
Known target
Al-Shabaab
Named victims
7 named, 2 families identified
Belligerents reported killed
17
View Incident

Published

January 9, 2013

Written by

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

Obama’s CIA choice. But Brennan civilian death claims raise issues. (White House/ Pete Souza)

Claims by the Central Intelligence Agency’s new director-designate that the US intelligence services received ‘no information’ about any civilians killed by US drones in the year prior to June 2011 do not appear to bear scrutiny.

John Brennan, President Obama’s nominee to take over the CIA, had claimed in a major speech in summer 2011 that there had not been ‘a single collateral death’ in a covert US strike in the past year due to the precision of drones. He later qualified his statement, saying that at the time of his comments he had ‘no information’ to the contrary.

Related article: US claims of ‘no civilian deaths’ are untrue

Yet just three months beforehand, a major US drone strike had killed 42 Pakistanis, most of them civilians. As well as being widely reported by the media at the time, Islamabad’s concerns regarding those deaths were also directly conveyed to the ‘highest levels of the Administration’ by Washington’s then-ambassador to Pakistan, it has been confirmed to the Bureau.

This confirmation suggests that senior US officials were aware of dozens of civilian deaths just weeks before Brennan’s claims to the contrary.

Jirga deaths

The CIA drone strike in Pakistan on March 17, which bombed the town of Datta Khel in North Waziristan and killed an estimated 42 people, has always seemed a contradiction of Brennan’s official statement.

The attack was later justified by an anonymous US official as a so-called ‘signature strike’ where the identities of those killed was unknown. They insisted that ‘a large group of heavily armed men, some of whom were clearly connected to al Qaeda and all of whom acted in a manner consistent with AQ-linked militants, were killed.’

In fact the gathering was a jirga, or tribal meeting, called to resolve a local mining dispute. Dozens of tribal elders and local policemen died, along with a small number of Taliban.

Within hours of the attack Pakistan’s prime minister and army chief publicly condemned the mass killing of dozens of civilians. Pakistan’s president also later protested about the strike to a visiting delegation from the US House Armed Services Committee, led by Congressman Rob Wittman.

An official Pakistani government document issued at the time reports that Washington’s then-ambassador Cameron Munter was summoned to the Foreign Ministry in Islamabad on March 18 for a dressing-down.

A strongly worded statement reported that ‘Ambassador Munter was categorically conveyed that such strikes were not only “unacceptable” but also constituted “a flagrant violation of humanitarian norms and law”.’

Munter also intended ‘to convey Pakistan’s message to the US Administration at the highest levels,’ the Foreign Ministry press release claimed.

While some challenge Pakistan’s portrayal of some aspects of the meeting, it is not disputed that the Ambassador did indeed convey Pakistan’s concerns to the highest levels in the US government.

‘Not a single collateral death’

Yet three months after the Datta Khel strike, John Brennan would insist that covert US drone strikes were so accurate that they were no longer killing civilians, and had not done so for the previous 12 months.

He told an audience on June 29 that ‘I can say that the types of operations… that the US has been involved in, in the counter-terrorism realm, that nearly for the past year there hasn’t been a single collateral death because of the exceptional proficiency, precision of the capabilities that we’ve been able to develop.’

It is not disputed that the Ambassador did indeed convey Pakistan’s concerns to the highest levels in the US government.

The Datta Khel attack was not the only time that civilians had died in the period referred to by Brennan. Working with veteran Pakistani reporter Rahimullah Yusufzai and field researchers in the tribal areas, the Bureau identified and published details of 45 civilians known at the time to have been killed by CIA drones in ten strikes between August 2010 and June 2011, the date of Brennan’s speech. Many of those killed had died at Datta Khel.

The Bureau presented a summary of its findings to the White House and to John Brennan’s office in July 2011. Both declined to comment.

Nine months later, George Stephanopoulos of ABC News challenged Brennan on his original claims.

‘Do you stand by the statement you have made in the past that, as effective as they have been, [drones] have not killed a single civilian?’  the interviewer asked. ‘That seems hard to believe.’

Brennan was robust, insisting that ‘what I said was that over a period of time before my public remarks that we had no information about a single civilian, a noncombatant being killed.’

Military-aged malesA later report in the New York Times provided a possible explanation for Brennan’s robustness. The paper revealed that Washington ‘counts all military-age males in a strike zone as combatants, according to several administration officials, unless there is explicit intelligence posthumously proving them innocent.’

Since all of the civilians killed at Datta Khel were adult males, officials may simply have discounted their deaths. There are no indications that the CIA has amended its records since.

Do you stand by the statement you have made in the past that, as effective as they have been, [drones] have not killed a single civilian?’  the interviewer asked. ‘That seems hard to believe.’

The Bureau has now raised its estimate of the number of civilians killed in the period Brennan claimed none had died to 76, including eight children and two women. The new figures are based in part on our own research and on studies by Associated Press and Stanford and New York universities.

John Brennan, 57, is Barack Obama’s first choice as the new director of the CIA. As the president’s chief counter-terrorism adviser he helped to bring Yemen’s Arab Spring to a reasonably peaceful conclusion. And he also played a key role in the killings of Osama bin Laden, Anwar al-Awlaqi and a host of other senior militant leaders.

Brennan also spearheaded a massive expansion of US drone strikes in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia.

The American Civil Liberties Union urged caution in appointing him as CIA chief. Calling on the Senate to investigate any recent involvement by John Brennan or the CIA in ‘torture, abuse, secret prisons, and extraordinary rendition,’ the ACLU’s Laura Murphy also urged an end to the CIA’s ‘targeted killing program.’

Mr Brennan’s office did not respond when asked to confirm whether he had been directly informed of the Pakistan government’s concerns over civilian deaths back in March 2011.

Follow Chrisjwoods on Twitter.

Incident date

January 4, 2013

Incident Code

USYEM141-B

LOCATION

رداع, Rada'a, Al Bayda, Yemen

On January 3rd 2013, at least three Al Qaeda militants were allegedly killed by a US or Yemeni airstrike in a “mountainous area” near Rada’a. There are currently no known reports of civilian harm. Among those who died was Muqbel Abbad Al Zobah, nicknamed Abu Shebab, the news source Akhbar Alyom reported. This was corroborated

Summary

First published
January 3, 2013
Last updated
December 15, 2024
Strike status
Contested strike
Strike type
Airstrike, Drone Strike
Civilian harm reported
No
Civilians reported killed
0
Cause of injury / death
Heavy weapons and explosive munitions
Suspected belligerents
US Forces, Yemeni Air Force
Suspected target
Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP)
Belligerents reported killed
3
View Incident

Published

January 3, 2013

Written by

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

An MQ-9 Reaper at Creech Air Force Base, Nevada (USAF/Lance Cheung)

Reported civilian deaths fell sharply in Pakistan in 2012, with Bureau data suggesting that a minimum of 2.5% of those reported killed were civilians – compared with more than 14% in 2011. This suggests the CIA is seeking to limit non-militant casualties, perhaps as a result of sustained criticism.

Drone strikes in Pakistan are now at their lowest level in five years, as Islamabad protests almost every attack. The CIA also appears to have abandoned ‘signature strikes’ on suspected militants fitting certain patterns of behaviour – at least for the present. Almost all attacks in recent months have been against named al Qaeda and other militant leaders.

As drone strikes fell in Pakistan they rose steeply in Yemen, as US forces aided a major military campaign to oust al Qaeda and other Islamists from southern cities. A parallel CIA targeted killing programme killed numerous alleged militants, many of them named individuals. Yet US officials took more than three months to confirm that American planes or drones had killed 12 civilians.

