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Monthly Drone Report, March 2015: US drone strikes drop 50% as chaos envelops Yemen

Published

April 1, 2015

Written by

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

Saudi jets have began bombing Houthi targets across its southern border in Yemen

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

i. Key points:

    US drone strike frequency halves from Q4 2014 to Q1 2015 Strikes appear to target the Pakistan Taliban in Afghanistan A single CIA strike kills three in Pakistan as Islamabad forces hammer the tribal areas Yemen sinks into civil war, hamstringing US intelligence gathering essential for drone strikes Another drone strike kills a senior al Shabaab figure in Somalia

 

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 414 90-109 9-13 2
Total reported killed 2,445-3,945 431-639 23-105 15-21
Civilians reported killed 421-960 65-96 0-5 0
Children reported killed 172-207 8 0 0
Reported injured 1,142-1,720 86-215 2-7 0

 

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 155-365 40-74 29-36
Civilians reported killed N/A 68-99 7-16 0
Children reported killed N/A 26-28 0 0
People reported injured N/A 15-102 11-19 0

 

* 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 March 2015:

In March 2015, the Bureau recorded three confirmed US air and drone strikes across all of Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia and Afghanistan. This was down from four the month before. Meanwhile, Yemen plummeted into a civil war, as a possible rapprochement between Kabul and the Afghan Taliban failed to materialise, and as Pakistan Air Force jets hammered the tribal areas.

Yemen’s rapid descent into chaos forced the US to pull some 100 special forces commandos from the country country. They were there to train Yemeni special forces and coordinate counter-terrorism intelligence.

This turn of events left Washington’s counter-terrorism mission in the country floundering, US commentators and analysts reported, though the CIA is reportedly still operating.

The loss of intelligence coordination in Yemen may have hamstrung the US drone programme there.

In contrast, counter-terrorism operations are set to continue in Afghanistan. The US will keep troops in the country longer than originally planned, allowing special forces and CIA drone bases to remain in the country for longer. This is important for CIA action in Pakistan as its drones operate from bases in Afghanistan.

The CIA’s drone campaign in Pakistan was muted last month, despite maintaining the capacity to carry out strikes. The CIA carried out one strike. In contrast, the Pakistan Air Force was extremely active in March. It carried out several strikes, killing scores of people.

In Somalia, the US continued to target al Shabaab’s intelligence and external-action wing, Amniyatt. The second drone strike of 2015 killed the Amniyatt leader, Adan Garaar. He succeeded Yusef Dheeq, who was killed in a drone strike in January.

 

iv. Analysis by quarter: Drone strikes decline

Drone strikes and casualties dropped by about 50% in the first quarter of 2015, compared with the final three months of 2014. There were 23 confirmed US drone strikes reported in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen and Somalia in Q4 2014 to the end of December, killing at least 87 people.

In Q1 2015, there were 12 strikes, killing at least 47 people.

Though there have been fewer strikes and deaths overall, the average number of people killed per strike, or casualty rate, has remained constant – just under four people were killed per strike in both Q4 2014 and Q1 2015.

 

MONTHLY REPORT BY COUNTRY

 

1. Pakistan

Pakistan: CIA drone strikes
All strikes, March 2015 All strikes, 2015 to date All strikes, 2004 to date
CIA drone strikes 1 6 414
Total reported killed 3 29-41 2,445-3,945
Civilians reported killed 0 0 421-960
Children reported killed 0 0 172-207
Total reported injured 0 9-14 1,142-1,720

 

One CIA drone strike killed three people in Pakistan last month. The attack hit in Kurram agency just across the border from North Waziristan – the location of the overwhelming majority of strikes this year and in 2014.

The attack hit in the Shabak area of the agency, which is close to the border with Afghanistan. Some reports had the strike hitting in Afghanistan however a Tehrik e Taliban Pakistan (TTP) statement placed the attack on the Pakistan side of the border.

Kurram Agency is a spur extending from Pakistan into eastern Afghanistan (Map by: Sarah Leo)

This TTP press release was a eulogy for the three men killed in the attack. It said Khawrey Mehsud was a senior commander in the group and had been its former leader Baitullah Mehsud‘s bodyguard. Baituallah was killed in a drone strike in Pakistan in 2009.

This was the first strike in Pakistan since January 28 when six or seven people were killed in North Waziristan. There has been an abrupt reduction in drone strikes in Pakistan. Five strikes killed at least 29 people in January at a casualty rate of nearly five dead per strike. This was a continuation from the final three months in 2014 when 16 strikes killed at least 57 people at a rate of more than 3.5 killed per strike.

While the CIA has apparently curtailed its strikes in Pakistan’s tribal areas, the Pakistan Air Force has launched numerous air strikes, killing scores of people in Tirrah valley of Khyber province. Air force jets and ground forces reportedly killed more than 80 in an operation over the weekend of March 21-22.

Also this month, the Bureau reported that a trove of al Qaeda documents recovered during the raid of Osama Bin Laden’s home in 2011 has corroborated many of the details in the Bureau’s reports of drone strikes in Pakistan.

 

2. Afghanistan

Afghanistan: confirmed US drone and air strikes
All strikes, March 2015 All strikes, 2015 to date
All US strikes 1 6
Total reported killed 9-13 44-57
Civilians reported killed 0 0
Children reported killed 0 0
Total reported injured 0 0

 

The US appears to have been targeting fighters from the TTP in Afghanistan last month. The group reportedly carries out attacks in Pakistan from bases in Afghanistan.

Pakistan has been hammering the group in Pakistan’s tribal areas while a single US drone strike reportedly killed at least nine commanders from the TTP and allied entities. This strike hit in the Nazyan area of Nangrahar on March 23.

This coincided with several days of concerted Pakistan military operation just across the border in Pakistan’s Khyber agency, reportedly targeting the TTP and its allies.

There were two additional, possible US attacks. The first on March 15 killed 10 people, including Hafiz Waheed who succeeded his uncle Abdul Rauf Khadim (killed February 6) as the leader of a reportedly Islamic State-linked anti-government militia. Reporting around this strike was confusing: it was described as an Afghan military operation but also as an airstrike. This would suggest it was a US drone strike, though the Afghan air force does have some strike-capable helicopters.

The second possible attack reportedly killed 11 people on March 24. All the dead were reportedly TTP members though one source said four of the dead were part of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan. The strike was widely reported but not by sufficient authoritative sources for the Bureau to consider it a confirmed US attack.

There were five more strikes reported in Afghanistan this month, killing at least 22 people. However these were all reported by single sources and are not as yet included in the Bureau’s casualty estimates.

