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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

Web link

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

Web link

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)

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

Published

February 6, 2015

Written by

Jack Serle

Web link

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

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)

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

Web link

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.

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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

Web link

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.

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).

US drone war: 2014 in numbers

Published

January 7, 2015

Written by

Jack Serle

Web link

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

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.

Podcast: An interview with the makers of new drone documentary

Published

December 3, 2014

Written by

The Bureau

Web link

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.

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

Published

December 1, 2014

Written by

Jack Serle

Web link

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

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.

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.

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

Published

November 3, 2014

Written by

Jack Serle

Web link

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

CIA drone strikes rocket in Pakistan while the casualty rate is relatively low (US Air Force/Sr Airman Andrew Lee)

Obama drone strikes in Pakistan reach 350.

US drones kill at least four in Yemen.

Al Shabaab lose ground in Somalia but remain a threat.

Seven names added to the Bureau’s Naming the Dead project.

Pakistan

October 2014 actions

Total CIA strikes in October: 9

Total killed in strikes in October: 29-49

All actions 2004 – October 31 2014

Total Obama strikes: 350

Total US strikes since 2004: 401

Total reported killed: 2,383-3,858

Civilians reported killed: 416-957

Children reported killed: 168-202

Total reported injured: 1,125-1,695For the Bureau’s full Pakistan databases click here.

A barrage of drone strikes this month took the total attacks under Obama in Pakistan past 350. There have now been more than 400 drone strikes since June 2004.

These milestones were reached this month as the CIA went on the offensive. It hit the country nine times, the most strikes in a month since October 2011. This doubled the number of strikes recorded this year, taking the total to 18.

Despite the intensity of the attacks, on average 3.2 people died per strike. This is a relatively low monthly casualty rate in the 10 year campaign.

Four strikes this month hit the Shawal valley – a heavily wooded and mountainous area that straddles the border between North and South Waziristan, and abuts the Afghan border. It is favoured as a base of operations for various armed groups because the geography makes it easily defensible.

The CIA attacks come as the Pakistan military continues its offensive against armed groups in the tribal areas. The Shawal has been hit by Pakistan Air Force strikes as well as by drone attacks since the offensive began in June. It will be one of the most challenging areas encountered by the Pakistan Army ground forces in this operation.

One strike this month, on October 11, killed 4-6 in Khyber tribal agency. The strike hit the Tirah valley, a region where the Pakistani military has opened a new front in its ongoing efforts to clear the tribal areas of terrorist organisations.

CIA drones have also hit targets in Datta Khel, North Waziristan, striking three times in four days. Datta Khel is a notorious hub for armed groups operating in the tribal areas. It has been the target of eight US drone strikes this year and numerous Pakistani air strikes.

One strike this month targeted and killed several members of the Haqqani Network near Wana, the capital of South Waziristan. South Waziristan has largely been spared from the Pakistani armed forces’ airstrikes and ground operations in the current counter-terrorist offensive.

Yemen

October 2014 actions

Confirmed US drone strikes: 1

Further reported/possible US strike events: 2

Total reported killed: 4-34

Civilians reported killed: 0-20

All actions 2002 – October 31 2014*

Confirmed US drone strikes: 67-79

Total reported killed: 347-503

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: 14-79Total reported killed: 150-386Civilians reported killed: 60-89Children reported killed: 25-27Reported injured: 22-115Click here for the full Yemen data.

The US killed four alleged members of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) in a drone strike on October 15.

The men died while travelling in a pick-up truck in the southern province of Shabwa. Local sources and the Yemeni defence ministry identified one of the four as local leader Mahdi Badas, also known as Abu Hussein. Freelance reporter Iona Craig identified three further casualties: Musab al Wawari, Fares Azunjubari and Hudhaifah al Azdi, from Saudi Arabia.

As well as this confirmed strike, two further attacks were reported which may have included US drones. These left 15-30 people dead, according to media reports, including 2-20 civilians. Both strikes hit the central province of al Bayda. The attacks hit near ongoing battles between AQAP, Sunni militias and the Shiite Houthi group. Because of this, it is not clear from the reporting around the attacks whether the US, the Yemeni military or the Houthis were responsible for the casualties.

The first attack, on October 24, killed 3-10 people. It was not clear if the dead were AQAP fighters or members of Sunni militias engaged in a sectarian fight with the Houthis.

The second was on October 26 and killed between 12 and 20 people, though there may have been many more casualties. US drones and conventional jets and the Yemeni Air Force were all reported to have been involved.