Little is still known about US drone strikes in Somalia, with only two credibly reported incidents in 2012. One of those killed was a British-Somali militant, Bilal al-Barjawi.

In 2012,the US also chose to loosen the bonds of secrecy on its 10-year-old drone targeted killing programme. A number of senior officials went on the record about aspects of the covert war. But details of those killed – still a highly contentious issue – remain classified.

The year also saw a number of significant legal challenges to the campaign, most of them ultimately unsuccessful.  UN experts also announced a study into possible war crimes, partly in response to a Bureau/Sunday Times investigation.

A year of drones

President Obama became the first senior US official in eight years openly to discuss the covert drone programme in January, telling viewers of a Google Town Hall session that ‘a lot of these strikes have been in the FATA [Federally Administered Tribal Area], and going after al Qaeda suspects.’

And he insisted that ‘actually drones have not caused a huge number of civilian casualties, for the most part they have been very precise precision strikes against al Qaeda and their affiliates.’

Days afterwards, the Bureau and the Sunday Times published evidence in February showing that the CIA has deliberately targeted rescuers and funeral-goers in Pakistan, leading to the reported deaths of civilians. The administration has yet to deny the claims – although one anonymous senior official appeared to claim that the Bureau was ‘helping al Qaeda.’

Reported civilian deaths fell sharply in Pakistan in 2012, with Bureau data suggesting that 2.5% of those killed were civilians – compared with more than 14% in 2011.’ 

A major covert US military offensive in Yemen began in March. Its aim – in which it was successful – was to break al Qaeda’s grip on a number of towns and cities in the south of the country. By late spring, drone strikes were occurring more frequently in Yemen than in Pakistan.

One reason for a decline in Pakistani strikes may have been growing hostility. Some 74% of polled citizens said they viewed the US as an enemy, and uniquely Pakistan bucked a global trend to register as the only nation favouring Mitt Romney for president. In contrast, the American public appears to staunchly support covert drones – in one poll 83% of respondents were in favour of the strikes.

The British High Court was called on in April to look into US covert drone strikes and possible British co-operation, which some lawyers in the UK insist is illegal. Days before the end of the year the High Court declined to investigate. After years of inactivity, US and Pakistani courts also began to consider legal questions surrounding the campaign.

In one of the biggest news stories of the year, in May the New York Times revealed that President Obama was personally deciding whether to kill some individuals. The paper also revealed that the administration ‘counts all military-age males in a strike zone as combatants, according to several administration officials, unless there is explicit intelligence posthumously proving them innocent.’

As the Bureau noted at the time, ‘The revelation helps explain the wide variation between credible reports of civilian deaths in Pakistan by the Bureau and others, and the CIA’s claims that it had killed no ‘non-combatants’ between May 2010 and September 2011 – and possibly later.’

In June, Washington partially declassified aspects of the secret campaign, with officials openly acknowledging ‘direct action’ in Yemen and Pakistan. However the CIA’s parallel campaign remains classified – and Pentagon officials still refuse to release information relating to specific drone strikes.

CNN found itself in the firing line in July when it claimed there had been ‘zero civilian casualties’ from US drone strikes in Pakistan in the first six months of the year. The Atlantic was among a number of publications which attacked the broadcaster for relying on error-filled data.

One reason for a decline in Pakistani strikes may have been growing hostility. Some 74% of polled citizens said they viewed the US as an enemy. Uniquely Pakistan bucked a global trend to register as the only nation favouring Mitt Romney for president.’ 

One of Pakistan’s most senior diplomats told the Bureau and the Guardian in August that drone strikes were now undermining democracy. And in September, President Obama laid out the five rules he said need to be followed in covert US strikes, as it emerged that US ‘consent’ for strikes in Pakistan appears to rest on a monthly unanswered fax.

October saw the publication of a major academic report by Columbia Law School into the reporting of drone strike casualties. Noting the problems all casualty recorders face, the study concluded that only the Bureau appeared to be accurately reflecting reported civilian deaths. An earlier study by Stanford and New York universities reached similar conclusions.

The tenth anniversary of the first US covert drone strike in November received little US coverage, coming as it did days before the presidential elections. Both Obama and Mitt Romney had told voters that it would be business as usual if elected.

And days after the 300th Pakistan drone strike of Obama’s presidency, the Bureau exclusively reported in December on declassified data which showed 1,200 US and British conventional drone strikes in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya.

Country by country

Pakistan: The drop in strikes from their 2010 peak continued, and proportionally civilian casualties plummeted. Of at least 246 people killed in 2012 only 7 were credibly reported as civilians. Last year 68 non-combatants were reported among a minimum of 473 dead.

Yemen: After al Qaeda took and held a swathe of land in southern Yemen, the US responded by massively increasing the rate of drone and air strikes. At least 185 people were killed. But up to two thirds of the strikes and casualties exist in a limbo of accountability.

Somalia: The US fight in the Horn of Africa is the most secretive in the covert war on terror. There were only two confirmed US strikes in Somalia this year despite evidence that operations are continuing unreported.

Pakistan

Under President Bush the CIA launched 52 drone strikes. Since then the Agency has launched 306 attacks under President Obama.

The big story of 2012 was the steep fall in both the number of CIA strikes and casualties in Pakistan.

Attacks resumed on January 10 after a 54-day break, following a Nato airstrike which killed two dozen Pakistani soldiers. Throughout the year prolonged pauses between strikes indicated the vulnerability of the drone campaign to external events.

The tenth anniversary of the first US covert drone strike received virtually no coverage – coming as it did days before the US presidential elections.’ 

In April attacks again halted as Islamabad and Washington haggled over the reopening of supply lines into Afghanistan. There was no halt for the fast of Ramadan, the ‘month of peace’, as both the CIA and Pakistani Taliban continued their deadly operations.

Overall there was a significant fall in the number of CIA drone strikes in 2012 – down two thirds on their peak of 2010. Even more marked was the proportional fall in the numbers of reported civilians killed  – down from an estimated 14% to 2.5% of those killed year-on-year. The majority of non-combatants killed this year were close relatives – often the wives – of named militants.

All CIA strikes in Pakistan 2012

Total strikes: 48

Total reported killed: 246-397

Civilians reported killed: 7-54

Children reported killed: 2

Total reported injured: 107-167

Pakistan: December 2012 actions

Total CIA strikes in December: 5

Total killed in strikes in December: 17-28, of whom 1-4 were reportedly civilians

All Pakistan actions 2004 – 2012

Total Obama strikes: 304

Total US strikes since 2004: 356

Total reported killed: 2,604-3,407

Civilians reported killed: 473-889

Children reported killed: 176

Total reported injured: 1,259-1,417

For the Bureau’s full Pakistan databases click here.

 

Yemen

 

US operations have escalated over Yemen in the last 12 months. However the Bureau cannot yet confirm responsibility for 127 strikes since 2010 which may have been the work of US aircraft.

Southern Yemen was gripped by a civil war in 2012 as Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) and allies established their ‘Islamic Emirates‘ in the south of the country, exploiting the chaos of a popular uprising to tighten their grip.

Once entrenched it proved too difficult for Yemen’s army alone to dislodge them. But in February President Ali Abdallah Saleh was overthrown and his replacement Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi invited the United States to help do the job for him.

As drone strikes fell in Pakistan in 2012 they rose steeply in Yemen, as US forces aided a major military campaign to oust al Qaeda and other Islamists.’ 

In March the number of airstrikes rose steeply, and the following month the CIA was given permission to launch signature strikes in Yemen. US operations peaked in May. Even after militants were driven out the violence continued. A suicide bomber penetrated security in the capital to kill 100 Yemeni soldiers and injure at least 200 more, a bloody portent of AQAP’s return to guerilla tactics.