Also this month, Washington decided to keep 9,800 US soldiers in Afghanistan until the end of 2015, rather than drawing down numbers during the year. Maintaining this level of troops and contractors will enable the CIA to continue its drone strikes from bases in the country.

 

3. Yemen

Yemen: all confirmed US drone strikes
All strikes, March 2015 All strikes, 2015 to date All strikes, 2002 to date*
All US strikes 0 3 90-109
Total reported killed 0 10-13 431-639
Civilians reported killed 0 1-2 65-96
Children reported killed 0 1 8
Total reported injured 0 0 86-215

 

* 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.

March was the first month without a confirmed US strike since July 2014. There was however a possible US attack which left 3-4 dead. It was the third reported but not confirmed strike in Yemen to target a vehicle carrying alleged al Qaeda members. Al Qaeda’s spokesman denied the attack took place.

The frequency of attacks fell in the first quarter of 2015. There were two confirmed US strikes in January and one in February; all three killed at least 10 people. There were twice as many strikes in the final quarter of 2014, with four in December alone. At least 58 people died in US attacks between September and December 2014.

Demonstrations against Houthis in Yemen in January 2015 (Mohammed Hamoud/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)

This decline in US drone strikes has coincided with a major escalation in Yemen’s long-simmering political crisis. The Houthi militia marched south, capturing an airbase used by the US, forcing the ousted president to flee the country and precipitating a Saudi-led military intervention.

The Aden residence of former president Abdu Rabbu al Mansour Hadi, who had been attempting to set up an alternative seat of government in the southern port city after escaping the Houthi-controlled capital in February, came under attack from an unidentified warplane. Yemeni forces reported to be loyal to Hadi’s Houthi-allied predecessor, Ali Abdullah Saleh, meanwhile fought for control of Aden’s airport. After speculation as to his whereabouts, Hadi eventually surfaced in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

On March 25 the Houthis captured al Anad airbase 35 miles outside Aden, which had been used by US counter-terrorism forces to coordinate actions – including drone strikes – against the Sunni militant group al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). US personnel had evacuated the base a few days previously.

Later that day Saudi Arabia announced a coalition to intervene militarily against the Houthis in Yemen. Intense aerial bombardment of different parts of Yemen has been reported since then. On March 30, dozens were reported killed in a strike on a camp for displaced persons in northern Yemen, though the circumstances of the attack are still unclear.

As the fighting intensifies, there are growing fears that Yemen will become the battlefield for a proxy war between Sunni Saudi Arabia and Shiite Iran. Though the two sects have historically co-existed in Yemen, recent clashes between the advancing Houthis and Sunni tribes have raised the prospect of sectarian war. On March 20 more than 100 people were killed when suicide bombers struck Shiite mosques in the capital during Friday prayers.

The turmoil has left the US’s counter-terrorism policy in Yemen in disarray. US officials told the Associated Press that CIA drone strikes would continue but that there would be “fewer of them”, amid concerns about the lack of on-the-ground intelligence or coordinating partners.

 

4. Somalia

Somalia: all US drone strikes
All strikes, March 2015 All strikes, 2015 to date All strikes, 2015 to date
All US strikes 1 2 9-13
Total reported killed 3 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

 

A US drone strike killed three people, including Adnan Garaar, a commander from the Amniyatt – al Shabaab’s intelligence wing.

The Pentagon confirmed the details a week after the attack hit, saying in a statement: “Garar was a key operative responsible for coordinating al Shabaab’s external operations, which target US persons and other Western interests in order to further al Qaeda’s goals and objectives.”

Garaar was “connected to the West Gate Mall attack in Nairobi, Kenya” in September 2013. Garaar’s death was the latest in a series of drone killings in Somalia that appear to have targeted senior al Shabaab figures focused on terrorist attacks beyond Somalia’s borders. Garaar had replaced Yusef Dheeq in the job, who was killed in a drone strike in January. And Dheeq’s predecessor Abdishakur was killed on December 29 2014.

The impact of his and other Amniyatt commanders’ deaths remains to be seen. Al Shabaab has continued to carry out attacks in Kenya, killing 12 across several days this month. The US embassy in Uganda put out a warning on March 26 cautioning western travellers they could be the target of an attack that “may take place soon”.

Neither do the US attacks seem to have dented the group’s capacity to carry out attacks in the heart of Mogadishu. The diplomatic and government quarter, clustered around the city’s airport, is meant to be the most secure place in the country. Yet al Shabaab managed to storm a hotel in this area on March 27, killing 20 people including Somalia’s permanent ambassador to the UN in Geneva.

Follow our drones team Jack Serle and Abigail Fielding-Smith on Twitter.

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Podcast: US drone strikes in Somalia considered a badge of honour by al Shabaab

Published

February 6, 2015

Written by

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

US drone strikes are raising al Shabaab’s profile and inflating its importance, BBC World Service Africa editor Mary Harper told the Bureau’s Drone News podcast.

Focusing on al Shabaab with sophisticated drone technology “gives [al Shabaab] almost a legitimacy in terms of the kind of group that they are claiming to be,” said Harper. The US’s strategy makes the group like “a global force to be reckoned with, even though they are in fact just a group of people running around in the Somali bush”, she said.

Listen to the podcast here

The Bureau spoke with Harper, who has covered Africa for 20 years, and Mohammed Mohammed, an editor on the BBC World Service’s Somali service.

Mohammed said the US is now getting better intelligence about the locations of its targets in Somalia, improving its drone strikes. “I don’t know how the Americans have managed, but it seems now that drones have become a force to be reckoned with,” he said.

“Basically it’s money that is being used to elicit this information,” Harper added. “If they give information about a senior member of al Shabaab they are paid really significant amounts of money – $10,000 if not more,” she said.

This is having serious consequences for the Somali population, Mohammed explained. Al Shabaab releases propaganda videos of alleged spies, claiming they plant mobile phones on al Shabaab members or in their houses in order to guide in the drones. These supposed spies are then executed.

Main image of Al Shabaab soldiers advance through Somalia via Flickr/undergroundchurch-somalia)

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Does al Shabaab strike signal change in US tactics in Somalia?

Published

February 6, 2015

Written by

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

A US drone strike which killed a senior al Shabaab leader in Somalia last Saturday appears to have been part of a change of tactics by the Americans since it started targeting the militant group in 2007.

It was the fifth consecutive such strike against al Shabaab’s leadership, with drones now appearing to have superseded other, manned aircraft and cruise-missiles in the seven years since attacks began in Somalia.

