A US Air Force Reaper in Afghanistan (Photo: US Air Force)

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

i. Key points:

CIA and Pakistan Air Force drones hit Pakistan’s tribal areas US strikes continue in Yemen as the civil war rages Al Shabaab continue to kill peacekeepers and civilians in Somalia The three drone strikes in Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen in September means a total of 491 drone strikes there under President Obama US air power helps stem the Taliban tide in Afghanistan Medecins Sans Frontiers trauma centre in Kunduz hit in October air strike The Bureau publishes investigation into UK’s Watchkeeper programme as Cameron doubles RAF drone fleet

ii. The Bureau’s numbers:

Recorded US drone strikes to date

	Pakistan(June 2004 to date)	Yemen (Nov 2002 to date)*	Somalia (Jan 2007 to date)*	Afghanistan (Jan 2015 to date)
US drone strikes	421	107-127	15-19	48
Total reported killed	2,476-3,989	492-725	25-108	420-619
Civilians reported killed	423-965	65-101	0-5	14-42
Children reported killed	172-207	8-9	0	0-18
Reported injured	1,158-1,738	94-223	2-7	24-28

 

Recorded US air and cruise missile strikes to date

	Pakistan(June 2004 to date)**	Yemen(Nov 2002 to date)*	Somalia(Jan 2007 to date)*	Afghanistan(Jan 2015 to date)
US air & cruise missile strikes	N/A	15-72	8-11	35
Total reported killed	N/A	156-365	40-141	79-104
Civilians reported killed	N/A	68-99	7-47	0-30
Children reported killed	N/A	26-28	0-2	0
People reported injured	N/A	15-102	11-21	5-6

 

* The Bureau’s estimates are based predominantly on open sources information like media reports. Sometimes it is not possible to reconcile details in different reports. This is why use ranges for our record of casualties and, in the case of Yemen and Somalia, our strike tallies.

** The US has only carried out drone strikes in Pakistan.

 

iii. Bureau analysis for September 2015:

Two drone strikes in Yemen plus one in Pakistan during September means the total strikes in the US’s covert drone war in those countries and Somalia during Barack Obama’s presidency now stands at 491.

September was the second consecutive month when US air and ground forces reportedly came to the aid of the Afghan army and security forces in their struggle to contain a brutal insurgency. US air attacks continued into October when a series of strikes hit a hospital run by international NGO Medecins Sans Frontier, killing at least 19 people, including 12 staff members.

A CIA drone strike hit Pakistan killing five or six people in the same month that Pakistan jets killed civilians in South Waziristan and the first Pakistan Air Force drone strike reportedly killed three people.

In Yemen the US continued drone strikes while the Saudi Arabia-led coalition of Arab and African states continued its air and ground war with the Houthi militia in the north, west and south of the country.

There were no US drone attacks reported in Somalia last month despite al Shabaab continuing to inflict a toll on African Union peacekeepers.

September also saw UK Prime Minister David Cameron announce Britain had killed two British men in a drone strike in Syria. This took the total number of Britons reportedly killed with drones to at least 10 – two by the UK and eight in US strikes in Pakistan and Somalia.

And in the first week of October, the Bureau published an investigation with the Guardian into the British Army’s flagship drone, Watchkeeper, as Cameron announced the RAF’s fleet of armed drones would be doubled to 20 aircraft.

MONTHLY REPORT BY COUNTRY

 

1. Pakistan

Pakistan: CIA drone strikes
	All strikes, September 2015	All strikes, 2015 to date	All strikes, 2004 to date
CIA drone strikes	1	13	421
Total reported killed	5-6	60-85	2,476-3,989
Civilians reported killed	0	2-5	423-965
Children reported killed	0	0	172-207
Total reported injured	4	25-32	1,158-1,738

 

Download our full Pakistan data set here.

A single US strike hit Pakistan in September, a month that saw rare reports of civilian casualties from a Pakistan Air Force (PAF) strike and the Pakistan military declare it had used its own drones in combat in the tribal areas.

The CIA strike killed five or six people when it destroyed part of a house at around 11pm on September 1. Up to three of the dead were reportedly foreigners, they were believed to be Uzbeks.

At least 60 people have been killed in the 13 US drone attacks reported so far this year.

On September 7 the Pakistan military said it had used its own armed drone in the tribal areas. The attack killed three people – all reportedly senior militants.

On September 18 there were reports of a third drone strike in Pakistan’s tribal area. A CIA drone reportedly killed at least six people in South Waziristan. It subsequently emerged that the operation was carried out by the Pakistan Air Force.

There was little follow-up coverage of that attack because news broke of a bloody assault on a Pakistan Air Force base in Peshawar by the Taliban that killed at least 29 people.

But a Reuters journalist in Dera Ismail Khan, a region that borders the tribal areas, interviewed a family that was wounded in the attack. They said all the dead were their neighbours and civilians, not terrorists. They said eight or nine civilians were killed in the attack, including three women and at least three children.

2. Afghanistan

Afghanistan: US drone and air strikes
	All reported strikes, September 2015	Official US figures, January to August 2015	Bureau identified figures, January to September 2015*
All US strikes	17	282	83
Total reported killed	30-76	–	499-723
Civilians reported killed	0	–	14-72
Children reported killed	0	–	0-18
Total reported injured	0-6	–	29-34

 

* The Bureau’s data on US air and drone strikes in Afghanistan is not exhaustive. The ongoing war creates barriers to reporting drone strikes. The Bureau’s data on strikes in Afghanistan is an accumulation of what publicly available information exists on specific strikes and casualties. The US government publishes monthly aggregates of air operations in Afghanistan, minus information on casualties.

US Air Force data, January 1 to August 31 2015
Total Close Air Support (CAS) sorties	2,927
Total CAS sorties with at least one weapon release	282
Total weapons released	523

 

In September the Taliban launched a surprise assault on the northern city of Kunduz. US ground forces were dispatched to the city to aid Afghan security forces’ attempts to retake the city. And the US provided close air support to Afghan and US troops. These were the first US airstrikes reported on the city of Kunduz in 2015.

At least five US airstrikes on September 29 and 30 helped an Afghan counter offensive eventually drive the insurgents out of the capital of the wealthy Kunduz province, which is just 150 miles north of Kabul.

The Taliban assault and Afghan counter-attacks inflicted a heavy toll on the city’s civilian population. Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) reported that 296 wounded, including 64 children, had arrived at its trauma centre in Kunduz between September 28 and the start of October.

In October, the hospital was hit by several air strikes that left at least 22 people dead. MSF condemned the attack “in the strongest possible terms”. The charity closed the hospital after the attack, evacuating its staff. It had been the only free trauma centre in northern Afghanistan, MSF said.

US and European soldiers were reportedly involved in the effort to retake Kunduz with a US spokesman telling Reuters: “US Special Forces advisers, while advising and assisting elements of the Afghan Special Security Forces, encountered an insurgent threat in Kunduz city.”

The city’s Afghan garrison were driven out to the airport in the suburbs where they regrouped and waited for reinforcements. Special forces from the US were reportedly in the area and moved to the airport to assist. US soldiers called in air support on at least one occasions near the airport, reportedly destroying a tank captured by the Taliban.

UK and German soldiers were also reportedly involved, but British and German authorities have denied their forces were involved.