Following the ousting of AQAP from its southern stronghold US operations declined sharply. At present drone attacks are most frequently on named militants in moving vehicles, suggesting an effort by the US to limit the risk of civilian casualties.

US or Yemeni officials often claim responsibility when senior militants are killed. In contrast there are rarely admissions of responsibility when civilians die in US airstrikes, as between 18 and 58 did in 2012. Only in December – three months after a dozen civilians died in Rada’a – did anonymous US officials admit that an American drone or plane had carried out an attack.

Questions have also been asked about how effective US operations are. Analyst Gregory Johnsen has pointed out that AQAP membership had grown steeply since the US began targeting militants in 2009.

 

As reported US air strikes have increased in Yemen so too have reported casualties.

All Yemen actions in 2012

Total confirmed US operations: 32-39

Total confirmed US drone strikes: 29-36

Possible additional US operations: 127-149

Of which possible additional US drone strikes: 55-69

Total reported killed: 185-705

Total civilians killed: 18-58Children killed: 3-9

Yemen: December 2012 actions

Confirmed US drone strikes: 0

Further reported/possible US strike events: 4-7

Total reported killed in US operations: 10-14Civilians reported killed in US strikes: 0

All Yemen actions 2002 – 2012*

Total confirmed US operations: 53-63

Total confirmed US drone strikes: 42-52

Possible additional US operations: 124-143

Of which possible additional US drone strikes: 66-79

Total reported killed: 362-1,059

Total civilians killed: 60-170

Children killed: 24-35Click 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

US operations remained largely a mystery throughout 2012. One more confirmed strike was reported this year compared with last. However the Washington Post reported that armed US drones continue to fly sorties over Somalia from a US base in Djibouti.

Little is still known about US drone strikes in Somalia with only two credibly reported incidents in 2012. One of these killed a British-Somali militant, Bilal al-Barjawi.’ 

And the Bureau learned that as much as 50% of US military and intelligence operations go unreported in Somalia. A UN study said that so many drones were operating over Somalia that several air traffic accidents were narrowly avoided.

Because of the dangers of reporting from Somalia – Reporters Without Borders says 18 journalists have been killed in Somalia this year – there are no trustworthy reports of strikes or casualties. Only Iranian broadcaster Press TV consistently reports alleged US strikes. But while the Bureau monitors Press TV’s coverage we do not consider these reports reliable, and do not count them in our data.

In September, Somalia’s first elected government for 20 years was finally installed in the capital, with new president Hassan Sheikh Mohamoud inaugurated. But days later, al Shabaab suicide bombers tried to assassinate him as he gave a press conference with the Kenyan foreign minister, indicating that the country remains in crisis.

Amisom peacekeepers made slow progress against al Shabaab. But in September they drove militants out of their southern stronghold of Kismayo. (Albany Associates/Flickr)

All Somalia actions in 2012

Total US operations: 4

Total US drone strikes: 2 Total reported killed: 11-14Civilians reported killed: 0

Children reported killed: 0

Somalia December 2012 actions

Total reported US operations: 0

 

All Somalia actions 2007 – 2012

Total US operations: 10-23

Total US drone strikes: 3-9Total reported killed: 58-170Civilians reported killed: 11-57

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

Incident date

December 29, 2012

Incident Code

USYEM139-B

LOCATION

سائلة الجرّاح, Saila valley/Sa'ilat al Jarrah, Al Bayda, Yemen

Alleged US missiles hit a 2006 saloon Land Cruiser traveling on the outskirts of al-Manaseh village on December 29, 2012, near Radda, in the fourth strike in a week. At least three alleged al Qaeda members died and two others were injured. There are currently no known reports of civilian harm. The three victims reportedly

Summary

First published
December 29, 2012
Last updated
December 15, 2024
Strike status
Likely strike
Strike type
Airstrike, Drone Strike
Civilian harm reported
No
Civilians reported killed
0
Cause of injury / death
Heavy weapons and explosive munitions
Suspected belligerent
US Forces
Suspected target
Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP)
Belligerents reported killed
3–4
Belligerents reported injured
2
View Incident

Incident date

December 28, 2012

Incident Code

USYEM138-C

LOCATION

شحير, Near the hospital in Shoheer, Hadramaut, Yemen

On the evening of December 28, 2012, an alleged US drone strike fired missiles at a moving motorcycle killed between two to four alleged AQAP militants near the town of Shaher, near the site of a strike four days earlier. An investigation by an NGO revealed that a 10 year old child was also wounded.

Summary

First published
December 28, 2012
Last updated
December 15, 2024
Strike status
Likely strike
Strike type
Airstrike and/or Artillery
Civilian harm reported
Yes
Civilians reported killed
0
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.
Suspected belligerent
US Forces
Suspected target
Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP)
Named victims
1 named
Belligerents reported killed
2–4
View Incident

Incident date

December 24, 2012

Incident Code

USYEM136-B

LOCATION

المناسح, Manaseh, Al Bayda, Yemen

Two suspected Al Qaeda militants were killed and three were injured in an alleged US drone strike which hit a vehicle in Manaseh in al-Bayda province on December 24th, 2012 at 5pm. No civilian harm has been reported. According to Reuters, AFP, and AP, two Al Qaeda militants were killed when a drone strike hit

Summary

First published
December 24, 2012
Last updated
December 15, 2024
Strike status
Likely strike
Strike type
Airstrike, Drone Strike
Civilian harm reported
No
Civilians reported killed
0
Cause of injury / death
Heavy weapons and explosive munitions
Suspected belligerent
US Forces
Suspected target
Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP)
Belligerents reported killed
2
Belligerents reported injured
3
View Incident

Incident date

December 24, 2012

Incident Code

USYEM137-C

LOCATION

ملعب نادي وحدة شحير, Wahid Shoheer Club stadium, Hadramaut, Yemen

Three missiles hit motorbikes killing three to five Al Qaeda militants and injuring between one and 15 people including 14 civilians. The alleged US drone strike occurred in Shehr in Hadramout province in the evening on December 24th, 2012. The number of people injured in the strike varies greatly from one to two militants reported

Summary

First published
December 24, 2012
Last updated
December 15, 2024
Strike status
Likely strike
Strike type
Airstrike, Drone Strike
Civilian harm reported
Yes
Civilians reported killed
0
(0–1 men)
Civilians reported injured
1–14
Cause of injury / death
Heavy weapons and explosive munitions
Airwars civilian harm grading
Weak
Single source claim, though sometimes featuring significant information.
Suspected belligerent
US Forces
Suspected target
Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP)
Belligerents reported killed
3–5
Belligerents reported injured
1–2
View Incident

Published

December 6, 2012

Written by

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

A Reaper drone at Kandahar Airfield, Afghanistan (Photo: Ministry of Defence)

The British parliament will examine the use of drones as part of an overarching inquiry into the future of the UK’s armed forces.

The defence select committee – a panel of 12 politicians led by James Arbuthnot MP – has published its programme of inquiries for the remainder of this parliament. This includes an investigation that will touch on, among other areas, ‘the effect of changes in the interpretation of the law on the prosecution of operations, and the use of remotely piloted aircraft [drones]’.

Alongside this, the select committee will examine broad strategic issues such as the legitimate use of force, and the balance between ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ power. No further details or schedule have yet been published.

Reflecting the rising parliamentary interest in unmanned aircraft, a briefing paper on drones was added to the parliamentary library yesterday.

Related story – Revealed: US and British drones launched 1,200 strikes in recent wars

The increasingly important role played by British drones in Afghanistan was highlighted earlier this week, when the Bureau published research showing that UK-piloted drones fire a high proportion of all drone-fired missiles in the conflict. The UK had a fleet of just five drones in Afghanistan last year, but 38% of all missiles released in the conflict last year were fired by British pilots. This year to date the proportion is over a quarter.