The unmanned systems are now widely seen as the US’s weapon of choice in its war on terror, as they can “strike their targets with astonishing precision,” according to CIA director John Brennan.

But despite their vaunted precision, there are reports the latest strike in Somalia, on January 31, killed or injured civilians.

The attack killed at least five people, all reportedly members of al Shabaab and one of them identified as Yusef Dheeq, a senior figure in the group.

The attack reportedly hit an al Shabaab convoy at about 9am local time (6am GMT). The US carried out the attack, Pentagon press secretary Rear Admiral John Kirby told reporters.

“This was done with Hellfire missiles fired from UAVs [unmanned aerial vehicles],” he said at a press briefing on Tuesday. “There were no US boots on the ground” in this mission, he added.

Al Shabaab commander Yusef Dheeq was killed in the attack, according to the Somali government and an unnamed US official.

The US would not officially confirm Dheeq was dead, with Kirby telling reporters: “He has not been officially declared dead. I’m not in a position now to confirm the results of the strike but if successful, if he no longer breathes, then this is a significant, another significant blow to al Shabaab.”

“It goes to show how long our reach can be when it comes to counter-terrorism,” he added. The Bureau understands the US will confirm Dheeq’s death in the coming days.

It is not clear exactly what role Dheeq had within al Shabaab. Kirby said he was the group’s “intelligence and security chief, and director of external planning”. The Somali intelligence services said Dheeq – also known as Abdi Nur Mahdi – was a bomb making expert.

At least four other people were reportedly killed with him – all described as al Shabaab fighters. A local resident told AFP there were four civilian casualties in the strike, but it was not clear if they were injured or killed in the attack.

An official told the Bureau the US was aware of civilian casualty reports and was “looking into it”. However the official reiterated what Kirby said at the briefing, that “we don’t assess there to be any civilian or bystander casualties as a result of the strike”.

This is the third consecutive drone strike in Somalia that has been publicly acknowledged by a US spokesman from a podium in the Pentagon press room. Such public acknowledgement is considerably rare.

The military is also responsible for some of the minimum 89 drone strikes in Yemen but the US has never gone on the record about specific drone strikes there.

The Pentagon would not be drawn on why there appears to be greater transparency about strikes in Somalia but not Yemen, telling the Bureau: “We are as transparent as we can be on all strikes, regardless of location.”

More drones: A change in US tactics?

The recent glut of drone strikes in Somalia is a departure from how the US covert war began in the country in 2007. The first confirmed US drone strike hit Shabaab in June 2011 and since then, there have been eight such strikes in all, killing at least 23 people.

There have been eight other confirmed US attacks recorded by the Bureau that killed at least 40.

Two of these included cruise-missiles launched from ships off the Somali coast. There was also one naval bombardment, when a US warship the Chafee, used its deck gun on June 1 2007 to fire shells onto the shoreline, supporting US commandos who were taking fire from al Shabaab fighters.

Most of the other US attacks were by AC-130s – formidable gunships resembling Hercules transport aircraft that bristle with weapons.

Five of the first six confirmed US attacks in Somalia reportedly involved AC-130s. They killed at least 30 people. There has not been a reported AC-130 attack since the end of 2008.

The first AC-130 strikes, on January 7 and January 9, hit as Ethiopian ground forces invaded Somalia, reportedly with secret US backing. The targets of these strikes were reportedly suspects in the 1998 east African embassy bombings who appeared to have been churned out of their bases in Somalia by the advancing Ethiopian troops.

The US’s recent reliance on drones to kill leading al Shabaab fighters could be because the US fleet of armed drones has grown considerably. The US Air Force had funding in the 2007 budget to run 37 Reaper drones from 2005 to 2011. By 2012, this had risen to 401 aircraft, according to a Pentagon inspector general report released this year.

This increase was in response to the US recognising how useful drones were in the counter-terrorism and counter insurgency battles it was fighting around the world.

The first strike in Somalia demonstrates how arming drones has helped the US fight its global war on terror. While the January 7 2007 strike was an AC-130 strike, the gunship was guided to its target by an unarmed Predator drone that had been following the al Shabaab convoy. The Predator is an older, smaller, less powerful and well armed version of the Reaper.

The Predator’s ability to stay aloft above the battlefield for hours on end helped it stay on the target. However the strike had to wait until the gunship could arrive.

The US would have been able to fire at will at its target in this strike, if the drone were armed. However the strike would have been reportedly hamstrung by shaky intelligence, even if carried out using the Predator’s apparently surgical accuracy.

A Pentagon spokesman said the US based the strike on intelligence “that led us to believe we had principal al Qaeda leaders in an area where we could identify them and take action against them.” But another US official said: “Frankly, I don’t think we know who we killed.”

Main image of an AC-130 gunship releases flares (Lockheed Martin/Flikr)

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The CIA appears to have cut civilian deaths from drone strikes in Pakistan: why can’t the US do the same in Yemen, asks Owen Bennett-Jones

Published

February 3, 2015

Written by

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

Pakistani tribesmen offer funeral prayer -Thir Khan/AFP/Getty Images

In May 2013, faced with persistent reports of drones killing civilians, President Obama announced that no strike would be authorised unless there was: “near certainty that no civilians would be killed or injured.” It was, he said, “the highest standard we can set.”

The new rule seemed to make a difference. Before the speech the US had, according to Bureau of Investigative Journalism data, mounted 371 strikes in Pakistan that killed between 416 and 953 civilians.

Since the speech, 42 strikes have killed between 0 and six civilians. Or, put another way, there has been no confirmed civilian death as a result of a drone strike in Pakistan since the speech.

The drop in the number of strikes is not solely explained by the near-certainty standard constraining drone operators. The Pakistan government’s attitude has also affected the frequency of drone attacks.

In late 2013, for example, Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif complained that US drone strikes had ruined his attempt to open up a dialogue with the Taliban.

Accepting Sharif’s demand for a ceasefire so that he could try to negotiate a settlement, the US suspended its strikes for several months.

As for the sharp drop in the number of civilians killed per strike, improved technology is making a difference. Drones can now stay airborne longer and their missiles have smaller explosive yields.

There is also speculation about new methods of marking targets. According to the rumour mill in the Pakistani city of Peshawar, the US now has some kind of dust that can be sprayed or brushed onto a vehicle. Invisible to the human eye, the dust can be seen by drones that can then fire on the vehicle once it is in an isolated area away from civilians.