The month began with the Afghan security forces struggling to retake the district of Musa Qala in northern Helmand – a province in southern Afghanistan that saw fierce fighting between the Taliban and Nato forces. The US gave considerable air support to the Afghans, with 18 strikes in the final of week of August and seven in the first week of September.

After Musa Qala fell, 90 US special forces operatives were reportedly rushed to Helmand’s Camp Antonik military headquarters. This detachment reportedly included joint terminal attack controllers that “must be on the ground directing the strike to ensure they are conducted within our rules of engagement,” according to the US military spokesman in Afghanistan.

Few details emerged from the US strikes in Musa Qalas or Kunduz. The US military released some details but would not say how many people were killed. There were reports one attack in Kunduz killed 15, including Taliban shadow governor for Kunduz, Mawlawi Salam. However he subsequently denied reports of his demise, the Long War Journal reported.

Other attacks this month hit in Kunar, Paktika and Nangarhar – provinces that border Pakistan and where the majority of the reported strikes have concentrated.

The US tally of aggregated monthly data from August was published last month. It showed the number of airstrikes in Afghanistan nearly doubled from 45 in July to 84 in August – both far exceeding the monthly average of 35 per month after eight months. However this is still far lower than when US and allied soldiers were engaged in combat operations in Afghanistan.

3. Yemen

Yemen: all confirmed US drone strikes
	All strikes, September 2015	All strikes, 2015 to date	All strikes, 2002 to date*
All US strikes	2	20-21	107-127
Total reported killed	7-11	71-99	492-725
Civilians reported killed	0-4	1-7	65-101
Children reported killed	0	1-2	8-9
Total reported injured	2	8	94-223

 

Download our full Yemen data set here.

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

There were two confirmed US drone strikes in Yemen last month, and two possible US attacks in addition.

The two confirmed attacks killed 9-11 people in Mukalla, a port city on the south coast of Yemen and the capital of Hadramout province. It has become the focus of al Qaeda activity in Yemen this year. It is also a focus of US strikes: 13 have hit since the start of the year.

The two possible attacks killed six in Mareb province in central Yemen. The Bureau cannot confirm US involvement in these strikes because the number of sources reporting US involvement is not sufficient, according to the Bureau’s methodology. Furthermore, the Saudi-led coalition has been bombing in Mareb and it is possible their attacks have been misreported as US attacks.

There were two other, possible US strikes that hit in Mareb province, central Yemen. These attacks were only reported by one or two sources and therefore are not included in the Bureau’s figures for confirmed US operations.

Last month saw foreign forces become more deeply embroiled in Yemen’s civil war, adding a new layer of complexity to the conflict as its toll on civilians continued to rise.

At the beginning of the month, a missile attack by the Shia Houthi militia in the central province of Marib killed at least 55 troops sent by Sunni Arab governments in the Gulf, who were there fighting in support of ousted president Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi.

Airstrikes by the Saudi-led coalition and heavy clashes occurred in different parts of the country, in spite of ongoing attempts by Oman to broker peace talks.

The Islamic State group reminded people of its growing presence in Yemen by claiming responsibility for a suicide bomb attack on a mosque in the capital, Sanaa, which was reported to have killed 25 people.

The Saudi-led coalition pressed on with an offensive in Marib.  Towards the end of the month, Hadi returned to the southern city in Aden, which he had attempted to turn in to seat of government after Houthis overran the capital. The Houthis’ advance south forced him to flee the country in March.

September ended with a strike reportedly killing at least 130 civilians at a wedding party near the Red Sea port of Mocha. The attack was reported as a suspected airstrike, but a spokesman for the Saudi-led coalition insisted there were no flights in the area at the time.

4. Somalia

Somalia: all US drone strikes
	All strikes, September 2015	All strikes, 2015 to date	All strikes, 2007 to date
All US strikes	0	8-9	9-13
Total reported killed	0	7-75	23-105
Civilians reported killed	0	0-4	0-5
Children reported killed	0	0	0
Total reported injured	0	0-4	2-7

 

Download our full Somalia data set here.

The militant group al Shabaab went on the offensive in September, seizing towns in the Lower Shabelle region.

On September 1 reports emerged that the group had raided an African Union base in Janale, killing at least 12 peacekeeping troops. By the second half of the month, the acting governor of Lower Shabelle told Reuters that much of the area was in al Shabaab’s hands, including Janale.

Also in September, the UK announced at the end of the month that it would send up to 70 troops to support the African Union mission in non-combat roles.

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A US Reaper taxis at Creech airbase in Nevada, USA (US Air Force photo by Senior Airman Larry E Reid Jr)

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

i. Key points:

US actions continue in Afghanistan, eight months after combat operations officially ended. American drones continue to kill alleged AQAP fighters as Yemen’s civil war rages. The first strike in two months kills 4-7 in Pakistan.

ii. The Bureau’s numbers:

Recorded US drone strikes to date

	Pakistan(June 2004 to date)	Yemen (Nov 2002 to date)*	Somalia (Jan 2007 to date)*	Afghanistan (Jan 2015 to date)
US drone strikes	420	105-125	15-19	43
Total reported killed	2,471-3,983	485-714	25-108	393-561
Civilians reported killed	423-965	65-97	0-5	14-42
Children reported killed	172-207	8-9	0	0-18
Reported injured	1,154-1,734	92-221	2-7	18-22

 

Recorded US air and cruise missile strikes to date

	Pakistan(June 2004 to date)**	Yemen(Nov 2002 to date)*	Somalia(Jan 2007 to date)*	Afghanistan(Jan 2015 to date)
US air & cruise missile strikes	N/A	15-72	8-11	23
Total reported killed	N/A	156-365	40-141	76-86
Civilians reported killed	N/A	68-99	7-47	0-30
Children reported killed	N/A	26-28	0-2	0
People reported injured	N/A	15-102	11-21	5-6

 

* The Bureau’s estimates are based predominantly on open sources information like media reports. Sometimes it is not possible to reconcile details in different reports. This is why we use ranges for our record of casualties and, in the case of Yemen and Somalia, our strike tallies.

** The US has only carried out drone strikes in Pakistan.

 

iii. Bureau analysis for August 2015:

There were more US air strikes reported in Afghanistan in August than Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia combined. More than half the 32 reported attacks in Afghanistan came in the space of a week. The US was providing air support to Afghan security forces trying to stop a second district in the southern province of Helmand falling under Taliban control.

MONTHLY REPORT BY COUNTRY

 

1. Pakistan

Pakistan: CIA drone strikes
	All strikes, August 2015	All strikes, 2015 to date	All strikes, 2004 to date
CIA drone strikes	1	12	420
Total reported killed	4-7	55-79	2,471-3,983
Civilians reported killed	0	2-5	423-965
Children reported killed	0	0	172-207
Total reported injured	0	21-28	1,154-1,734

 

The first CIA drone strike in Pakistan in 61 days reportedly killed between four and seven Haqqani Network fighters on August 6. The alleged militants were killed when the drones destroyed a house in the Datta Khel area of North Waziristan, Pakistani media reported.

This was the only drone strike reported in August. The CIA drone campaign in Pakistan has slowed since the end of January this year – when five strikes reportedly killed at least 26 people. Seven strikes have killed at least 29 people since the start of February.