A defence spokesman pointed out to the Bureau that the ratio of missiles fired to hours flown had actually fallen since its 2008 peak, and the increased number of missiles being fired reflects the increasingly important role played by drones.

The UK also flew US-owned drones in Libya, the Ministry of Defence revealed earlier this year.

The role of drones in modern wars and counter-terrorism operations is coming under increasing scrutiny. In October, MPs and peers led by Labour MP Tom Watson and Conservative MP Zac Goldsmith launched an all-party parliamentary group to examine issues surrounding drones.

The UN recently announced it will set up a special unit to examine claims of civilian deaths in US drone strikes, led by special rapporteur Ben Emmerson QC.

While in the US, in recent months academic studies – including two by Columbia Law School and one by Stanford University and New York University – examined the impact of the US’s drone campaigns on civilians, and the legal structures for overseeing drone strikes.

Published

December 4, 2012

Written by

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

An MQ-9 Reaper returns to Kandahar from an Afghan mission. (USAF/Tech Sgt Chad Chisholm)

Recent conflicts in Afghanistan, Libya and Iraq have seen almost 1,200 drone strikes over the past five years, according to new data released to the Bureau.

The information, much of it classified until now, shows that US Air Force drones carried out most of the 1,168 attacks. However British crews are also responsible for a significant portion of the strikes in Afghanistan.

The Bureau has obtained data from the US armed forces, Nato and the UK’s Ministry of Defence. It reveals, for example, that more than a quarter of all armed Coalition air sorties in Afghanistan are now carried out by drones.

While only a fraction of those missions result in strikes, drone strikes in Afghanistan are now taking place on average five times each week.

Afghanistan – the US’s most intense conflictThe US’s secret drone campaign in Pakistan and elsewhere is now in its eleventh year and is attracting increasing scrutiny, including academic studies, court cases and, soon, a UN investigation. Ironically, less is known about the use of drones in conventional theatres of war.

The US military and its allies have carried out almost 1,200 drone strikes since 2008 in Afghanistan, Libya and Iraq. 

Click here to visit the Bureau’s Covert Drone War project

When the Bureau first approached the US military in August seeking drone data for recent conflicts, we were told the information was classified. Central Command (Centcom) later relented after the Bureau argued there was a strong public interest in releasing the information.

Centcom now says it is committed to publishing statistics on the number of missiles fired by drones in Afghanistan, as part of its monthly reports.

The newly declassified figures provided to the Bureau show armed drones flown by the Coalition have carried out 1,015 drone strikes in Afghanistan since 2008. This is three times more than the 338 attacks the CIA has carried out in neighbouring Pakistan over the same period.

Of more than 7,600 armed drone missions flown by Coalition forces between January and October 2012, ‘kinetic events’ – drone strikes – occurred 245 times, a ratio of about one strike for every 30 missions flown. In Iraq, however, only one in every 130 armed drone missions in 2008 resulted in a strike.

For context, there were an additional 1,145 attacks by conventional aircraft in Afghanistan during that period, official figures show. The proportion of airstrikes carried out by drones has risen steeply to 18%, up from 11% in 2009.

While no British drones went to Libya, the MoD has revealed British pilots had flown US drones in the campaign.

While Coalition drones fly thousands of armed sorties in Afghanistan, drone strikes are ‘the exception, not the norm’, a Centcom spokeswoman told the Bureau.

The number of strikes has increased steadily year-on-year – but there is ambiguity over who is carrying them out. The majority are by the US Air Force, with the remainder by the British military and – possibly – US Special Forces. Here there is some confusion.

A senior US Army spokesman said: ‘Of the thousands of UAS [unmanned aerial systems] we have, only a very small number (well less than 100) are armed.’

But another senior US military official, speaking on background terms, said: ‘The Army doesn’t have UAVs [unmanned aerial vehicles] in service that carry munitions… Any UAVs that can carry munitions are/were under the charge of the Air Force in Afghanistan and Iraq.’

Military officials were unable to explain the discrepancy between the two statements. The Pentagon’s Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) has its own classified fleet of Reaper drones, however, which may account for the apparently contradictory statements.

In Afghanistan drone strikes are ‘the exception, not the norm’US Central Command spokeswoman

Britain’s small, active fleet

The UK’s drone fleet in Afghanistan is small compared with that of the US – Britain will shortly double its number of Reapers from five to ten aircraft. 

Yet British-piloted aircraft launched a high proportion of the total missiles fired from drones.

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) has released new data on the number of missiles fired in each of the past five years. In 2011, almost four missiles of every ten fired by drones in Afghanistan were the work of UK forces, the new figures indicate. In 2010 and 2012 the proportion was over a quarter. An MoD spokesman pointed out that the rate of missiles released in comparison to total hours flown had fallen significantly from its peak in 2008.

The MoD refused to reveal the number of strikes it had carried out, and indicated it would be inaccurate for the Bureau to infer a number of attacks by comparing British data with Centcom’s more complete numbers, ‘because of differing rules of engagement’.

‘Protecting civilians is the cornerstone of our mission. The use of all Afcent weapons and methods are tightly restricted, carefully supervised, and applied by only qualified and authorised personnel.’US Air Force spokeswoman

The missing numbers

The US has so far refused to release casualty data for its drone campaigns, although an Air Force spokeswoman insisted that ‘protecting civilians is the cornerstone of our mission’. She added: ‘The use of all Afcent weapons and methods are tightly restricted, carefully supervised, and applied by only qualified and authorised personnel.’

Only Britain has issued estimates of the non-combatants it has killed. According to officials at the Ministry of Defence, four civilians have died in UK-piloted drone strikes in Afghanistan – although campaigners such as Drone Wars UK have questioned this figure.

David Cameron visits troops in Afghanistan, December 2010 (Corporal Mark Webster/MoD)

A ministry spokesman said: ‘Every effort, which includes in some circumstances deciding not to release weapons, is made to ensure the risk of collateral damage, including civilian casualties, is minimised.’

Although Britain has not officially estimated the number of militants killed, prime minister David Cameron told reporters in December 2010 that by that point UK drones ‘killed more than 124 insurgents’. More than 200 missiles have been fired by British drones since that date.

Libya: a short, bloody campaign

In contrast to the long-running Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts, figures supplied by Nato and the Pentagon on last year’s Libyan air campaign give an insight into the brutal intensity of that short conflict.

Nato provided the Bureau with figures for the operation, first published in a letter to the head of the UN’s investigation into Libya in January 2012. Differences in how data is recorded makes it difficult to draw a comparison  between Libya and other recent campaigns. What is clear is that armed drones played a small yet significant role.

Prime minister David Cameron in December 2010 said UK drones ‘killed more than 124 insurgents’. Since then more than 200 missiles have been fired by British drones.

In April 2011, the US announced it was sending Reaper and Predator drones to Libya as part of Operation Unified Protector. ‘They are uniquely suited for urban areas,’ Marine General James Cartwright, the vice-chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a press conference at the time.

While no British drones went to Libya, the MoD later revealed British pilots had flown US drones in the campaign.

Nato aircraft – piloted by the US, France and UK – flew around 18,000 armed sorties during the brief campaign, firing 7,600 missiles. 

A tiny proportion of these armed missions – 250 in total – were flown by drones. US Predators flew 145 strike sorties, according to a Department of Defense briefing published in October 2011. A Nato spokesman explained ‘strike sorties’ is the term used for ‘identifying and engaging targets’, while armed sorties could also be for surveillance, and carrying weapons for self-defence.