Bureau consultant Owen Bennett-Jones

Asked about the dust by the Bureau, a former UK drone programme operative did not deny that the dust exists but he refused to discuss how it works, saying the issue was too sensitive.

The civilian fatality rate is also affected by the quality of the intelligence provided to drone operators. As part of its decade-long campaign against the Afghan Taliban, the US spent huge sums building up an increasingly accurate picture of militant activity both in Afghanistan and Pakistan’s tribal areas.

Whatever the precise reasons for the post-speech figures, the data suggests that if it wants to the US can reduce the number of civilian casualties.

But there has been no equivalent trend in Yemen. Before the Obama speech there had been at least 54 strikes in Yemen killing between 49 and 56 civilians. Since the speech 23 strikes killed between seven and 24 civilians.

One explanation for the disparity between drone casualty rate in Pakistan and Yemen is that the US has relatively poor intelligence in Yemen.

But it could also be a management issue. Because the US drones in Pakistan are unacknowledged, the CIA has been the lead agency there. In Yemen, the government in Sanaa publicly backed the US drone campaign against Al Qaeda. As a result the Pentagon’s Joint Special Operations Command has had more control of the programme in Yemen.

It’s not clear why the US military might have failed to implement the “near-certainty” standard with as much rigor as the CIA. But there have been hints that in other parts of the world the military has been resistant to Obama’s approach.

When the US announced it would use drones against the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq (Isis), the Pentagon’s press secretary Rear Admiral John Kirby announced a dilution of the near-certainty standard.

He said the military was taking “extreme care and caution” in air operations which he said “carried a special kind of risk”. Asked why the policy had changed, the White House spokesperson Caitlin Hayden said the near certainty-standard applied “only when we take direct action outside areas of active hostilities”.

The relatively low number of civilian casualties in Pakistan suggests that the US is capable of assessing whether or not it has sufficient information to mount an attack with a good chance – or even a near-certainty – of avoiding civilian casualties.

Yemeni civilians as well as those in Iraq and Syria can only hope that US officials will start applying those standards not only in Pakistan but in their country too.

Owen Bennett-Jones is a Consultant to the Bureau. He is one of the UK’s most distinguished and experienced journalists specialising in South Asia and the Middle East. He has worked for the BBC for 25 years and has published widely on Pakistani politics and society.

Follow our drones team Owen Bennett-Jones, Abigail Fielding-Smith and Jack Serle on Twitter.

Sign up for monthly updates from the Bureau’s Covert War project, subscribe to our podcast Drone News, and follow Drone Reads on Twitter to see what our team is reading.

 

 

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Almost 2,500 now killed by covert US drone strikes since Obama inauguration six years ago: The Bureau’s report for January 2015

Published

February 2, 2015

Written by

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

At least 2,464 people have now been killed by US drone strikes outside the country’s declared war zones since President Barack Obama’s inauguration six years ago, the Bureau’s latest monthly report reveals.

Of the total killed since Obama took his oath of office on January 20 2009, at least 314 have been civilians, while the number of confirmed strikes under his administration now stands at 456.

Research by the Bureau also shows there have now been nearly nine times more strikes under Obama in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia than there were under his predecessor, George W Bush.

And the covert Obama strikes, the first of which hit Pakistan just three days after his inauguration, have killed almost six times more people and twice as many civilians than those ordered in the Bush years, the data shows.

The figures have been compiled as part of the Bureau’s monthly report into covert US drone attacks, which are run in two separate missions – one by the CIA and one for the Pentagon by its secretive special forces outfit, Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC).

The research centres on countries outside the US’s declared war zones of Iraq and Afghanistan.

The first strike of the Bush administration, outside Afghanistan, was on November 3 2002, in Yemen. However there was not a reported drone strike outside Iraq or Afghanistan for 18 months, until the CIA killed 6-8 in Pakistan on June 17 2004. That was more than three years into President Bush’s first term.

In total, there were 52 strikes under Bush, killing 416 people, of whom 167 were civilians.

According to the Bureau’s latest report, January 2015 saw an intensification of the US campaign in both Pakistan and Yemen.

    Most strikes in January in Pakistan since July 2014. Highest monthly casualty rate in Pakistan for six months. A confirmed CIA drone strike in Yemen reportedly kills a child. Two possible US strikes kill at least 45 in a day in Somalia.

Pakistan

January 2015 actions

    Total CIA strikes in January: 5  Total killed in strikes in January: 26-37

All actions 2004 – January 31 2015

    Total Obama strikes: 362  Total US strikes since 2004: 413  Total reported killed: 2,438-3,942  Civilians reported killed: 416-959  Children reported killed: 168-204  Total reported injured: 1,142 

For the Bureau’s full Pakistan databases click here.

The US has stepped up its drone campaign in Pakistan in January, launching more strikes and killing more people in a month than any since July 2014.

The CIA killed at least 26 people in five strikes giving January the highest casualty rate in six months.

The casualty rate – minimum number of people reported killed – in Pakistan from July 2014 to January 2015 (source: TBIJ data)

Four of the five strikes reportedly targeted the Shawal area – a thickly wooded region with steep valleys that crosses the borders of North and South Waziristan, and of Pakistan and Afghanistan. It is reportedly a major stronghold for armed groups in Pakistan’s tribal areas.

The Pakistan military has continued its air and ground operation in North Waziristan. The ongoing offensive has reportedly pushed Arab and Central Asian fighters out of Pakistan, into Afghanistan, according to the Wall Street Journal. US drone strikes have continued across the border, despite the Nato mission there having come to an end.

Every strike this month reportedly killed foreigners as well as local men. The nationality of these foreign fighters was not always clear, though they were often described as being Uzbeks. It is not clear if this is a reference to their nationality or ethnicity.

Some of the dead were described in media reports as being loyal to Hafiz Gul Bahadur, a well known warlord from the tribal areas. There were reports he was killed in the first strike of the year, but they later turned out to be false.

Also this month, the Bureau has completed an audit of its Pakistan drone data. It has now available to download as a spreadsheet.

Yemen

January 2015 actions

    Confirmed US drone strikes: 1  Further reported/possible US strike events: 1  Total reported killed in US operations: 3-7  Civilians reported killed in US strikes: 1-2, including 1 child

All actions 2002 – January 31 2015*

    Confirmed US drone strikes: 88-107  Total reported killed: 424-629 Civilians reported killed: 65-96  Children reported killed: 8  Reported injured: 86-215 Possible extra US drone strikes: 71-87  Total reported killed: 307-439  Civilians reported killed: 26-61 Children reported killed: 6-9  Reported injured: 75-102
    All other US covert operations: 15-72  Total reported killed: 156-365  Civilians reported killed: 68-99  Children reported killed: 26-28  Reported injured: 15-102 

Click here for the full Yemen data.