During this time, the Pakistan military has continued its air and ground attacks on the various armed groups in the tribal areas. Several Pakistani air strikes reportedly killed scores of people in August, including a series of attacks on August 17, which killed at least 65 people, and  two on August 19 that left as many as 43 dead.

US-Pakistani relations showed further signs of strain last month, with Washington threatening to withhold $300m in military assistance unless Islamabad did more to tackle the Haqqani network. The US has said it believes the network is behind a recent increase in terrorist attacks in Afghanistan. In response to the US complaints, Pakistan insisted the network had been disrupted.

 

2. Afghanistan

Afghanistan: US drone and air strikes
	All reported strikes, August 2015	Official US figures, January to July 2015	Bureau identified figures, January to August 2015*
All US strikes	32	198	66
Total reported killed	125-141	–	469-647
Civilians reported killed	0-33	–	14-72
Children reported killed	0	–	0-18
Total reported injured	0	–	23-28

 

* The Bureau’s data on US air and drone strikes in Afghanistan is not exhaustive. The ongoing war creates barriers to reporting drone strikes. The Bureau’s data on strikes in Afghanistan is an accumulation of what publicly available information exists on specific strikes and casualties. The US government publishes monthly aggregates of air operations in Afghanistan, minus information on casualties.

US Air Force data, January 1 to July 31 2015
Total Close Air Support (CAS) sorties	2,435
Total CAS sorties with at least one weapon release	198
Total weapons released	380

 

The intensity of reported US air and drone attacks in Afghanistan increased again in August. There were 32 reported strikes that killed at least 125 people.

This casualty record is a significant underestimate. There were eighteen US attacks in the Musa Qala district of the southern province of Helmand from August 23 to August 30, according to US officials. However the death toll remains largely unreported. The first three reported attacks, on August 23, killed 40 according to Reuters.

A further 10 people were killed between August 23 and August 29 though it is not clear when or where in Musa Qala district.

The bombardment was in part a failed attempt to stem an advancing tide of Taliban fighters who threatened to take the district and its capital. The insurgents eventually drove the Afghan district administration out of Musa Qala and reportedly overran the district capital on August 24.

The US continued its air attacks as Afghan forces tried to push the Taliban back, eventually succeeding on August 30 when reinforcements arrived from neighbouring Kandahar province. The counter-offensive reportedly left 220 Taliban fighters dead, according to the Afghan ministry of defence.

The beleaguered Afghan army and police garrisons in Musa Qala suffered losses of their own. When the Taliban overran the capital, 25 police officers and soldiers were reportedly killed and 15 more injured.

“We left the district early in the morning because the Taliban were attacking from all sides,” Musa Qala district Governor Mohammad Sharif told Reuters. “We had asked for reinforcements for days but none arrived and this was what happened,” he said

The extent of US involvement in the defence and recapture of Musa Qala remains unclear. Afghan military officials said US ground forces were not involved. However a US military spokesman in Kabul publicly reported the air attacks and told the New York Times: “It is important to note whenever the US conducts airstrikes, a US JTAC [Joint Terminal Attack Controller] must be on the ground directing the strike to ensure they are conducted within our rules of engagement.”

In addition, 10 strikes hit the eastern province of Nangarhar last month, killing at least 72 people. There have been more strikes reported in Nangarhar than any other province. So far in 2015 there have been at least 25 reported attacks killing 276, according to the Bureau’s data. Nangarhar borders Pakistan’s tribal areas, a region the US and Afghanistan have long said is a haven for Afghan insurgents.

Between 56 and 66 people were reported killed in a single day on August 4 when a volley of strikes hit Narngahar and Paktika. Some of the dead were reported to be Islamic State fighters, as well as Taliban.

3. Yemen

Yemen: all confirmed US drone strikes
	All strikes, August 2015	All strikes, 2015 to date	All strikes, 2002 to date*
All US strikes	3	18-19	105-125
Total reported killed	14	64-88	485-714
Civilians reported killed	0	1-3	65-97
Children reported killed	0	1-2	8-9
Total reported injured	0	6	92-221

 

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

Drone strikes continued in Yemen as the US and Saudi allied forces loyal to president Hadi sought to press ahead with their campaign to roll back the advance of the Shia Houthi militia after retaking the port city of Aden in July.

There were three confirmed US attacks in August, all in or around the city of Mukalla, reportedly killing 14 people. Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) took advantage of the country’s chaos and took control of the city earlier this year. It has been the target of 10 of the 18 confirmed US strikes so far this year.

There was a fourth strike that was attributed to the US drones. It killed three in the central Marib province however the Bureau has yet to confirm it as a US operation.

Since moving into Mukalla in April, AQAP had reportedly adopted a low profile, leaving the day to day running of the city to a council of local residents. However in July the terrorist group spurred people to protest its presence by rounding up and arbitrarily arresting retired military officers and policemen. And in August its fighters blew up an army headquarters. According to AFP, it feared a military operation against them by pro-Saudi forces.

4. Somalia

Somalia: all US drone strikes
	All strikes, August 2015	All strikes, 2015 to date	All strikes, 2007 to date
All US strikes	0	8-9	15-19
Total reported killed	0	7-75	25-108
Civilians reported killed	0	0-4	0-5
Children reported killed	0	0	0
Total reported injured	0	0-4	2-7

 

There were no covert actions reported in Somalia in August.  The al Shabaab militant group has been gradually pushed back from territories in central and southern Somalia by Somali troops and the African Union Mission in Somalia (Amisom) peacekeepers.

Al Shabaab has posed an increasing threat to neighbouring Kenya however, and still has the capacity to carry out deadly operations inside Somalia itself.

On August 22 the group was reported to have killed 21 in twin suicide bomb attacks, one in the capital and on a military training base in the southern port city of Kismayo.

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African Union peacekeepers liberated towns from al Shabaab control last month, with US air support (AU UN IST PHOTO/Tobin Jones taken in 2014)

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

i. Key points:

As many strikes hit Afghanistan in July (17) as in January to June combined No strikes hit Pakistan for the second calendar month this year, now 56 days without incident Number of confirmed drone strikes in Yemen in 2015 reaches 15 Unprecedented intense action as at least six strikes hit Somalia while US provides African Union peacekeepers close air support

ii. The Bureau’s numbers:

Recorded US drone strikes to date

	Pakistan(June 2004 to date)	Yemen (Nov 2002 to date)*	Somalia (Jan 2007 to date)*	Afghanistan (Jan 2015 to date)*
US drone strikes	419	102-122	15-19	29-61
Total reported killed	2,467-3,976	471-700	25-108	308-677
Civilians reported killed	423-965	65-97	0-5	14-39
Children reported killed	172-207	8-9	0	0-20
Reported injured	1,152-1,731	92-221	2-7	18-31

 

Recorded US air and cruise missile strikes to date

	Pakistan(June 2004 to date)**	Yemen(Nov 2002 to date)*	Somalia(Jan 2007 to date)*	Afghanistan(Jan 2015 to date)
US air & cruise missile strikes	N/A	15-72	8-11	5
Total reported killed	N/A	156-365	40-141	36-46
Civilians reported killed	N/A	68-99	7-47	0
Children reported killed	N/A	26-28	0-2	0
People reported injured	N/A	15-102	11-21	5-6

 

* The Bureau’s estimates are based predominantly on open sources information like media reports. Sometimes it is not possible to reconcile details in different reports. This is why use ranges for our record of casualties and, in the case of Yemen and Somalia, our strike tallies.