The Pentagon confirmed to the Bureau that US-piloted drones carried out 105 strikes between the start of April and September 2, 2011. This figure does not reflect the full campaign, which continued until October 31. However, it does indicate a very high ratio of strikes to armed sorties – more than one in three total armed missions led to a strike – reflecting the intensity of the Libyan conflict compared to the more drawn-out wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, where drones often fly armed missions without firing weapons.

Following the end of the campaign, in November 2011 Nato secretary general Anders Fogh Rasmussen claimed: ‘We conducted our operations in Libya in a very careful manner, so we have no confirmed civilian casualties caused by Nato.’

But the following month, a New York Times investigation reported 40-70 civilians died in Nato bombings. The findings were supported by an Amnesty International investigation published in March 2012, which named 55 civilians including 16 children and 14 women – all killed in strikes on urban areas, including in Tripoli, Zlitan, Majer and Sirte.

‘We conducted our operations in Libya in a very careful manner, so we have no confirmed civilian casualties caused by Nato.’Nato secretary general Anders Fogh Rasmussen 

But it is not clear how many – if any – of these deaths were caused by drones.

Iraq: a rapid wind-downThe Bureau has also obtained previously classified details of US drone strikes in Iraq for the final years of the conflict.

These demonstrate how swiftly the US Air Force scaled down its drone strikes as withdrawal approached.

The number of armed drone sorties dropped steadily between 2008 and December 2011, when US forces finally withdrew.

Actual drone strikes – or ‘kinetic events’ – collapsed by more than 90% between 2008 and 2009, Obama’s first year in office, from 43 strikes to four. In comparison, the CIA carried out 55 drone strikes in Pakistan in 2009.

There were no US Air Force drone strikes in Iraq in 2010, and just one in 2011. All US military drone sorties in the country have now ceased.

Follow @chrisjwoods and @aliceross_ on Twitter

Published

December 3, 2012

Written by

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

A US Reaper taxis at Kandahar Airbase, Afghanistan (ChuckHolton/Flickr).

Pakistan: CIA drone strikes return to Pakistan after a 36 day pause, as Washington sets out to codify its covert drone strikes policy.

Yemen: A strike nine miles from Sanaa targets a Yemen army colonel and alleged militant. But his family and others question why he was not arrested.

Somalia: Once again no operations are reported in Somalia.

Pakistan

November 2012 actions

Total CIA strikes in November: 1

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

All actions 2004 – November 30 2012

Total Obama strikes: 299

Total US strikes since 2004: 351

Total reported killed: 2,586-3,379

Civilians reported killed: 472-885

Children reported killed: 176

Total reported injured: 1,255-1,405For the Bureau’s full Pakistan databases click here.

A CIA drone strike killed up to four on November 29, ending a 36 day pause between attacks. This is the longest break between strikes since the 54 day hiatus from November 17 2011 to January 10 2012.

Pauses between strikes are often a consequence of external events. The unusual length of this pause – and reports of US officials trying to develop a drone strike rule book – might indicate that the CIA paused strikes while the drone programme was reviewed.

In November CIA drone strikes in Pakistan dropped to their lowest since April as the Agency paused operations for 36 days.

The break in drone operations also followed a controversial strike on October 24. Mamana Khan, a 67-year-old woman, was one of up to five killed. Her six grandchildren were reported injured in the strike.

The pause was not for a lack of targets, according to a US intelligence official. ‘Pakistan is a target-rich environment,’ the official told the Long War Journal. ‘We’re only scratching at the surface, hitting them in the tribal areas, while the country remains infested with al Qaeda and their allies.’

The November 29 strike hit its target 20km outside Wana, capital of South Waziristan, where a few hours earlier Taliban commander Maulvi Nazir was injured by a suicide bomber. It was the first drone strike in South Waziristan since June 3.

Yemen

November 2012 actions

Confirmed US drone strikes: 0

Further reported/possible US strike events: 1

Total reported killed in US operations: 0-3

Civilians reported killed in US strikes: 0

All actions 2002 – November 30 2012*

Total confirmed US operations: 53-63

Total confirmed US drone strikes: 42-52

Possible additional US operations: 122-141

Of which possible additional US drone strikes: 66-79

Total reported killed: 362-1,052

Total civilians killed: 60-163

Children killed: 24-34Click here for the full Yemen data.

A possible US drone strike killed up to three people driving through Beit al Ahan, ousted President Ali Abdullah Saleh’s home town. However allegations that the targets were militants are disputed.

On November 7 an explosion targeted Adnan al Qathi, a colonel in the Yemen Army and a relative of prominent general Ali Mohsen al Ahmar. It destroyed al Qathi’s vehicle less than 24 hours after President Obama’s re-election.

While al Qathi’s family acknowledges he supported al Qaeda’s cause, they dispute claims he was a militant. Yemeni journalist and analyst Abdulrazzaq Jamal told McClatchy Newspapers: ‘There were connections [with al Qaeda], but there wasn’t perceptible tangible support.’

Al Qathi had been arrested once before, in 2008 after an attack on the US embassy in Sanaa. And as he lived in the ‘hometown of much of the top leadership of the Yemeni armed forces,’ according to analyst Abdulghani al Iryani ‘it is nearly inconceivable to imagine that he could not have been taken into custody alive.’

Also in November, the Saudi Arabian assistant military attache was gunned down while driving through Sanaa’s diplomatic quarter. He was assassinated by gunmen dressed in Yemen security service uniforms. It is the latest in a series of high-profile assassinations on the streets of the capital.

* 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

November 2012 actions

Total reported US operations: 0

All actions 2007 – November 30 2012

Total US operations: 10-23

Total US drone strikes: 3-9Total reported killed: 58-170Civilians reported killed: 11-57

Children reported killed: 1-3

Click here for the Bureau’s full data on Somalia.

 

Once again no US operations were recorded in Somalia in October, as al Shabaab continue to exercise control in rural parts of the country.

The militant group is reportedly moving away from its bases in the south and centre of the country and shifting further north, according to the president of Puntland, the autonomous northern region. While African Union peacekeepers (Amisom) have forced al Shabaab out of the cities the group remains a threat. The group has launched bomb attacks on targets in Mogadishu and Nairobi.

In related news, the UN Security Council extended Amisom’s mandate to March 7 2013. However the future of the multilateral force is in doubt after Uganda threatened to withdraw its contingent of soldiers. Kamapala is the largest troop contributor to Amisom and issued the threat after a UN report alleged the Ugandan government is arming the M23 rebel group in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Follow Chris Woods, Alice Ross and Jack Serle on Twitter.

To sign up for monthly updates from the Bureau’s Covert War project click here.

Incident date

November 7, 2012

Incident Code

USYEM135-C

LOCATION

السرين, Sirin, Sana'a, Yemen

An alleged US drone strike killed two to four people, including one civilian (child) and two to three Al Qaeda militants from the AQAP (Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula) branch, and injured one to three other militants in Beit Al Ahmar in the town of Sanhan in the Sana’a Governorate on the November 7th, 2012

Summary

First published
November 7, 2012
Last updated
December 15, 2024
Strike status
Likely strike
Strike type
Airstrike, Drone Strike
Civilian harm reported
Yes
Civilians reported killed
1
(1 child)
Cause of injury / death
Heavy weapons and explosive munitions
Airwars civilian harm grading
Weak
Single source claim, though sometimes featuring significant information.
Suspected belligerent
US Forces
Suspected target
Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP)
Belligerents reported killed
2–3
Belligerents reported injured
1–3
View Incident

Published

November 3, 2012

Written by

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

Predator drones increasingly a museum piece thanks to more lethal models (Justinpickard/ Flickr)

The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) usually gets all the credit for the first US drone targeted killing beyond the conventional battlefield.