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

Two reported US drone strikes left at least six people dead in the final week of January. An unnamed US official confirmed the first attack was carried out by the CIA. It reportedly killed a child. The second strike remains unconfirmed.

These attacks came as armed rebels took over the streets of the capital, toppling the government of former president Abd Rabbo Mansour Hadi. It is the worst political crisis in Yemen since the 2011 revolution that ultimately forced Hadi’s predecessor from power. The fall of Hadi’s government has robbed the US of a close ally. It has left the US “facing increasing difficulty acquiring intelligence” for its drone programme.

The first strike on January 26 hit four days after Hadi’s government resigned and the day after President Obama declared the US would continue its counter-terrorism operations in Yemen, despite the political situation. The CIA attack killed Mohammed Toaymen, a child reportedly aged between 12 and 15. He died alongside Awaid al Rashidi, a Saudi in his 30s, and Abdel Aziz al Zidani, a Yemeni.

Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) said all three were members of the group, though an unnamed AQAP source made a distinction between a supporting member of the group and an operative with an active roll.

“Be logical,” an AQAP source told the Yemen Times. “How can a 12-year-old be a member of al Qaeda? Our aim was to convince him to join us in the future, especially considering that his father was killed in a drone strike.”

A US official confirmed to the New York Times that the CIA carried out the strike. It was the first reported US attack in the country for 51 days.

A second attack was reported on January 31. This unconfirmed US drone strike killed 3-4 people in a car in southern Shabwa province.

The attacks hit during one of the worst crises to affect the country, according Yemen expert Adam Baron at the European Council on Foreign Relations. He told McClatchy: “The phrase, ‘Yemen on the brink’ is one of the most pervasive clichés in coverage of the region. But Yemen is clearly more on the brink than it’s ever been in its history of being on the brink.”

The ongoing political crisis is “obviously a fantastic opportunity for al Qaeda”, Baron told the Bureau. The armed group took advantage of instability during the 2011 revolution that unseated then-president Ali Abdullah Saleh. It took control of a large swathe of the southern province of Abyan, setting itself up as the local government – providing people with power and meting out justice to petty criminals.

Also this month, the Bureau has completed a thorough audit of its drone strike data in Yemen. The number of confirmed drone strikes has consequently increased and the number of possible drone strikes has decreased. The data is now available for download as a spreadsheet

Somalia

January 2015 actions

    Total reported US operations: 2  Total reported killed: 45-69

All actions 2007 – January  31 2015

    US drone strikes: 7-12  Total reported killed: 18-102  Civilians reported killed: 0-5  Children reported killed: 0  Reported injured: 2-7
    All other US covert operations: 7-11  Total reported killed: 40-141  Civilians reported killed: 7-47  Children reported killed: 0-2 Reported injured: 11-21 

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

There were two possible US drone strikes in Somalia on January 31, with between 45 and 69 people reported killed.

It was not clear from the reporting when the strikes took place. Both attacks reportedly killed al Shabaab fighters, though their identities were unknown. Both attacks were reported to have been US attacks. The US Department of Defense, which runs the US drone programme in Somalia, declined to comment on the reported strikes. A spokesman for Amisom, the African Union peacekeeping force in Somalia, told the Bureau it was not responsible for the attack. And the Kenyan Defence Force (KDF), which has launched air strikes in Somalia, did not respond to Bureau requests for comment.

South-western Somalia. Click to see the full map (Based on OCHA/Relief Web)

The first strike was reported to have killed at least 40people when it reportedly hit an al Shabaab training camp in the Lower Shabelle region, south of the capital Mogadishu. The region’s governor told reporters the strike was carried out by drones. However the death toll was disproportionately higher than any other drone strike in Somalia. If US involvement is confirmed, it would be the most fatal drone strike recorded anywhere by the Bureau since Jun 2009 when CIA drones killed at least 60 in Pakistan.

The KDF reportedly targeted al Shabaab in southern Somalia with greater frequency last year than the US. This January 31 attack could have been a KDF strike – the Kenyan air force operations tended to have high reported death tolls, though these casualty counts were according to the KDF itself and not independently verified. For example, in November 2014 100 al Shabaab were reportedly killed by a Kenyan strike.

A second strike also reportedly hit on Saturday. It was said to have killed at least five people and reportedly hit either an al Shabaab convoy or an al Shabaab house in the Bay area, to the west of Mogadishu. A local resident told AFP the strike may have killed some civilians. Ali Yare said “four civilians were among the casualties” though did not specify if they were injured or dead.

Also this month, the Bureau has published its data on US strikes in Somalia as a spreadsheet to download.

Photo: US increases its strikes in Pakistan with drones flying out of Afghanistan (David Axe/Flickr).

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US drone war: 2014 in numbers

Published

January 7, 2015

Written by

Jack Serle
This page is archived from original Bureau of Investigative Journalism reporting on US military actions in Yemen, Somalia, Pakistan and Afghanistan.
    CIA Pakistan drone campaign reported to have killed nearly five times more people under Obama than under Bush No confirmed civilian casualties in Pakistan for second year running Domestic buildings continue to be the most frequently hit target in Pakistan Highest ever number of drone strikes in a year in Somalia Total people killed per strike in Yemen hits highest level

Follow our drones team Jack Serle and Abigail Fielding-Smith on Twitter.

Sign up for monthly updates from the Bureau’s Covert War project, subscribe to our podcast Drone News, and follow Drone Reads on Twitter to see what our team is reading.

Pakistan

December 2014 actions

Total CIA strikes in December: 4

Total people reported killed: 14-20

All 2014 actions

Total strikes: 25

Total reported killed: 114-183

Civilians reported killed: 0-2

Children reported killed: 0-2

Total reported injured: 44-67

All actions 2004 – 2014

Total Obama strikes: 357

Total US strikes since 2004: 408

Total reported killed: 2,410-3,902

Civilians reported killed: 416-959

Children reported killed: 168-204

Total reported injured: 1,133-1,706For the Bureau’s full Pakistan databases click here.

Although the CIA did not carry out a strike in Pakistan for the first five months of the year, drones were reported to have killed at least 114 people in 2014, more than in all of the previous year. The number of people killed per strike, or casualty rate, also increased slightly.

The CIA’s strikes have been concentrated on North Waziristan where the Pakistan military has been conducting its own counter-terrorism operation.