** The US has only carried out drone strikes in Pakistan.

iii. Bureau analysis for July 2015:

As many US air strikes were reported in Afghanistan in July as in the preceding six months combined. This high intensity bombardment came as the CIA goes 56 days without carrying out a strike across the border in Pakistan.

The US continued its campaign in Yemen despite the ongoing civil war tearing the country apart. And there appears to have been a change of tactics in Somalia with six strikes targeting al Shabaab fighters about to attack African Union peacekeepers.

MONTHLY REPORT BY COUNTRY

1. Pakistan

Pakistan: CIA drone strikes
	All strikes, July 2015	All strikes, 2015 to date	All strikes, 2004 to date
CIA drone strikes	0	11	419
Total reported killed	0	51-72	2,467-3,976
Civilians reported killed	0	2-5	423-965
Children reported killed	0	0	172-207
Total reported injured	0	19-25	1,152-1,731

 

There were no CIA strikes reported in Pakistan in July – the second calendar month of 2015 without a recorded attack after February.

With the last strike on June 6, the pause in attacks has stretched to 56 days, in stark contrast to the intensity of air attacks just across the border in Afghanistan’s Nangarhar province, which abuts Pakistan’s tribal areas.

While US drone attacks may be on hiatus in Pakistan, the Pakistan military has continued its offensive in the tribal areas. These operations have reportedly pushed Taliban fighters into Afghanistan, possibly leaving the drones with a paucity of targets in Pakistan and a glut in Nangarhar.

So far in 2015, the Shawal area of North Waziristan has been the focus of US air attacks. Nine of the 11 strikes reported this year have hit this mountainous, thickly wooded territory that straddles the North and South Waziristan border, and the Pakistan-Afghanistan boundary.

This terrain makes it a difficult place for the Pakistan army to operate. The military had held off going into Shawal until the first week of July. The advancing troops may have pushed Taliban fighters and their families across the border into Afghanistan, emptying a formerly target rich environment for the CIA’s drones.

2. Afghanistan

Afghanistan: confirmed US drone and air strikes
	All strikes, July 2015	All strikes, 2015 to date
All US strikes	17	34
Total reported killed	216-326	344-506
Civilians reported killed	0	14-39
Children reported killed	0	0-18
Total reported injured	7-12	23-28

 

Fourteen confirmed US strikes hit the eastern province of Nangarhar last month with three more strike reported elsewhere in Afghanistan.

At least 216 people were reportedly killed in July – more than in any month since January 1.

The Bureau has managed to record casualty data on a fraction of the strikes reported in monthly aggregates by the US military. The air force has flown 153 “sorties with at least one weapon release” between January 1 and the end of June, at an average of 26 per month. However the intensity increased in June – rising to 49 sorties from 21 in May.

The increased tempo of US operations could reflect a growing concern the Afghan military is struggling to keep the resurgent Taliban at bay. Nangarhar in particular has seen considerable levels of violence, potentially a consequence of Taliban fighters fleeing Pakistan’s nearby tribal agencies, before the advancing Pakistan army.

The US military is only supposed to be carrying out counter-terrorism operations in Afghanistan, leaving the counter-insurgency work to the Afghan army and police.

When the US does comment on air attacks in Afghanistan, it generally says the strike was carried out against “individuals threatening the force”. It is not clear whether this is a reference to US troops carrying out ground operations who are in need of air support – possibly the US trying to mop up fighters from the various armed terrorist groups that have fled across the border from Pakistan. Or the US could now be providing air support to beleagured Afghan security forces which are struggling to maintain stability.

Afghan forces have been calling on the US for air support. And the National Directorate of Security, the Afghan intelligence agency, said it provided the US with intelligence for a July 7 strike on a group of alleged Islamic State fighters.

A US strike on a Afghan National Army outpost on July 20 provoked outrage in the Afghan senate. Two helicopter gunships killed at least seven Afghan soldiers in Logar province. “The incident happened at a time when there were no clashes in the area and foreign troops had not been asked for help,” according to General Abdul Razziq Sapai, commander of the army brigade in the province.

3. Yemen

Yemen: all confirmed US drone strikes
	All strikes, July 2015	All strikes, 2015 to date	All strikes, 2002 to date*
All US strikes	3	15-16	102-122
Total reported killed	11-19	50-74	471-700
Civilians reported killed	0	1-3	65-97
Children reported killed	0	1-2	8-9
Total reported injured	0	6	92-221

 

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

Three US drone strikes hit Yemen in July, killing at least 11 people. Two strikes hit Mukalla in the eastern Hadramout province and al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP’s) base of operations. The third strike hit in Abyan, Hadramout’s neighbouring province, killing four or five people in a car reportedly driving from Mukalla.

AQAP has been operating out of Mukalla since April when central government forces withdrew from the eastern province.

The US has continued drone operations in Yemen while chaos has engulfed the country. The three attacks in July took the total number of people reported killed in 2015 to 50. There have now been 15 strikes this year, two less than were recorded in all 2014.

Yemen’s civil war ground on throughout July despite attempted ceasefires as fears of a humanitarian crisis grew. The Saudi-led campaign against the Houthi militia which took over the capital last year appeared to gain momentum, with the key southern city of Aden falling to Riyadh-allied forces in the second half of the month. The Washington Post attributed the turnaround – coming after months of airstrikes failed to break the stalemate – to the arrival of Saudi-trained Yemeni fighters on the frontline.

4. Somalia

Somalia: all US drone strikes
	All strikes, July 2015	All strikes, 2015 to date	All strikes, 2007 to date
All US strikes	6	8-9	15-19
Total reported killed	2-3	7-75	25-108
Civilians reported killed	0	0-4	0-5
Children reported killed	0	0	0
Total reported injured	0	0	2-7

 

At least six US strikes hit Somalia in the space of two or three days after July 15 – an unprecedented frequency of attacks in the Bureau’s records.

One killed two or three people, according to local residents and Somali officials. The death toll from the other five strikes remains unreported. A US spokesman told the Bureau: “We are still assessing the results of the operation and will provide additional information if and when appropriate.”

The strikes appeared to signal a change in tactics from the US. Strikes reported in Somalia have historically been attempts at decapitating al Shabaab, targeting senior members of the group. However the six or more strikes in July were close air support for African Union peacekeepers, as the US spokesman explained: “Over the past week, US forces conducted a series of strikes against al Shabaab, an al Qaeda-affiliated terrorist group in Somalia, in defense of Amisom [African Union Mission to Somalia] forces under imminent threat of attack.”

The Amisom troops were advancing on the town of Baardheere which they took after the glut of drone attacks, in later July. Kenyan military reportedly killed 50 in an artillery barrage shortly after the first reported US strike on July 15. There were reports that US forces were involved in the operation.

The US has reportedly moved more drones out to East Africa, according to a senior US official speaking to the LA Times. This is reflected in the greater capacity built into the US drone base in Djibouti, at Chabelley air field, in 2015.