There were also reports the Yemeni army used indiscriminate artillery weapons in the attacks as well. The full extent of the strikes remains unclear, and it has not been possible as yet to disaggregate which belligerent was responsible.

Yemen’s security situation deteriorated yet further this month as fighters from the Shiite Houthi group pushed in to new territory following their seizure of Sanaa, the capital, in late September. The group clashed with Sunni fighters including al Qaeda in different parts of the country amid growing fears of an all-out sectarian conflict.

On November 1, Yemen’s main political factions gave president Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi a mandate to form a new government in an attempt to defuse tensions. However the country was thrown back in to turmoil the next day when unknown gunmen assassinated liberal politician Mohamed Abdelmalik al Motawakal.

Somalia

October 2014 actions

Total reported US operations: 0

All actions 2007 – October 31 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 last reported US attack, on September 1, killed al Shabaab’s leader Ahmed Abdi Godane.

That strike hit Barawe, a port south of Mogadishu. Earlier this month, African Union peacekeeprs and Somali soldiers forced al Shabaab from the town. It had been a key point for al Shabaab to bring weapons into the country and illegally export charcoal – an important source of income for the group.

However the loss of both Barawe and Godane does not seem to have subdued al Shabaab’s violent ambitions. On October 15 the US embassy in Ethiopia warned of an impending al Shabaab terrorist attack in the capital Adis Ababa. On October 30 the US State Department issued a travel warning for Burundi, reporting al Shabaab “has threatened to conduct terror attacks” in the country and US interests could be targeted.

Both Ethiopia and Burundi have soldiers stationed in Somalia fighting al Shabaab. Uganda remains one of the largest contributors to the African Union peacekeeping force in the country – Amisom. Uganda is sending a fresh consignment of soldiers to the country. The detachment has had several weeks of specialised training from French and US troops, the Wall Street Journal reported.

The 2,700 new troops will reinforce security in and around the airport and presidential compound in Mogadishu. The area is nominally the most secure in Somalia, yet al Shabaab has been able to launch bloody attacks in this diplomatic and government quarter, seemingly at will.

Naming the Dead

Seven of the 29-49 people killed by drones in Pakistan this month have been named in media reports this month – all allegedly militants. Sheikh Imran Ali Siddiqu (aka Haji Sheikh Waliullah), a senior figure in the newly formed Al Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent, was killed in a strike in Khyber on October 11. The same day, in North Waziristan, drones killed Mohammad Mustafa, reportedly “a local leader” in the Hafiz Gul Bahadur group.

Five victims were named in an October 30 strike in South Waziristan. Abdullah Haqqani appears to be an important hit for the US as it pulls out of Afghanistan. Abdullah was reportedly a senior member of the Haqqani Network “responsible for sending suicide bombers to Afghanistan”. Also killed were four people identified as Arabs by unnamed sources in media reports. The names given were: Adil, a Yemeni; Abu Dawooduddin, from Sudan; and Umar and Amadi, from Saudi Arabia.

Follow Jack Serle and Abigail Fielding-Smith on Twitter.

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Podcast – Casualty Recording

Published

October 17, 2014

Written by

Bureau Reporter

Web link

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

Nek Mohammed, the first recorded casualty in the US drone war in Pakistan, attends a jirga in May 2004 – three weeks before his death (REUTERS/Kamran Wazir)

This week’s Drone News looks at casualty recording; how it’s done, and what we know about the victims of airstrikes by the US and its allies.

The Bureau’s Naming the Dead project has been trying for over a year to identify people killed in US drone strikes in Pakistan since 2004. Jack Serle told Owen Bennett-Jones that the project has used publicly available sources and independent reporting to add around 100 names to the list, bringing it to just over 700, but that more than 1500 victims remain unidentified.

Listen to the podcast

Identifying the remaining victims is getting “increasingly difficult,” Serle said, explaining that when it comes to women and foreign fighters it often appears as if “nobody knows their names, even amongst local community.”

The Iraq Body Count’s Lily Hamourtziadou, who has been tracking civilian deaths in Iraq for more than eight years, cast light on an overlooked aspect of the campaign against the militant group Isis. According to Hamourtziadou, whilst the recent surge in violent deaths of civilians in Iraq is partly due to Isis, Iraqi government airstrikes have killed 1500 civilians since the end of last year.

The Bureau’s Abigail Fielding-Smith meanwhile raised the question of how the US’s new aerial campaign against Isis in Syria will be affected by the relative sophistication of casualty recording networks there. “Unlike other places where the US has launched aerial bombardment campaigns, there is an incredibly well-developed network of local casualty reporting there, because there’s been this civil war going on for the last two years,” she explained.