The drone strikes began on June 11, five days before the Pakistani offensive. The timing fuelled speculation that the Pakistani and US governments had resumed coordination on drone strikes after an apparent deterioration of relations in 2011.

Pakistan’s military offensive came after the breakdown of peace talks between Islamabad and the Pakistan Taliban.

All but one of the CIA’s strikes this year hit in an area where the Pakistan military has been carrying out air or ground operations. Almost half the strikes were concentrated on the area in and around the North Waziristan town of Datta Khel – home to numerous Taliban fighters, weapons markets and bomb factories.

Five strikes hit in the Shawal area, a mountainous and thickly forested region that spreads across North Waziristan, South Waziristan and Afghanistan. It has long been a haven for armed groups because of its harsh, easily defended terrain.

While the concentration of CIA strikes would imply coordination with the Pakistani military, the reported affiliation of the victims suggests the two are not working from the same target sheet. The US appears to be targeting members of al Qaeda and groups, like the Haqqani Network, that concentrate on attacking US and allied troops across the border in Afghanistan.

The Pakistani military meanwhile has focused on militants fighting Islamabad such as the Pakistan Taliban.

Map: Sarah Leo

Although the two types of groups are often aligned, sometimes Washington and Islamabad’s priorities diverge.

On September 28 for example a CIA drone was reported to have killed between two and four people near Wana, the capital of South Waziristan – an area that the Pakistani military claims to control. The strike reportedly killed members of a so-called “good” Taliban faction that eschewed attacking Pakistan in favour of fighting across the border in Afghanistan.

This strike, like all but three of the attacks in 2014, reportedly hit a house. This year a Bureau investigation showed the CIA has consistently targeted domestic buildings more than any other target type in Pakistan. This contrasts with the approach in neighbouring Afghanistan, where drone strikes on buildings have been banned in all but the most urgent situations since 2008 as part of measures to protect civilian lives.

Overall, there were fewer strikes in 2014 than any year since 2007 – the year before the drone war began to escalate.

President Barack Obama’s incoming administration dramatically increased the rate of strikes in 2009. The president is coming to the end of his sixth year in office and the CIA has now carried out more than 350 strikes during his tenure. This means there have been more than seven times as many drone strikes during Obama’s time in office than both of President Bush’s terms as of the end of 2014. The strikes under Obama are reported to have killed at least 2000 people, nearly five times as many as the 410 reported killed under Bush.

While there have been more strikes in the past six years, the casualty rate has been lower under Obama than under his predecessor. The CIA killed eight people, on average, per strike during the Bush years. Under Obama, it is less than six. The civilian casualty rate is lower too – more than three civilians were reported killed per strike during the past presidency. Under Obama, less than one.

There were no confirmed civilian casualties in Pakistan in the past year, as in 2013. There were two reported civilian casualties in 2014 but, like the four reported civilian deaths in 2013, the Bureau has as yet been unable to confirm the reports.

Yemen

December 2014 actions

Confirmed US drone strikes: 1

Other US operations: 1

Total reported killed in all US operations: 20-21

Civilians reported killed in all US operations: 8

All confirmed drone strikes in 2014

US drone strikes: 13-15

Total reported killed: 82-118

Civilians reported killed: 4-9

Children reported killed: 1

Reported injured: 7-14

All actions 2002 – 2014*

Confirmed US drone strikes: 72-84

Total reported killed: 371-541

Civilians reported killed: 64-83

Children reported killed: 7

Reported injured: 81-199

Possible extra US drone strikes: 101-120

Total reported killed: 345-553

Civilians reported killed: 26-68

Children reported killed: 6-11

Reported injured: 90-123

All other US covert operations: 16-81Total reported killed: 168-404Civilians reported killed: 68-97Children reported killed: 26-28Reported injured: 22-115Click here for the full Yemen data.

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

There were at least 13 confirmed US drone strikes in 2014, along with 18 further incidents reported but as yet unconfirmed as US drone strikes. This is a decrease on the total strikes in 2013 and continues a downward trend in reported strikes since they peaked in 2012.

The frequency of strikes may have fallen in 2014 but more people were killed, on average, per strike than in any previous year.

The casualty rate for last year even outstrips 2012 – the bloodiest year recorded in the US’s drone campaign in Yemen when at least 173 people were reported killed in 29 strikes. In 2014 at least 82 people were reported to have died in just 13 strikes.

Far fewer civilians were reported killed in 2014 compared with the 17-37 reported dead in 2013. All but one of the 4-9 reported killed by US drones this year died in a CIA attack on April 19.

Reports of the strike all described an attack on a vehicle carrying alleged militants, in which a separate vehicle full of civilians was also hit.

2014 was a particularly turbulent year for Yemen, with the Shiite Houthi group pushing in to the capital, Sanaa, in September, and then expanding in to other parts of the country, clashing with Sunni tribesmen and al Qaeda-affiliated fighters. In October, two suspected drone strikes took place in al Bayda province, where Houthi fighters have been fighting al Qaeda-affiliated militants.

There were also three US special forces raids in 2014. This was a departure from the norm – the last time the Bureau recorded a reported US ground assault in Yemen was in 2010. Two of the attacks were in conjunction with Yemeni forces.

The first was a joint US-Yemeni operation on April 21. Helicopter-borne commandos ambushed a car, killing three or four people including a child. The attack came after two drone strikes were reported to have killed 37-52 people, including 4-9 civilians, one of them a 14-year old boy.

The second ground operation – a hostage rescue mission on November 26 – freed eight al Qaeda captives and left seven terrorists dead. However the raid failed to rescue the key hostage: Luke Somers, a US journalist. He had been moved days before the operation.

Somers tragically died in the third US ground operation – another special forces hostage rescue mission on December 6. Somers and another captive, South African Pierre Korkie, were both killed by al Qaeda fighters. It emerged after the operation that intermediaries believed they had negotiated Korkie’s release and that he would be free the following day.

Somalia

All Somalia actions in 2014

Total US drone strikes: 3

Total reported killed: 10-18Civilians reported killed: 0

Children reported killed: 0

Somalia December 2014 actions

Total reported US operations: 1Total reported killed: 2-3

All Somalia actions 2007 – 2014

Drone strikes: 7-10

Total killed: 18-33

Civilians killed: 0-1

Children killed: 0

Injured: 2-3

Other covert operations: 8-11Total killed: 40-141

Civilians killed: 7-47

Children killed: 0-2

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

There were three confirmed US drone strikes in 2014, the most reported in any year. Each US attack reportedly killed a senior al Shabaab figure.