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President Barack Obama publicly acknowledged a specific drone strike in Pakistan, an unprecedented step. He apologized for killing American Warren Weinstein and Italian Giovanni Lo Porto, two al Qaeda hostages, in a signature strike in Pakistan (Photo: White House)

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

i. Key points:

Signature strikes return to Pakistan and Yemen. First confirmed civilian casualties since 2012 in Pakistan. Drone strikes persist in Yemen despite catastrophic civil war. More than 100 people killed in US air strikes in Afghanistan. Al Shabaab attacks continue in Somalia despite losing leaders in drone strikes.

ii. The Bureau’s numbers:

Recorded US drone strikes to date

	Pakistan(June 2004 to date)	Yemen (Nov 2002 to date)*	Somalia (Jan 2007 to date)*	Afghanistan (Jan 2015 to date)
US drone strikes	419	99-119	9-13	13-38
Total reported killed	2,467-3,976	460-681	23-105	99-342
Civilians reported killed	423-965	65-97	0-5	14-42
Children reported killed	172-207	8-9	0	0-20
Reported injured	1,152-1,731	92-221	2-7	18-27

 

Recorded US air and cruise missile strikes to date

	Pakistan(June 2004 to date)**	Yemen(Nov 2002 to date)*	Somalia(Jan 2007 to date)*	Afghanistan(Jan 2015 to date)
US air & cruise missile strikes	N/A	15-72	8-11	4
Total reported killed	N/A	156-365	40-141	29-36
Civilians reported killed	N/A	68-99	7-47	0
Children reported killed	N/A	26-28	0-2	0
People reported injured	N/A	15-102	11-21	0

 

* The Bureau’s estimates are based predominantly on information from open sources like media reports. Sometimes it is not possible to reconcile details in different reports. This is why we use ranges for our record of casualties and, in the case of Yemen and Somalia, our strike tallies.

** In Pakistan the US has only carried out drone strikes.

iii. Bureau analysis for the first half of 2015:

US drone and air strikes killed at least 207 people in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Somalia and Yemen so far in 2015, according to data collected by the Bureau.

The strikes left 52 dead in June alone. Last month there were two confirmed US strikes in Pakistan and Yemen, and four in Afghanistan.

CIA drones have been striking in Pakistan at a rate of around two per month for the past two years. After an intense start to the year, with five attacks reported in January, the strikes have become more occasional with none reported in February, one in March and April, and two in May and June.

This year Yemen has sunk into a civil war. Despite this, on January 25 President Barack Obama said the crisis would not affect the US’ counter-terrorism tactics. The US punctuated this statement with drone strikes on January 26, January 31 and February 2. There was then a pause for more than two months in Yemen.

The attacks abated as the Shia Houthi militia forced the government into exile and began taking control of major cities in the west of the country. Saudi Arabia began bombing Yemen in an as-yet fruitless effort to halt the Houthi advance.

The drone strikes returned in April in response to al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) exploiting the crisis and taking control of the city of Mukalla in the east of the country.

	Pakistan(Jan 1 2015 to date)	Yemen (Jan 1 2015 to date)	Afghanistan (Jan 1 2015 to date)	Somalia (Jan 1 2015 to date)
Confirmed US strikes	11	12-13	17	2-3
Total reported killed	51-72	39-55	128-180	5-12
Civilians reported killed	2-5	1-3	14-39	0-4
Children reported killed	0	1-2	0-18	0
Reported injured	19-25	6	18	0-4

 

Two strikes in the past six months are of particular note. Both were signature strikes – targeted at men who had been judged as al Qaeda based on their observed patterns of behaviour rather than their actual identities.

In January, the US killed two al Qaeda hostages, an American and an Italian, in Pakistan. The attack was aimed at a building housing four unnamed targets – correctly determined to be al Qaeda fighters by their observed patterns of behaviour.

Unbeknownst to the CIA, the two hostages were being held in the same building. It took the Agency several weeks to determine it had killed the two civilians in the attack.

US government

Another CIA drone strike, this time in Yemen, also appeared to be a signature strike. It killed AQAP’s commander, Nasser al Wuhayshi (right).

Unnamed “US officials familiar with the situation” told Bloomberg the CIA had tracked al Wuhayshi and targeted him in the attack. Other unnamed US officials, however, told the Washington Post they did not know al Wuhayshi was in the car when the drones struck.

The CIA has not commented on the strike, however the timeline of events leading to the White House declaring al Wuhayshi dead suggests this was indeed a signature strike. CNN first reported his death, citing two unnamed Yemeni officials. A US official told the broadcaster America was reviewing its intelligence to see if they had killed him. It was only after AQAP itself declared Wuhayshi dead that the US came out with its own statement.

Country Reports

1. Pakistan

Pakistan: CIA drone strikes
	All strikes, June 2015	All strikes, 2015 to date	All strikes, 2004 to date
CIA drone strikes	2	11	419
Total reported killed	11-14	51-72	2,467-3,976
Civilians reported killed	0-3	2-5	423-965
Children reported killed	0	0	172-207
Total reported injured	4	19-25	1.152-1,731

 

The CIA’s drone campaign continued in Pakistan with two strikes killing 11-14 people in the first week of June.

Four or five people were killed in a strike on the Shawal area of North Waziristan on June 1. Five days later drones reportedly hit the Shawal again, killing 7-9 people. Tribal and security sources told The News three women were among the dead. Another unnamed official told the paper fighters had their families with them “and it is possible the drone killed women as well.” None of the people killed last month have been identified.

June also saw the one year anniversary of the beginning of the Pakistani offensive in North Waziristan. The Pakistani military began air strikes in June 2014, gradually putting ground troops into the tribal agency as the second half of the year progressed. Thousands of militants have been killed since, according to the Pakistani military information service ISPR. However it is impossible to verify these claims as the army is not allowing journalists into the area and telecoms have reportedly been disrupted in some areas. This is also affecting the flow of information relating to drone strikes.

Six month analysis

All the CIA drone strikes so far this year have damaged or destroyed domestic buildings. And 10 of the 11 strikes have reportedly hit in the Shawal area of North Waziristan.

The Shawal is a forested area of steep valleys. This inhospitable region straddles the North-South Waziristan border, and the Afghan-Pakistan border. It has long been a stronghold for smugglers and armed groups. It is one of the last Taliban bastions to be taken by Pakistani ground forces in the military’s ongoing offensive.

The rate of strikes in Pakistan could be reaching a stable point after falling from the peak of the campaign in the second half of 2010. The first and second halves of 2013, and the second half of last year saw strike hit at a rate of around two per month.

The exception is the first half of 2014 when attacks stopped entirely for more than five months while the Pakistan government tried and ultimately failed to negotiate a peace deal with the Pakistan Taliban. Three drone strikes hit in June, after the Pakistan military had begun its now year-long military operation in North Waziristan.

Two al Qaeda hostages, American Warren Weinstein and Italian Giovanni Lo Porto, were accidentally killed in a signature in January. They were the first confirmed civilians to die since the second half of 2012. However in the intervening 25 months, the Bureau has collected reports of up to 14 civilians dying in six drone strikes.