Follow Abigail Fielding-Smith and Jack Serle on Twitter. Subscribe to the Bureau’s drones podcast and newsletter and follow Drone Reads on Twitter to see what the team is reading.

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

Published

October 2, 2014

Written by

Jack Serle

Web link

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

US strike jets have bombed targets in Iraq and Syria this month (Senior Airman Matthew Bruch/US Air Force)

CIA drones end a 49-day pause in strikes in Pakistan

Alleged al Qaeda fighters killed in Yemen strikes

US military drones kill al Shabaab leader in Somalia

Pakistan

September 2014 actions

Total CIA strikes in September: 2

Total killed in strikes in September: 7-15

All actions 2004 – September 30 2014

Total Obama strikes: 341

Total US strikes since 2004: 392

Total reported killed: 2,354-3,809

Civilians reported killed: 416-957

Children reported killed: 168-202

Total reported injured: 1,104-1,663For the Bureau’s full Pakistan databases click here.

Two US drone strikes killed at least seven people in Pakistan, ending a 49-day pause between attacks.

Between five and 11 people died on September 24. None of the dead were identified but at least two and as many as 10 of them were reported to be Uzbeks.

This was the first strike since August 6, ending the third longest pause in attacks in Pakistan recorded by the Bureau since the start of 2007.

CIA drones struck again, four days later. At least two people were killed in the strike in South Waziristan – the first in that area since September 22 2013. Again, none of the dead were identified. But the strike reportedly hit a house belonging to an alleged militant, Ainullah, described as a commander in a local armed group loyal to the deceased veteran fighter Maulvi Nazir. Ainullah was reportedly the target but it is unknown if he was killed.

Nazir was killed in a drone strike on January 2 2013. He had been an ally of the Pakistani government, but was reportedly responsible for attacks on US and allied troops in Afghanistan. At the time, his death was described as “perhaps the most prized feather in [the] cap” of the US drone campaign.

The Pakistani military offensive has continued in North Waziristan this month, with the Pakistan Army claiming to have successfully cleared 80% of the area from militants. Pressure from the military offensive may have been responsible for factions apparently splitting from the Pakistan Taliban.

This fracturing does not appear to have stopped armed violence, however. A September 28 terrorist bomb attack on a refugee camp reportedly killed eight people, including three children.

Yemen

September 2014 actions

Confirmed US drone strikes: 1

Further reported/possible US strike events: 2

Total reported killed: 10-13

Civilians reported killed: 0

All actions 2002 – September 30 2014*

Confirmed US drone strikes: 66-78

Total reported killed: 343-499

Civilians reported killed: 64-83

Children reported killed: 7

Reported injured: 78-196

Possible extra US drone strikes: 99-118

Total reported killed: 330-523

Civilians reported killed: 24-48

Children reported killed: 6-9

Reported injured: 90-123

All other US covert operations: 14-79Total reported killed: 150-386Civilians reported killed: 60-89Children reported killed: 25-27Reported injured: 22-115Click here for the full Yemen data.

A US drone strike killed between four and five people on September 11. The dead were all allegedly affiliated with al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). The attack targeted a vehicle in the Bejan district of Shabwa province in southern Yemen.

The names of five men reportedly killed in the strike were published in media reports: Abdullah Ahmed Salem Mubarak (aka Abu Habbah), Abu Khaled al Awlaki, Abu Kaab, Saif al Shehri – a Saudi citizen, and Saud al Daghari. It is not confirmed that these are the identities of those killed in this strike, official sources have misidentified drone strike casualties in the past.

Abu Habbah was “an important AQAP leader in southern Yemen” according to the Long War Journal. He was reportedly AQAP’s military leader in Mahfad.

Two possible drone attacks also were reported this month, killing 6-8 and injuring three children. Both strikes were reported as drone strikes but the Bureau has so far not been able to corroborate these reports and confirm US responsibility for the attacks.

The first reportedly hit a vehicle on September 25. Four or five people died in the strike. Four names were reported by various sources. Two alleged AQAP commanders Adel Hardaba and Muhader Ahmad Muhader were killed, according to the Long War Journal. Two more alleged AQAP members were named in Emirati publication Gulf News: Esmail Mohammad Ahmed al Qaisi, 30, and Othman Mohsin al Daghari.

Three children were reported injured in another strike the following day. The attack killed 2-3 people, one of them identified as Abd al Aziz al Omari, a Saudi and AQAP social media propagandist. But it also reportedly injured a boy, 12, and two girls aged eight and five. Their father was quoted as saying: “I swear to God that I have no connection with al Qaeda. Why did not the drone target the car when it was in the desert?”