But it was the military which gave the final go-ahead to kill on November 3 2002.

Lt General Michael DeLong was at Centcom headquarters in Tampa, Florida when news came in that the CIA had found its target. The deputy commander made his way down to the UAV Room, showing live video feeds from a CIA Predator high above Marib province in Yemen.

The armed drone was tracking an SUV on the move. The six terrorist suspects inside were unaware that a decision had already been made to kill them.

Interviewed by PBS, DeLong later recalled speaking by phone with CIA Director George Tenet as he watched the video wall:

‘Tenet goes “You going to make the call?” And I said, “I’ll make the call.”  He says, “This SUV over here is the one that has Ali in it.”  I said, “OK, fine.” You know, “Shoot him.” They lined it up and shot it.’

Eight thousand miles away and moments later, six alleged terrorists were dead. Among them was a US citizen.

‘Orchestrator’ killedThe media carried detailed accounts of the ‘secret’ attack within days. Yemen’s government, which had co-operated on the strike, also released the names of the six men killed, including that of US citizen Kemal Darwish.

Concerns he had been deliberately targeted were dismissed, as it was reported the intended CIA target was Qa’id Salim Sinan al-Harithi, al Qaeda’s ‘orchestrator’ of the lethal attack on the USS Cole.

As the New York Times noted at the time, ‘Mr. Harethi was not on the FBI’s list of the 22-most-wanted terrorist fugitives in the world,’ and added that ‘although investigators wanted to question Mr. Harethi about the Cole bombing, the CIA did not consult law enforcement officials before the Yemeni operation.’

A secret US cable, dated a fortnight prior to the strike, also shows that Yemen’s government had already incarcerated more than a dozen men wanted in connection with the Cole bombing. At least one of them, Fahd al Quso, was killed in a subsequent US drone strike.

Although investigators wanted to question Mr. Harethi about the Cole bombing, the CIA did not consult law enforcement officials before the Yemeni operation’

New York Times, November 2002

six weeks beforehand

massive worldwide manhunt

Questions remain about how much the CIA and Centcom actually knew about the presence of a US citizen that day.

When assistant US defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz openly discussed the strike with CNN on November 5, he noted only that a ‘successful tactical operation [has] gotten rid of somebody dangerous.’ It would be many years before senior officials would again openly acknowledge the covert drones project.

No inevitabilityThe way had been cleared for the November 2002 killings months earlier, when President Bush lifted a 25-year ban on US assassinations just after 9/11.

He later wrote that ‘George [Tenet] proposed that I grant broader authority for covert actions, including permission for the CIA to kill or capture al Qaeda operatives without asking for my sign-off each time. I decided to grant the request.’

Since then, under both Bush and Obama, the US has carried out targeted killings (or extrajudicial executions according to UN experts) using  conventional aircraft and helicopter strikes; cruise missiles; and even naval bombardments.

Yet the drone remains the US’s preferred method of killing. The Bureau has identified a minimum of 2,800 (and as many as 4,100) killed in covert US drone strikes over the past ten years. What began as an occasional tactic has, over time, morphed into an industrialised killing process.

Every confirmed US drone strike in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia recorded 2002-2012.

There was no inevitability to this when the strikes began. Time magazine opined in 2002 that covert drone attacks were ‘unlikely to become a norm.’ And in the early years of the programme this was true. The next covert drone strike took place in Pakistan in June 2004, followed by a further strike 11 months later.

Yet slowly, surely, the United States has come to depend on its drone killing programme. By Obama’s presidency drone use against alleged militants was sometimes daily. Six times more covert strikes have hit Pakistan under Barack Obama than under George W Bush. And as the Bureau’s work shows, when known strikes in Yemen, Somalia and Pakistan are added together, they reveal a growing dependence upon covert drone killings.

Recent reports show that the US is now formalising the drone killing project. Some insiders talk of a decade or more of killing to come, with Mitt Romney noting that he would continue the policy if elected.

In Washington at least, a decade of targeted killings of alleged terror suspects appears to have normalised the process.

Follow chrisjwoods on Twitter.

Published

November 1, 2012

Written by

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

The Washington Post: is it telling the whole story?

Alongside the Washington Post’s latest blockbuster reports on the Obama administration’s drone kill list is a new graphic, depicting US covert strikes since 2002.

Based on studies by monitoring organisations, the graphic lists hundreds of US drone strikes in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia, in what the paper says will be a regularly updated project. Also detailed are ‘the names of prominent militant leaders killed in individual strikes,’ the paper says.

But there the information stops.

All other casualty information has been stripped from the Washington Post’s data. There is no reference to the numbers reported killed in each strike. No names or numbers are put to the civilians killed.

In short, the paper has removed much of the information that is most valuable for assessing the effectiveness of the US drone campaign.

As a series of emails between the Washington Post and the Bureau reveals, the decision to strip out pertinent casualty data was an editorial one, and was part of broader ‘reservations and concerns’ at the paper concerning casualty counts.

An examination of the Post’s reporting indicates the paper frequently omits credible reports of civilian deaths in US covert drone strikes.

So concerned was the Bureau at the Washington Post’s intention to strip away casualty information that it has refused permission for the paper to use its work in such a significantly amended form.

‘No casualty counts’

The graphics editor of the Washington Post first approached the Bureau directly on September 18 asking to make use of the Bureau’s full dataset, having initially tried to obtain the information indirectly via the Guardian.

The Bureau allows full and free access to its data under a Creative Commons licence. In recent weeks, both the Guardian in the UK and Al Akhbar in Lebanon have used its data to map drone strikes in Pakistan and Yemen.

In a series of emails with senior Bureau staff, the Washington Post graphics editor noted that ‘TBIJ indeed does have the most accurate and comprehensive public representation of drone strikes.’

Nevertheless the Post’s plan was to aggregate data from the Bureau, the New America Foundation and the Long War Journal ‘in a way that will not highlight casualty counts’.

In response the Bureau noted that while drone casualty counts are a challenge, ‘who dies, and in what numbers, are the most critical questions that the data can address’.

The Bureau went on to ask: ‘Are you aiming to name militant leaders killed, for example, or only to map the locations of each strike/ frequencies? If the former, there is surely also a necessity to name all civilians recorded killed. If you only map events, how does a user distinguish between a strike that kills no one and an event that kills 80?’

In response, the graphics editor wrote on September 24: ‘I’ve spoken to editors and reporters on our foreign desk on Friday. Due to the same reservations and concerns about the casualty counts that I mentioned previously, we will not be showing casualty counts.’

The Bureau’s managing editor Iain Overton expressed concern about the Washington Post using Bureau data in such an altered form. The Post’s published graphic only employs New America Foundation and Long War Journal material – and all casualty counts have been removed.

Wider problem

The Washington Post’s wider coverage of drone strikes shows a reluctance to address civilian deaths, with credible reports often omitted.

There are issues around the recording of casualties from US drone strikes – civilian or otherwise – given the reporting challenges they present. Critics argue there is too much incentive for individuals to exaggerate claims of civilian deaths for propaganda purposes.

That does not explain why reported civilian casualties continue to decline steeply in Pakistan and elsewhere. Nor does it explain why casualty counts by the Bureau and others appear close to the US government’s own overall estimates of the numbers killed.

Claims of civilian deaths in Pakistan are generally uncommon, and significant information is often known about the victims. Of 41 CIA drone strikes between January and October, civilian deaths were confidently reported on four occasions. There are indications of possible civilian deaths in a further nine strikes.