US aid worker Warren Weinstein ,73 (Photo: from Al Qaeda propaganda video)

2. Afghanistan

Afghanistan: confirmed US drone and air strikes
	All strikes, June 2015	All strikes, 2015
All US strikes	8	17
Total reported killed	50-89	128-180
Civilians reported killed	14-39	14-39
Children reported killed	0-18	0-18
Total reported injured	17	18

 

The Bureau has been collecting data on US air and drone strikes in Afghanistan since the start of January this year. In this period, June has been the deadliest month yet recorded.

There have been eight confirmed US attacks that have killed 50-89 people, including at least 14 civilians.

The first two confirmed US attacks, on June 5 and June 8, reportedly killed civilians. The first hit a convoy of vehicles leaving a funeral in Khost province. The attack either killed 34 insurgents who had just buried a senior Taliban commander. Or it killed 14-29 civilian members of the Kuchi tribe who had buried a tribal elder.

The US said it had attacked armed militants in Khost and that reports of civilian casualties were being investigated.

The second attack hit three days later and killed seven people. One was identified as Spargahy, a local Taliban commander. Up to six of the dead were said to be high school students who had been taken for military training. It was not clear what age they were or whether they were taken by force.

The third and fourth strikes killed 13-15 people, including up to seven named alleged Taliban insurgents. There were three US air strikes reported at the end of the month, hitting Nuristan and Paktika province. The Taliban had reportedly fought fierce battles with the Afghan army in the days before the US attacks. The Taliban briefly took control of the province’s Want Waygal district on June 26. The insurgents were pushed out of the area the same day and US air attack killed five in that district on June 27.

The final strike of the month hit on June 30 in Nangarhar province, killing between four and 14 people – all reportedly insurgents. The attack hit after Reuters revealed fighters who claimed loyalty to the Islamic State had pushed the Taliban out of six of the 21 districts in Nangarhar.

Taliban violence continued last month with an attack on the parliament in Kabul. A suicide car bomb breached the wall of the complex and shook the parliament chamber itself. Gunmen stormed the building but were killed by security forces, before they could kill or take hostage any MPs.

The first six months of the year have been particularly bloody for Afghan civilians. As of April 30, 978 civilians had been killed in the ongoing conflict, according to Mark Bowden, the UN Secretary-General’s deputy special representative in the country.

This translates as 245 people killed per month. In 2014, 308 civilians died per month. However, with violence becoming more intense in Afghanistan through May and June, it seems likely 2015 will be at least as lethal for Afghan civilians.

“[Doctors] told me that they are seeing a 50 per cent increase in the number of civilians injured this year compared to the same period last year,” Bowden added.

Fighting continues in the north of the country around the city of Kunduz. The Taliban has advanced on the city and been beaten back by the Afghan army on several occasions this year.

During the latest round of fighting, the Afghan forces reportedly called on the US for air support though none was forthcoming, according to the Washington Post.

3. Yemen

Yemen: all confirmed US drone strikes
	All strikes, June 2015	All strikes, 2015 to date	All strikes, 2002 to date*
All US strikes	2	12-13	99-119
Total reported killed	7-8	39-55	460-681
Civilians reported killed	0	1-3	65-97
Children reported killed	0	1-2	8-9
Total reported injured	2	6	92-221

 

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

Two confirmed drone strikes killed 7-8 people in June, almost replicating the picture in May when two attacks killed 6-8 people.

The first strike in June killed Nasser al Wuhayshi, the leader of AQAP and second in command of al Qaeda overall.

Wuhayshi had been a leading figure in al Qaeda since the 1990s when in Afghanistan he became Osama bin Laden’s personal secretary. He rose to prominence in the Yemen branch of the terrorist group in 2007 and in January 2009 publicly declared himself the leader of AQAP – an amalgamation of Al Qaeda in Yemen and Al Qaeda in Saudi Arabia.

Wuhayshi had led AQAP since it was formed in 2009 out of the remnants of al Qaeda in Saudi Arabia and al Qaeda in Yemen, which he led since 2007. He had been deputy leader of al Qaeda and Ayman al Zawahiri’s deputy since 2013.

The second strike killed four or five people on June 24. A vehicle was reportedly targeted on the outskirts of Mukalla, in a former army base that AQAP had taken over when they took control of the city in April.

June was the third month of an ongoing Saudi Arabian bombing campaign in Yemen. The strikes are trying to halt the advancing Houthis, a Shia militia, who drove President Abdu-Rabbo Mansour Hadi into exile in Riyadh in March.

Hadi was ensconced as president in 2011 by the US and its Gulf allies in 2012 after a popular uprising ousted his predecessor, dictator Ali Abdullah Saleh. Forces loyal to Hadi and his Gulf supporters are fighting the Houthis who have allied themselves with Saleh’s militias. Militias associated with southern secessionists have taken up arms against the Houthis though are adamant this does not mean they are aligned with Hadi.

Thousands of people have been killed by the civil war and Saudi air campaign. Atrocities have been reported on all sides. Saudi Arabia and its allies are stopping aid supplies from entering the country by sea and air. Houthi forces have besieged the second city of Aden. Vital infrastructure has been destroyed, food is scare, disease rife. The UN says the country is one step from famine and 31 million people require humanitarian aid.

There have been 12 drone strikes so far in 2015, more than in any six month period since the second half of 2012 when 14 drone strikes hit the country. This frequency of attacks is surprising considering Yemen has been riven by civil conflict for most of the past six months.

The increase in the rate of attacks is in part because in April AQAP took advantage of Yemen’s crisis. Its forces swept into Mukalla, the capital of Hadramout province, establishing themselves as the new authority. Four strikes hit in April and since April 12 five of the nine drone strikes have hit Mukalla.

The US drones have not been this focused on a single town or city before now, according to the Bureau’s data. The US did focus its efforts on the Abyan governorate in the second half of 2011 and into 2012. This was in response to AQAP exploiting another period of instability in Yemen to take control of most of the area in and around the governorate, declaring it an Islamic Emirate.

While the number of strikes has been going up, the casualty rate has fallen with fewer people dying per strike in the first half of 2015 than any six month period since the first half of 2013.

The attacks in the past six months have killed a number of named, senior figures in the group. Besides Nasser al Wuhayshi, killed in a signature strike in June, the drones have killed one of AQAP’s key ideologues, Nasser al Ansi, and its chief spokesman, Mohanned Ghallab.

The attacks also killed Ibrahim al Rubaish, a senior AQAP figure, and Sheikh Harith al Nadhari, a leading ideologue who released a statement praising the Charlie Hebdo attack in Paris.

4. Somalia

Somalia: all US drone strikes
	All strikes, June 2015	All strikes, 2015 to date	All strikes, 2007 to date
All US strikes	0	2	9-13
Total reported killed	0	5-12	23-105
Civilians reported killed	0	0-4	0-5
Children reported killed	0	0	0
Total reported injured	0	0	2-7

 

June passed without a reported US attack on al Shabaab. However this month the group released pictures of a US surveillance drone it said crashed in May.

Crowds gather in #AlShabab HQs in Dinsor town to view possible US surveillance drone the group said crashed on May 17 pic.twitter.com/14fYHkRHy4

— Harun Maruf (@HarunMaruf) June 5, 2015

There were two confirmed drone strikes in Somalia in the past six months. In a country where such attacks are rare, this represents a high intensity of operations

The strikes continued the trend seen in both the first and second halves of 2014, targeting senior figures in al Shabaab. In March a US special forces drones killed Adnan Garaar, a senior member of al Shabaab’s Amniyatt intelligence service. He reportedly replaced Ysusuf Dheeq as head of the group’s external operations. Dheeq was killed in a drone strike in February this year.