AQAP reportedly fired a rocket at the US embassy in retaliation for this strike. The US had pulled staff from the embassy earlier in the month in response to a dramatically deteriorating security situation, which has seen Houthi separatists take control of parts of the capital.

Somalia

September 2014 actions

Total reported US operations: 1Total reported killed: 6

All actions 2007 – September 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.

A drone attack carried out by US special forces killed the leader of al Shabaab, Abdi Ahmed Godane. The strike, on September 1, was the first for seven months. It killed five people besides Godane. The attack was carried out by drones supported by manned aircraft, operating under US Joint Special Operations Command.

The US was unusually transparent about the strike: Pentagon spokesman John Kirby confirmed the US has carried it out, and continued to comment on the record after the event. However it took five days for the US to confirm the death of Godane.

Godane, 37, was killed while travelling in convoy through the Lower Shabelle region of southern Somalia. He had initially trained as an accountant and worked for an airline before becoming embroiled in armed violence. He took control of al Shabaab in 2008 when his predecessor Aden Hashi Ayro was killed in a cruise missile strike.

The US government had put a $7m reward out for information on his whereabouts. His successor, Ahmed Umar, was reportedly elected unanimously. Within a month, the Somali government had put a $3m reward out for Umar.

Reports emerged in the French media after the attack alleging that French spies had provided the US with intelligence needed to locate Godane. The Pentagon would not comment on these reports when approached by the Bureau.

Al Shabaab, despite losing its leader, remains a potent threat inside Somalia and beyond its borders. Uganda declared it had seized explosives and arrested an al Shabaab cell in mid September, halting what was described as an “imminent attack”. The International Crisis Group thinktank meanwhile declared al Shabaab a “more entrenched and a graver threat to Kenya” now than a year ago, when gunmen affiliated with the group stormed Nairobi’s Westgate mall.

Other news from the drone war

The US began targeting the Islamic State group in Syria this month and continued to launch drone strikes against targets associated with the group in Iraq. Several allied countries have joined the US’s campaign against Islamic State, including Jordan, Bahrain, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and France.

Citizen journalism pioneer Eliot Higgins told the Bureau US drones had been sighted over both Syria and Iraq. Higgins, who blogs as Brown Moses, said that Islamic State appeared to have inadvertently helped US drones operate over Raqqa by knocking out part of the Syrian air defence system. Drones are slow moving and easily detected by radar, and therefore cannot operate effectively outside permissive airspaces like Yemen’s or Afghanistan’s.

Reports of Russian and Chinese armed drones emerged this month. The Russian Chirok will start test flights next year, while the Chinese CH-4 drone recently took part in multilateral military exercises in Inner Mongolia.

Follow Jack Serle and Abigail Fielding-Smith on Twitter.

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Podcast: a round-up of news from the drone war with the Bureau’s reporters

Published

September 5, 2014

Written by

The Bureau

Web link

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

Nato is building its surveillance capacity with a new drone system (Anguskirk/Flickr)

Bureau journalists discuss the use of drones in Iraq as part of the US military response to the brutality of Islamic State (ISIS) in the latest drones podcast.

The US has been attacking ISIS positions in Iraq since August 8. It has launched more strikes with jets and drones in Iraq in August this year than were carried out in 2009 and 2010 combined, according to open source data collected by freelance journalist Chris Woods.

Download the podcast.

The Bureau’s Jack Serle explains why it is likely that the US is using both drones and manned aircraft to hit targets.

The latest episode of the podcast Drone News also covers other events that have involved drones throughout August.

Victoria Parsons reports on the first US drone attack in Somalia in seven months that may have killed Abdi Ahmed Godane, leader the al Shabaab group.

This episode also features news of Nato developing and operating an integrated surveillance drone system from Italy. And Google has successfully tested its new delivery drone in Australia

Follow Jack Serle, Victoria Parsons and Owen Bennett-Jones on Twitter. Sign up for monthly updates from the Bureau’s Covert War project, subscribe to our podcast, Drone News from the Bureau, and follow Drone Reads on Twitter to see what the team is reading.

First US drone strike in seven months hits Somalia

Published

September 3, 2014

Written by

Jack Serle and Joseph Cox

Web link

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

African Union and Somali troops advance on al Shabaab positions (UN Photo/Tobin Jones)

A US drone strike hit Somalia, the first in seven months, in an attack aimed at killing al Shabaab leader, Ahmed Abdi Godane (below).