The first hit on January 26, reportedly targeting al Shabaab’s leader Ahmed Abdi Godane. The drone missed him but did kill Sahal Iskudhuq – said to be one of Godane’s senior aides and a leading figure in Amniyat, al Shabaab’s intelligence unit.

The second attack, on September 1, did kill Godane. US military drones killed the group’s leader in an encampment where he had stopped for the night. It was not clear if Godane had been killed and there was feverish speculation about whether the US had got its man in the days after the strike.

 

African Union peacekeepers advance liberate key town from al Shabaab (Photo: AU UN IST PHOTO / Tobin Jones)

 

Unusually a Pentagon spokesman publicly acknowledged the US had carried out the attack and confirmed his death, saying in a statement: “The US military undertook operations against Godane on Sept. 1, which led to his death… Removing Godane from the battlefield is a major symbolic and operational loss to al Shabaab.”

The third strike, on December 29, killed Abdishakur, reportedly the group’s chief of intelligence.

Alongside the strikes, African Union peacekeepers have carried out operations against Shabaab and has made gains, including pushing the group out of the port town of Barawe – a key hub for al Shabaab’s illegal, lucrative charcoal trade.

Whether the ongoing efforts by the peacekeepers and the US decapitation strikes hasten the demise of the group remain to be seen. Al Shabaab continues to hold sway over rural areas of southern and central Somalia. It carried out bloody attacks throughout 2014, including attacking the president’s residence and parliament – both within the fortified centre of Mogadishu. The group has also murdered several members of the Somali parliament.

The group was also behind a number of cross-border attacks last year. One attack in May killed at least three in Djibouti. Several attacks in Kenya this year left scores of people dead.

The Bureau’s work in 2014

In January, the Bureau published a leaked Pakistani government document showing details of more than 300 CIA drone strikes between 2006 and 2013. It challenged some of the US’s rare public statements on its drone campaign in Pakistan.

In one particularly glaring discrepancy, the document recorded the deaths of 10 people during a 2012 attempt to kill Abu Yahya al Libi, al Qaeda’s second-in-command. Congressional aides told LA Times reporter Ken Dilanian however that the CIA had shown footage of the strike to politicians in which only one person was seen to be killed.

The lull in drone strikes in Pakistan continued in to February. A Pakistani journalist involved in negotiations between Islamabad and the Pakistan Taliban (TTP) confirmed to the Bureau that the Pakistani government had requested a pause to support the latest round of peace talks.

In March, the UK parliament’s defence select committee released its report in to drones, to which the Bureau submitted evidence.

The report was broadly positive about the UK’s use of drones, but called for greater transparency “in relation to safeguards and limitations the UK Government has in place for the sharing of intelligence”. There are concerns that the UK may be sharing locational intelligence with the US which is used to carry out targeted killings.

In April the Bureau reported on the bloodiest weekend of US attacks in Yemen that year. At least 40 people were reported killed in two US drone strikes and a US-Yemeni special forces raid. At least five civilians were reported to be among the dead, including children aged 14 and 16.

In May, the Bureau published its analysis of where the drones strike in Pakistan, produced in collaboration with Forensic Architecture, a research project based at London’s Goldsmiths University, and New York-based Situ Research.

The data was presented as an interactive online map which later in the year won a bronze medal in the Lovie Awards. These recognise outstanding achievement in computer technology.

In June, the Bureau reported on the end of the longest pause of Obama’s Pakistan drone campaign when two strikes hit North Waziristan in Pakistan’s tribal northwest.

In July, Bureau researchers published the results of their scoping study in to the feasibility of tracking drone strikes in Afghanistan, commissioned by the Oxford Research Group’s Remote Control project.

The report found that drones played an increasingly important role in the Afghan conflict (accounting for 18% of all strikes in 2012, as opposed to 5% in 2011). It concluded however that the obstacles to tracking their use with open source data as the Bureau has done in Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen are significant.

In the same month, the number of victims of drone strikes in Pakistan identified by the Bureau’s Naming the Dead project reached 700.

In August, the Bureau published an interactive graphic showing the different calls for transparency about the US drone warfare programme.

In September, the Bureau explained the limitations of drones in the US’s new campaign against Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.

In October, the Bureau analysed data from its Naming the Dead project and concluded that only 4% of those reported killed in the 10 year drone campaign in Pakistan are named and identified as members of al Qaeda.  It also published a graphic visualisation of the data.

The Bureau’s Drone News podcast meanwhile interviewed a former UK drone operator, Paul Rolfe, who described how jarring it was to engage in combat on the other side of the world while based in Nevada.

In November, the Bureau was shown a letter sent to Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond by the former head of GCHQ and other signatories urging the UK government to publish the legal guidance governing its intelligence sharing with the US on individuals at risk of targeted killing.

December the Bureau highlighted the paucity of information coming out of Pakistan’s tribal areas, pointing out that a far lower proportion of the victims of Pakistan drone strikes have been identified in 2014 than in the previous year.

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Podcast: An interview with the makers of new drone documentary

Published

December 3, 2014

Written by

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

For this week’s Drone News, Abigail Fielding-Smith went to Copenhagen to interview the maker of a new documentary on drone warfare, Tonje Hessen Schei.

The documentary, Drone, draws on interviews from Washington DC to Waziristan. The director explains that she is alarmed at the direction the technology is going in.

Listen to this week’s episode.

“This is just the beginning of this new kind of warfare,” she told Drone News. “What is coming we can only guess.”

Fielding-Smith also met a former US Airforce drone sensor operator who appears in the film, Brandon Bryant. Sensor operators work alongside pilots ensuring the drone’s cameras and, when necessary, targeting lasers, are focused.  Bryant talked about the stress of watching and helping to end peoples’ lives from afar.

“My imagination would give these people personalities, I’d give them personalities, I’d give them lives, wondering what they were talking about, what they were thinking about, give them real personal depth.  It might have been false personal depth but it made them more human to me,” he said. “It didn’t coincide with my military training too well.”

Follow our drones team Jack Serle and Abigail Fielding-Smith on Twitter.

Sign up for monthly updates from the Bureau’s Covert War project, subscribe to our podcast Drone News, and follow Drone Reads on Twitter to see what our team is reading.

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

Published

December 1, 2014

Written by

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

Three drone strikes hit houses and vehicles in Pakistan’s North Waziristan area (Flickr/Maverick bashoo)

Report of children killed in drone attack in Pakistan.