By stripping away the casualty data I’m not sure what’s left. They have also introduced their own bias into the recording, by selectively choosing which information to retain’

– Elizabeth Minor, Oxford Research Group

wife of militant Ahsan Aziz died

a 13-year-old boy

wife of schoolteacher Reshmeen Khan died

Only for an incident in May in which worshippers in a mosque were reported killed are there no biographical details in any of the reporting.

While the Washington Post frequently notes the deaths of senior militants, no mention of reported civilian casualties was made by the Post for three of the four 2012 cases cited above. Only for the October 24 event did the Post run an agency report stating that a woman had probably been killed.

The deaths of 11 civilians in an alleged US drone strike in Yemen on September 2 was also not reported by the paper, it seems.

In response to a recent complaint about its coverage of non-combatant deaths, the Washington Post insisted that it is ‘committed to documenting the deaths of civilians, as our coverage broadly shows.’

‘Dangerous editorial cut-off’

Just down the road from the Washington Post’s headquarters, experts gathered in the city on October 22 for the release of the largest-ever study into the recording of casualties in conflicts.

Funded by the Swiss government and the US Institute of Peace, the Oxford Research Group report examined casualty recording by more than 40 organisations (including the Bureau) across the world. It concluded that ‘useful documentation of deaths from conflict can be done even during intense conflict, and in repressive and dangerous environments.’

Elizabeth Minor, the report’s author, expressed surprise that the Washington Post would remove what she says is the most important information being collected, no matter how incomplete.

‘By stripping away the casualty data I’m not sure what’s left. They have also introduced their own bias into the recording, by selectively choosing which information to retain,’ Minor told the Bureau.

‘A better approach might be for the Post to publish all available information, transparently sourced, and so allow the reader to make up his or her mind as to its validity.’

The decision by the Washington Post to strip away casualty figures from its data – and to downplay civilian deaths – appears at heart a political call. As the Bureau’s managing editor Iain Overton notes, ‘We would be very happy to work in collaboration with the paper on its coverage of drone warfare.

‘However, we believe that to give a full and comprehensive view of the current situation in Pakistan and beyond, it’s incumbent on journalists to include credible casualty reports. To ignore this area simply because the information is imperfect or awkward is a dangerous editorial cut-off.’

Follow chrisjwoods on Twitter.

Published

November 1, 2012

Written by

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

A new squadron of armed Reapers will soon be remotely operated from the UK (Photo: RAF)

Pakistan: Reported casualties from CIA drone strikes in Pakistan double this month compared with September. Agency targets include a North Waziristan madrassa, killing at least 16.

Yemen: Thirteen named militants are among those killed in Yemen, with US operations continuing below their May 2012 peak.

Somalia: No US drone strikes are again reported from Somalia, as an investigation reveals that armed US drones routinely deploy over the country.

Pakistan

October 2012 actions

Total CIA strikes in October: 4

Total killed in strikes in October: 24-41, of whom 1 was reportedly a civilian.

All actions 2004 – October 31 2012

Total Obama strikes: 298

Total US strikes since 2004: 350

Total reported killed: 2,593-3,378

Civilians reported killed: 475-885

Children reported killed: 176

Total reported injured: 1,252-1,401For the Bureau’s full Pakistan databases click here.

The CIA launched four strikes this month, one more than September. Drone attacks reportedly killed 24 to 41 people in October, at least double the tally of the previous month.

Between 16 and 26 people were killed in a single event, making it one of the deadliest strikes of the year. CIA drones hit a madrassa belonging to Maulvi Shakirullah, allegedly connected to the Haqqani Network.

This Bureau graph of minimum and maximum casualties from CIA drone strikes in Pakistan shows it is still difficult to pin down precise figures.

Some media reports located this strike in Orakzai province in northern FATA. If true it would be only the second strike recorded by the Bureau in that province. And it would be the first CIA strike outside North Waziristan since March 2012 (Ob264).

The fourth strike of the month on October 24 was widely reported to have killed the wife of a retired teacher in the village of Tappi, North Waziristan. According to reports Reshmeen Khan’s wife died and eight of her grandchildren, aged between 4 and 18, were critically burned. The drones also reportedly destroyed a house and car in the attack.

On October 15 a militant website announced the earlier death of Moezeddine Garsallaoui, said to be the Belgian-Tunisian (or Swiss-Tunisian) leader of Islamist group Jund al Khilafah. Few details of his death in an unspecified ‘strike’ were released and it is unclear if he was killed in a drone strike. Jund al Kilafah claimed responsibility for the Toulouse shootings in March 2012 that killed a rabbi and three children.

Also in October, former cricket captain turned politician Imran Khan led a column of peace activists through Pakistan towards the tribal areas. His convoy included American activists and international lawyers intent on drawing attention to the CIA’s drone campaign. The Pakistan government ultimately blocked them from entering South Waziristan.

Yemen

October 2012 actions

Confirmed US drone strikes: 0 Further reported/possible US strike events: 4 Total reported killed in US operations: 0-23Civilians reported killed in US strikes: 0

All actions 2002 – October 31 2012*

Total confirmed US operations: 53-63

Total confirmed US drone strikes: 42-52

Possible additional US operations: 122-142

Of which possible additional US drone strikes: 66-80

Total reported killed: 362-1,055

Total civilians killed: 60-163

Children killed: 24-34 Click here for the full Yemen data.

Thirteen named militants were reportedly killed in four possible drone strikes this month. Seven perished in an airstrike on October 18 (YEM117), as they were said to be preparing an attack on Jaar.

The strike continued through October at the significantly lower level recorded since their May 2012 peak. Although four possible strikes were noted, no senior US or Yemeni officials confirmed US involvement, the first time since November 2011 that officials have shown such reticence.

October also saw the first US strike in Saada since January 2010 (YEM006). A suspected drone killed at least three alleged militants from al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). However the northern province is dominated by a group of Shia secessionists, the Houthi. In December 2011 AQAP’s Mufti labeled the Shia a ‘virus’ on the Sunni people, and the group declared war on the Houthi.

The highest value target recently reported killed in Yemen was Said al Shehri on September 10 (YEM114). But on October 4 a recording surfaced purportedly of al Shehri, AQAP’s second-in-command, denying reports that he died in a strike. Articles in Yemeni and UK media had already cast doubt on his death.

* 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

October 2012 actions

Total reported US operations: 0

All actions 2007 – October 31 2012

Total US operations: 10-23

Total US drone strikes: 3-9Total reported killed: 58-170Civilians reported killed: 11-57

Children reported killed: 1-3

Click here for the Bureau’s full data on Somalia.

 

Once again no US drone strikes were reported from Somalia this month. However an extensive investigation by the Washington Post revealed that armed drones routinely deploy over Somalia from the US base at Camp Lemonnier, Djibouti.

The paper also revealed that drones can be over Somalia within minutes and are coordinated from Lemonnier by a 300-strong contingent of US Special Operations commandos.

US operations in Somalia remain secret, and there are still no trustworthy reports of strikes or casualties. Only Iranian broadcaster Press TV consistently reports alleged US strikes. But while the Bureau continues to monitor Press TV’s coverage we do not consider these reports reliable, and do not count them in our data.

Reporting accurately from Somalia remains an extremely dangerous job. This year seventeen journalists have been ‘killed with complete impunity in Somalia’, according to monitoring group Reporters Without Borders.

Other notable news for OctoberThe UN is to set up a special unit to investigate reports of civilian deaths in US covert drone strikes. Announcing the Geneva-based unit, Ben Emmerson QC said the Bureau’s reports of deliberate strikes on funerals and on rescuers could be considered ‘war crimes’.

In the UK a series of developments hinted at growing concern over covert drone strikes. Politicians from across the main parties launched a parliamentary focus group on drones, led by high-profile MPs Tom Watson and Zac Goldsmith, to examine military and civilian uses of drones. This coincided with the RAF inaugurating its new Reaper squadron, which will pilot the drones from the UK for the first time.