There were two confirmed drone strikes in the second half of last year – both killed senior al Shabaab figures. The first, on September 1, killed the group’s supreme leader, Ahmed Abdi Godane.

Taking out these senior figures appears not to have blunted al Shabaab’s capacity for extreme violence. It has attacked supposedly secure buildings in the fortified government district of Mogadishu. It has assassinated MPs and senior officials.

This year the group committed its worst atrocity to date. Its gunmen murdered 148 students as they slept in their dormitories at Garissa university in northeastern Kenya.

In May, Somalia expert Matt Bryden published a report that explained how al Shabaab was still a potent, transnational terrorist threat, despite having lost leaders to the drones and territory in Somalia to African Union peacekeepers.

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A US helicopter ferrying military advisers over Nangarhar province, Afghanistan, where US aircraft killed at least 34 this month (USAF)

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

i. Key points:

A Pew Research Center poll finds strong support in the US for drone strikes Three US strikes kill at least 34 in Afghanistan The US continues to bomb Yemen in the midst of a brutal civil war British drones flew 301 missions over Iraq from September to the end of March

ii. The Bureau’s numbers:

Recorded US drone strikes to date

	Pakistan(June 2004 to date)	Yemen (Nov 2002 to date)*	Somalia (Jan 2007 to date)*	Afghanistan (Jan 2015 to date)
US drone strikes	417	97-117	9-13	5
Total reported killed	2,456-3,962	453-673	23-105	49-55
Civilians reported killed	423-962	65-97	0-5	0
Children reported killed	172-207	8-9	0	0
Reported injured	1,148-1,727	88-217	2-7	1

 

Recorded US air and cruise missile strikes to date

	Pakistan(June 2004 to date)**	Yemen(Nov 2002 to date)*	Somalia(Jan 2007 to date)*	Afghanistan(Jan 2015 to date)
US air & cruise missile strikes	N/A	15-72	8-11	4
Total reported killed	N/A	156-365	40-141	29-36
Civilians reported killed	N/A	68-99	7-47	0
Children reported killed	N/A	26-28	0-2	0
People reported injured	N/A	15-102	11-21	0

 

* The Bureau’s estimates are based predominantly on open sources information such as media reports. Sometimes it is not possible to reconcile details in different reports. This is why use ranges for our record of casualties and, in the case of Yemen and Somalia, our strike tallies.

** The US has only carried out drone strikes in Pakistan.

iii. Bureau analysis for May 2015:

A new poll this month shows the American drone campaign continues to enjoy popular support in the US as seven strikes reportedly kill 48-56 people in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Yemen.

According to the Pew Research Center poll, 58% of respondents approve of “US drone strikes to target extremists” with 35% who disapprove. Nearly half, 48%, are very concerned US drone attacks endanger the lives of innocent civilians.

The research was carried out over seven days from May 12, 19 days after President Obama told the nation drones had killed Warren Weinstein, a US civilian, and Giovanni Lo Porto, an Italian civilian.

It is not clear how intense media coverage of the deaths of Weinstein and Lo Porto, and the drone war in general, affected what respondents said. However support for drones appears to have grown slightly since Pew last polled on the matter, up from 56% in February 2013.

In fact concern about civilian casualties seems to have fallen – 53% of the 2013 poll respondents said they were very concerned drones “endanger civilian lives”. It is not a direct comparison: Pew polled fewer people in February 2013 than in May 2015, and did not poll Alaska or Hawaii.

Also in May, the British government released data on anti-Islamic State air operations showing the Royal Air Force flew 301 Reaper drone missions over Iraq between the start of UK operations against Isis last September and the end of March.

The numbers were obtained by the Drone Wars UK organisation, which showed the British Reaper drones fired 102 Hellfire missiles on 87 separate occasions.

MONTHLY REPORT BY COUNTRY

1. Pakistan

The Bureau’s complete Pakistan data set is available to download as a spreadsheet.

Pakistan: CIA drone strikes
	All strikes, May 2015	All strikes, 2015 to date	All strikes, 2004 to date
CIA drone strikes	2	9	417
Total reported killed	7-13	40-58	2,456-3,962
Civilians reported killed	0	2	423-962
Children reported killed	0	0	172-207
Total reported injured	0	15-21	1,148-1,727

 

CIA drone strikes continued in Pakistan. The first of two strikes killed 4-7 people on May 16, ending a 34 day pause. The attack hit a domestic compound reportedly being used by the Pakistan Taliban. There were no named dead though both Pakistanis and foreigners were killed, according to anonymous Pakistani officials.

The second strike hit on May 18, hours after the Pakistan Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemned the first attack. It released a statement repeating its “call for a cessation of such strikes,” describing them as counter-productive. The second attack reportedly killed 3-6 people, none of them identified, when it hit a domestic compound and possibly a vehicle.

The two strikes in May represent a slight increase from the solitary strikes that reportedly hit Pakistan in March and April. It is below the intense period in January when five attacks killed 26-38 people, the highest number of people killed per strike since August 2014.

Both attacks hit in the Shawal area – a forested region of steep valleys that straddles the North and South Waziristan as well as the Pakistan and Afghanistan border. Several armed groups reportedly have long established strongholds there because of its location and inhospitable terrain. Seven of the nine strikes so far this year have reportedly hit within the Shawal.

The Pakistan military was this month reportedly preparing to send troops into the Shawal, 11 months after it began its ongoing military operation in North Waziristan. The scale and progress of this push into the Shawal were unclear, Reuters reported. The area was said to be off limits to journalists with roads blocked and telephone cables cut.

2. Afghanistan

The Bureau has yet to publish its Afghanistan data in a downloadable form. The full timeline of strikes is available here.

Afghanistan: confirmed US drone and air strikes
	All strikes, May 2015	All strikes, 2015 to date
All US strikes	3	9
Total reported killed	34	78-91
Civilians reported killed	0	0
Children reported killed	0	0
Total reported injured	1	1

 

Three confirmed US strikes killed 34 people in May – almost half the total number of people reported killed since January and the most in a single month this year, according to available reporting.

This increase in casualties came as Taliban attacks battered the Afghan army and police across the country. The insurgents continued to battle with Afghan forces around the capital of the northern Kunduz province, in Helmand in the south, and even in Kabul.

The confirmed US attacks all hit Nangarhar province and all reportedly killed named, alleged Taliban commanders.

The first killed 17 people on May 4. This was the highest reported death toll from a single strike since 18 were killed on January 3. The provincial police spokesman said: “A Taliban commander named Mullah Daoud is among the dead.”

A local resident told Afghan news service Pajhwok two strikes hit in quick succession. “Soon after the first attack, rebels came to collect bodies of their colleagues when [the rescuers] came under another attack,” he said. If true, this could demonstrate the continuation of a controversial tactic used by the CIA in Pakistan of deliberately targeting rescuers, first exposed by the Bureau in 2012.