Four strikes hit Yemen – most in a month since April.

No strikes reported in Somalia.

Four names added to Naming the Dead, including two children.

Pakistan

November 2014 actions

Total CIA strikes in November: 3

Total killed in strikes in November: 13-24, of whom 0-2 are reportedly children

All actions 2004 – November 30 2014

Total Obama strikes: 353

Total US strikes since 2004: 404

Total reported killed: 2,396-3,882

Civilians reported killed: 416-959

Children reported killed: 168-204

Total reported injured: 1,131-1,704For the Bureau’s full Pakistan databases click here.

An al Qaeda spokesman said that two children were killed in a CIA drone strike in November. If confirmed these would be the first childrens’ deaths since August 2012.

They were said to be the teenage sons of an Al Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent fighter. The man, his sons and at least one other person were reportedly killed in a strike on November 11. The attack targeted a house in the Datta Khel area of North Waziristan. Some reports say a four-wheel drive vehicle was also hit.

This was the first of three CIA strikes to hit Pakistan’s tribal areas this month. The attacks killed at least 13 and as many as 24 people.

Between five and eight people died in the second strike of the month, on November 20, which also targeted a house and possibly a vehicle in the Datta Khel area. The attack reportedly killed Uzbeks and men from the Haqqani Network and the group loyal to Hafiz Gul Bahadur.

The third strike, on November 26, killed between four and nine people in the Shawal area which straddles the North and South Waziristan borders. The strike again targeted a house and possibly a car. Two “foreigners” were reportedly among the dead.

Most US strikes this year have clustered in and around Datta Khel and the Shawal area – only six of 21 attacks this year have hit outside these areas. Datta Khel has been a focus of operations for the Pakistan military in its ongoing offensive against the Pakistan Taliban in North Waziristan. The Pakistan Army took a reporter for NBC News on an embedded tour of Datta Khel to show the media how sophisticated the Taliban operation was in the town.

There was one strike reported just across the border in Afghanistan that almost killed Mullah Fazullah, the leader of the Pakistan Taliban.

According to an analysis of Bureau data this month by legal charity Reprieve, the US has killed 874 people whilst targeting the same 24 men on multiple occasions in Pakistan.

Yemen

November 2014 actions

Confirmed US drone strikes: 4

Further reported/possible US strike events: 1

Total reported killed in US operations: 22-35

Civilians reported killed in US strikes: 0

All actions 2002 – November 30 2014*

Confirmed US drone strikes: 71-83

Total reported killed: 362-531

Civilians reported killed: 64-83

Children reported killed: 7

Reported injured: 78-196

Possible extra US drone strikes: 101-120

Total reported killed: 345-553

Civilians reported killed: 26-68

Children reported killed: 6-11

Reported injured: 90-123

All other US covert operations: 15-80Total reported killed: 157-393Civilians reported killed: 60-89Children reported killed: 25-27Reported injured: 22-115Click here for the full Yemen data.

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

Four US drone strikes hit Yemen in November, the highest number of confirmed US attacks in a month since April.

Three of the strikes hit vehicles in and around the town of Radaa, in Bayda province. The attacks came in quick succession, making it difficult to determine the exact course of events and the death toll (between 9 and 20 people were reported dead).

In one of the strikes two alleged casualties were named, both reportedly associated with Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). Nabil al Dahab was reported to be AQAP’s leader in Bayda. The US had tried to kill him in May 2012. His family has been associated with AQAP frequently in the past, and his sister married the US-born preacher Anwar al Awlaki.

The other reported casualty was Shawki al Badani.  According to two unnamed US officials, Shawki al Badani was the target of a calamitous drone strike in December 2013 that targeted a wedding party, killing several civilians and wounding the bride. He was said to be the cause of global terror alert in the summer of 2013 that prompted the US to close 19 embassies.

On November 25 US special forces from the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) attempted to rescue a US citizen held hostage by AQAP. Some Yemeni special forces took part in the operation. The commandos freed eight captives and killed seven people in the operation. The US citizen however, along with a Briton, and an Iranian and a Saudi Arabian diplomat, had been moved before the operation.

This is the second JSOC ground raid reported in Yemen this year. On April 20 US and Yemeni soldiers ambushed a vehicle – reportedly a failed attempt to kill master bomb maker Ibrahim al Asiri. Three or four people died, including a 16-year old child.

Somalia

November 2014 actions

Total reported US operations: 0

All actions 2007 – November 30 2014

US drone strikes: 6-9

Total reported killed: 16-30

Civilians reported killed: 0-1

Children reported killed: 0

Reported injured: 2-3

All other US covert operations: 8-11

Total reported killed: 40-141

Civilians reported killed: 7-47

Children reported killed: 0-2

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

There were no reported US operations in Somalia this month – the third consecutive month without a reported strike.

The fight against al Shabaab remains active however. The group continues to battle the African Union peacekeeping force Amisom and the Somali military.

Al Shabaab is losing fighters as they become disenchanted with the organisation and its practices. The death of Ahmed Abdi Godane, the group’s leader in the last reported US drone strike on September 1 is believed to have contributed to the defections. This has led to some reports suggesting al Shabaab is unraveling.

However the group demonstrated it is still capable of causing carnage beyond Somalia’s borders. On November 22 the group murdered 28 people on a bus in northern Kenya. Nairobi retaliated immediately, claiming to have killed more than 100 al Shabaab fighters the following day in airstrikes in Somalia.

There is growing insecurity across northern Africa. An an estimated 400 people have died in the past six weeks of fighting in Benghazi, Libya, and more than 100 people died in a multiple suicide-bomb attack on the largest mosque in Nigeria’s second city, Kano. France has a 3,000 counter-terrorism force stretched across the region and the US has increased its drone and special forces presence there, reports the Financial Times.

Naming the Dead

Four names were added to the Naming the Dead database this month. A strike on November 11 killed at least four people. Adil Abdul Quddus, a former major in the Pakistan Army, and Dr Sarbuland, a Pakistani doctor who ran a clinic for injured Taliban fighters in the tribal area, were identified as members of al Qaeda by one of the group’s spokesmen.

Two teenage boys were reportedly killed in the strike, however they were only named as among the dead by the same al Qaeda spokesman. Suleman, 15, and Uzair, 13, were reportedly Dr Sarbuland’s sons.

Follow our drones team Jack Serle and Abigail Fielding-Smith on Twitter.

Sign up for monthly updates from the Bureau’s Covert War project, subscribe to our podcast Drone News, and follow Drone Reads on Twitter to see what our team is reading.

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