British courts also saw their first major legal challenge to the CIA’s drone campaign as Noor Khan, whose father died in a drone strike, applied for a judicial review. Khan is calling for an end to a reported policy of British spies sharing information with the CIA that leads to drone strikes. No decision has yet been reached on whether a review will proceed.

And relatives of Rashid Rauf, a British citizen killed in a drone strike, announced plans to sue the UK government for providing the CIA with information that helped them kill him.

Internationally, academics at Columbia Law School examined the Bureau’s data on drone deaths alongside that of the New America Foundation and the Long War Journal, and the available reporting of drone strikes in 2011. The study concluded that the Bureau’s data was the most reliable public count of civilian casualties, but called on the US government to release its own figures.

The Columbia report follows a similar study from Stanford and New York universities in September which also deemed the Bureau’s data the most accurate publicly available.

Follow Chris Woods, Alice Ross and Jack Serle on Twitter.

To sign up for monthly updates from the Bureau’s Covert War project click here.

Incident date

October 29, 2012

Incident Code

USYEM134-B

LOCATION

حضرموت, Hadramawt, Hadramaut, Yemen

Two local sources reported that “Abu al-Baraa al-Sharouri, amir of the Sharia courses” was killed by a US drone strike in Hadramawt on October 29, 2012. @FlashpointIntel added that another “jihadist” called “brother Abu Hussein” was also killed in the strike. No other information was available about this incident.

Summary

First published
October 29, 2012
Last updated
December 15, 2024
Strike status
Likely strike
Strike type
Airstrike, Drone Strike
Civilian harm reported
No
Civilians reported killed
Unknown
Cause of injury / death
Heavy weapons and explosive munitions
Suspected belligerent
US Forces
Suspected target
Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP)
Geolocation
Province/governorate
Belligerents reported killed
1–2
View Incident

Incident date

October 28, 2012

Incident Code

USYEM133-C

LOCATION

وادي آل أبو جبارة, Wadi Al Abu Jabarah, Sa'dah, Yemen

On the 28th October 2012 at 10am in the Wadi al Abu Jabara area in Saada Governorate, northern Yemen, a suspected US drone conducted three airstrikes against two houses in the area, injuring two civilians, a woman and her son, and killing between three and four alleged Al Qaeda militants and injuring one, according to

Summary

First published
October 28, 2012
Last updated
December 15, 2024
Strike status
Likely strike
Strike type
Airstrike, Drone Strike
Civilian harm reported
Yes
Civilians reported killed
0
Civilians reported injured
2
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.
Suspected belligerent
US Forces
Suspected target
Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP)
Belligerents reported killed
3–4
Belligerents reported injured
1
View Incident

Published

October 25, 2012

Written by

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

In the loop? Officers at GCHQ have reportedly shared Taliban commanders’ locations with the CIA

(Photo: Ministry of Defence

UK intelligence officers may be assisting in murder or war crimes by sharing information with the CIA that leads to deaths in Pakistan drone strikes, a London court heard this week.

Pakistani tribesman Noor Khan, whose father was killed by a drone strike last year, has launched an application for a judicial review examining the UK’s alleged complicity in the CIA’s drone campaign. If Khan’s case is successful, judges will examine whether GCHQ officers can legally share information on the location of individuals if they believe this may be used to target them with drone strikes.

An ornate, book-lined courtroom at the Royal Courts of Justice was crowded with activists and government lawyers on October 23 and 24 as the first British legal challenge to the drone campaign got underway. Khan’s case against foreign secretary William Hague is backed by Reprieve and Islamabad-based lawyer Shahzad Akbar, and is funded by UK legal aid.

Related story – Evidence in British court contradicts CIA drone claims

The British government has hired a trio of highly respected barristers to fight its corner, including first Treasury counsel James Eadie QC, international law expert Professor Malcolm Shaw QC, and criminal law specialist Andrew Edis QC.

Press reports indicate the UK government shares intelligence, including the location of suspected militant commanders, with the CIA. In 2010 the Sunday Times quoted ‘insiders’ claiming that GCHQ has better interception networks than the CIA in south Asia, and had shared information about the locations of al Qaeda and Taliban commanders in both Afghanistan and Pakistan. GCHQ told the Sunday Times all intelligence sharing was in ‘strict accordance’ with the law.

But the government has never officially confirmed or denied sharing intelligence for drone attacks.

‘There’s a well known, well acknowledged drone programme, there’s a list of people the CIA wants to target as part of that drone programme. A GCHQ officer comes into information about the location of a person and passes it to the CIA officer, we say there’s a very real chance of a crime being committed,’ Khan’s barrister Martin Chamberlain said.

Lord Justice Moses, one of two judges who will decide whether to order a judicial review, commented that if individual officers could be held culpable, then so potentially could the foreign secretary, since the decision to share intelligence rests with him.

It would be amazing if the American government was sanguine about an English court saying it’s guilty of murder,’– James Eadie QC 

While soldiers who kill as part of an international armed conflict are protected from prosecution by combatant immunity, it’s unclear whether the turmoil in Pakistan’s volatile tribal belt constitutes a war, Chamberlain said. This could make the killings unlawful, and British officials who shared intelligence leading to those killings would be guilty of accessory to murder.

Even if this is held to be a war, the drone strikes could break international humanitarian law by exceeding what is ‘proportionate and necessary’ – leaving officers who share intelligence at risk of assisting crimes against humanity or war crimes, he added.

National interests

But holding a judicial review would mean delving into issues of national security, defence and diplomacy and could harm Britain’s national interests, Hague’s lead barrister James Eadie QC told the court. In particular, it could affect relations with the US, ‘our closest ally, whose importance to our national security I assume needs no stating in front of this court,’ he said.

Effectively English courts would be forced to rule on the legality – or otherwise – of the CIA’s drone campaign. ‘It would be amazing if the American government was sanguine about an English court saying it’s guilty of murder,’ he said.

Examining the legality of drone strikes would also mean exploring whether the Pakistani government gave its consent, which ‘may be controversial in Pakistan’: this too could have serious diplomatic and international consequences, he explained.

A judicial review would be ‘about as controversial and as potentially damaging as it’s possible to conceive,’ Eadie said.

A review would also mean revealing top-secret intelligence policies to the court – and since judicial review proceedings can’t include closed court materials, this would present severe practical problems, Eadie said. Intelligence policies and practices are scrutinised by parliament through the Intelligence and Security Committee, he added: a judicial review would see the courts ‘trespassing’ on parliament’s territory.

There are ‘jolly good reasons’ for not publishing policies relating to the intelligence services, he concluded, handing over to Andrew Edis.

Working from just a few A4 pages where the other barristers had had the judges leafing through enormous binders of case law, Edis scrutinised the chapter and verse of the criminal laws cited in Khan’s application.

‘Notionally, if someone’s to be accessory to a murder, it must be an illegal act in [the murderer’s] own country,’ Edis told the court. In this case, killing alleged militants is not illegal in the US, so therefore there is no ‘murder’ to which UK intelligence officers could be accessory, he argued.

Challenged by Lord Justice Moses as to whether it would be considered murder in Pakistan, Edis replied that the drone pilots are in Nevada, not Pakistan.

It is not the job of the English court to ‘consider whether a foreigner who commits an act of killing abroad is or isn’t guilty of murder’ – and this would in turn prevent the court from deciding whether a British citizen was an accessory to that murder, he said. ‘Nothing in the English law gives this court the power to decide what’s a murder in Waziristan or America.’

The application hearing is expected to conclude on October 25, and the judges are expected to return their decision in the coming weeks.