The second confirmed US attack on May 9 killed 13 including Gul Agha, reportedly the Taliban’s shadow governor in the province. He had been put on a US government sanctions list in 2010, described as “the head of the Taliban’s financial commission and is part of a recently-created Taliban council that coordinates the collection of zakat [tithe] from Baluchistan Province, Pakistan.”

The third US attack killed four people on May 14 including Taliban commander Muslahuddin. A US military spokesman told the Bureau the US carried out the three Nangarhar strikes but said he was “not going to discuss the details of those strikes”.

Ten other air strikes that killed 37-75 people were reported in Afghanistan this month. All were described as US attacks but the Bureau has not yet been able to confirm that. The Bureau’s data provides only a part of the whole picture. The US military publishes summary data each month but will not release information on individual strikes.

The high number of confirmed and possible US attacks, and casualties, came as Taliban insurgents were reportedly fighting with Afghan forces in 10 provinces. “This is the worst fighting season in a decade,” according to analyst Attiqullah Amerkhil. “There is now fighting in every part of the country.”

3. Yemen

The Bureau’s complete Yemen data set is available to download as a spreadsheet.

Yemen: all confirmed US drone strikes
	All strikes, April 2015	All strikes, 2015 to date	All strikes, 2002 to date*
All US strikes	3	9-10	96-116
Total reported killed	10-12	29-44	450-670
Civilians reported killed	0	1-3	65-97
Children reported killed	0	1-2	8-9
Total reported injured	2	2	88-217

 

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

There were five reported US strikes in Yemen this month. However the Bureau has only been able to confirm three were US operations.

The first confirmed US attack killed four men on May 11 in Mukalla, the capital of the eastern province of Hadramout. The strike killed four al Qaeda members, identified as: Maamoun Hatem, Abu Anwar al Kutheiri, Mohammed Saleh al Gharabi and Mabkhout Waqash al Sayeri. Hatem (below) was reportedly among the more prominent supporters in Yemen of the Islamic State group.

تم التأكد من خبر #استشهاد_الشيخ_مأمون_حاتم ان لله وإن اليه راجعون تقبلك الله في الفردوس pic.twitter.com/FGM1DEm3pr

— حساب معطل (@tunisfallouja) May 11, 2015

The US has continued targeting al Qaeda in Yemen as a brutal civil war rages. The fighting between a complex mix of competing militias and factions halted for a five-day humanitarian ceasefire at 11pm on May 12. The second US strike killed three people in Shabwa province. It hit on May 16, the day before the ceasefire ended.

The third US attack killed 3-5 in the southern province of Shabwa on May 22. Local officials, tribal sources and security officials said US drones destroyed a vehicle in the province, killing several al Qaeda members. The two further possible US strikes all reportedly hit in Shabwa province as well.

On May 27 Saudi air strikes across the border in northern Yemen and in Sanaa killed at least 80 people, the deadliest day of bombing since the strikes began in March, according to Reuters. Forty people were reportedly killed in strikes in the Hajjah province, most of them civilians according to local sources. Forty more were reportedly killed in strikes in Sanaa a few hours later.

The months of bombing, shelling and street battles mean Yemen’s key infrastructure has been smashed. Food is in short supply, airport runways have been bombed, and a fuel shortage has stopped many water pumps from working.

“The infrastructure, health, all the other vital services people need, they’re in a state of collapse,” according to the director of operations at the UN’s Organisation for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. “The ICRC [International Committee of the Red Cross] has been describing the situation as catastrophic and I think that is about the best word to describe the plight of the Yemeni people right now.”

The UN estimates nearly 2,000 people have died since the conflict began. There are 1,037 civilians reportedly among the dead, including 234 children and 134 women.

Also this month, three Yemeni men brought an unprecedented case against the German government in a court in Cologne. The men, relatives of two men killed in an August 2012 drone strike, “called upon the German government to accept legal and political responsibility for the US drone war in Yemen and to prohibit the use of Ramstein,” according to their lawyers.

Ramstein is a US air base in Germany which is a key hub in the network controlling US drones over Asia and the Middle East. It acts as a relay station, sending information it receives in real time via undersea cables from the US, directly to satellites and on to the drones. Their first attempt was defeated, however the men were given leave to appeal the decision.

4. Somalia

The Bureau’s complete Somalia data set is available to download as a spreadsheet.

Somalia: all US drone strikes
	All strikes, May 2015	All strikes, 2015 to date	All strikes, 2007 to date
All US strikes	0	2-3	9-13
Total reported killed	0	5-72	23-105
Civilians reported killed	0	0-4	0-5
Children reported killed	0	0	0
Total reported injured	0	0	2-7

 

There were no reported US strikes in Somalia for the second month running. However an al Shabaab commander died of natural causes this month having at least twice survived US attacks.

Ethiopian Hasan al Turki, 73, died after a long illness, al Shabaab reported. He met Osama Bin Laden in the mountains of Afghanistan and in Sudan, al Shabaab’s spokesman Sheikh Ali Mohamud Rageh said.

Al Turki (below) was added to the US Treasury Department al Qaeda sanctions list in 2001 and the UN Security Council’s al Qaeda list in 2004.

Sheikh Hassan Al-Turki was ex-military colonel in the army, ex-Al-Itihad and co-founder of Raskamboni & Hisbul Islam. pic.twitter.com/fuTN22lThR — Harun Maruf (@HarunMaruf) May 28, 2015

On January 23 2007 the US killed eight people, possibly including civilians, in an AC-130 gunship attack. It was meant to kill al Turki, then a deputy leader of the Islamic Courts Union (ICU), as well as Ahmed Madobe a fellow ICU leader. The US reportedly missed al Turki again on March 3 2008 with a cruise missile fired from a US warship. Al Turki was then leader of the Ras Kamboni Brigades, an Islamist insurgent group in southern Somalia that merged with al Shabaab in 2010.

Also this month, al Shabaab continued to demonstrate it is a dangerous enemy for both the Somali and Kenyan governments.

John Kerry was the first US secretary of state to visit Somalia on May 5. He spent three hours in the highly fortified diplomatic enclave near Mogadishu’s airport before flying back into Kenya. The next day Abdifatah Barre, the deputy district commissioner of Mogadishu’s Wadajir district, was murdered by al Shabaab on the streets of the capital.

On May 23 fighting between al Shabaab and government forces reportedly left at least 24 people dead in southern Somalia. Four people were also shot dead in Mogadishu by al Shabaab, including a parliamentarian.

In Kenya, al Shabaab took control of a village on May 21 for several hours. The group forced the villagers to the mosque where they preached at them for two hours before leaving. It attacked a second village the next day, also in Garissa Count. Al Shabaab said it took control of Yumbis village for eight hours though the Kenyan interior ministry claimed its forces had successfully repelled the attack. A local resident told al Jazeera masked al Shabaab fighters had planted their black flag throughout the village.

The following week al Shabaab gunmen attacked two police patrols in Garissa, triggering a gun battle that the armed group claimed left 25 Kenyans dead. The police said one of its men had been killed. The instability in Garissa forced Medecin Sans Frontier (MSF) to evacuate a third of its staff from Dadaab, the world’s largest refugee camp. It sits near the Somali border and is home to thousands of ethnic Somalis. MSF said it was forced to close two of its four health posts there and suspend its ante-natal work entirely.

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