The attack killed “six al Shabaab officers” but it is not clear if Godane was among them, said Abdullahi Abukar, executive director of the Somali Human Rights Association (SOHRA).

Sohra monitors human rights abuses and records casualties from the ongoing conflict in Lower Shabelle, where the strike hit. It destroyed an encampment and at least one vehicle in an area heavily under al Shabaab control.

A Pentagon spokesman confirmed it was a US military operation, telling reporters: “actionable intelligence led us to that site where we believe [Godane] was” and “we certainly believe that we hit what we were aiming at”. However he would not confirm who, if anyone, had been killed.

The spokesman said drones and conventional aircraft flown by US special forces “destroyed an encampment and a vehicle using several Hellfire missiles and laser-guided missiles”.

Related story – Somalia: reported US covert actions 2001-2014

An al Shabaab spokesman declined to say whether Godane was among the six militants killed.

An unnamed Somali intelligence source was similarly cautious, telling the Associated Press Godane “might have been killed along with other militants”.

The attack was the sixth confirmed US drone strike reported in Somalia. There have been at least eight other confirmed US operations in the country – including naval bombardments and special forces operations.

Godane, also known as Mukhtar Abu Zubair, originally trained to be an accountant before joining Itihad al Islamiya, a now defunct armed group.

After fighting in Afghanistan, he became involved in what would later become al Shabaab becoming its leader in 2007. The US government is offering up to $7m as a reward for information about his whereabouts.

Godane has been targeted at least two other times by US forces, according to figures maintained by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism. Two of these were drone strikes, one in 2011 and another earlier this year.

The US may have tried to capture Godane in October 2013, in a failed amphibious assault on a compound in southern Somalia. However there are several conflicting accounts of this operation, and the true target remains unclear.

The first US operation against Godane was in 2003, according to the Bureau’s data. It was a CIA surveillance operation against several people, including Godane.

Godane was also said to be the target of a January 2014 Kenyan air strike that killed 57 alleged al Shabaab militants.

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

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

Published

August 31, 2014

Written by

Victoria Parsons

Web link

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

US Predator drone (Doctress Neutopia via Flickr)

Pakistan military offensive against the Taliban continues.

Two possible US drone strikes in Yemen, bringing seven-week pause in reported US attacks to an end.

The seventh successive month without a reported US attack in Somalia.

Pakistan

August 2014 actions

Total CIA strikes in August: 1

Total killed in strikes in August: 5-7

All actions 2004 – August 31 2014

Total Obama strikes: 339

Total US strikes since 2004: 390

Total reported killed: 2,347-3,796

Civilians reported killed: 416-957

Children reported killed: 168-202

Total reported injured: 1,099-1,660For the Bureau’s full Pakistan databases click here.

A CIA drone strike in Pakistan killed at least five people and injured two or three more. The strike reportedly occurred in the Datta Khel region of North Waziristan.

None of those killed have been named. Intelligence sources reportedly said “most” of the dead were “foreigners”, though the identity of those killed “could not be ascertained”.

Most reports stated that five were killed on August 6 when a drone fired two missiles at a house. However one report said six died when four missiles were fired at a house and a vehicle, and other reports counted seven killed. This was the fourth drone strike to hit Datta Khel in 2014.

The drone strike casualty rate for August (5) is less than half that of last month’s casualty rate (10.7). In July, 32 people died in three strikes during the bloodiest month for drone strikes in Pakistan since July 2012.

Pakistan is now two months into an offensive aimed at driving the Taliban out of the country. At the beginning of August Islamabad was “bracing” itself for a wave of protests, after the military had to secure the capital during threats of attacks by militant groups.

A Pakistani drone, which was being used for surveillance in eastern Punjab, reportedly crashed at the beginning of the month as it tried to land. Reports said no one was injured.

11 alleged Taliban members were reportedly killed as they attacked air force bases in the west Pakistan city of Quetta on August 15. Four days later, the military claimed to have killed 48 suspected militants in a helicopter raid on militant hideouts in the Khyber and North Waziristan tribal regions.

On August 28 prime minister Nawaz Sharif were named by police in Pakistan as a suspect in a murder case. The allegations of abetting murder are registered against Sharif, his brother and 19 other defendants over the killing of supporters of a cleric in June. Cleric Tahir ul Qadri has been leading anti-government demonstrations in Islamabad, protesting against alleged voting fraud.

Yemen

August 2014 actions

Confirmed US drone strikes: 0

Further reported/possible US strike events: 2

Total reported killed in US operations: 6

Civilians reported killed in US strikes: 0

All actions 2002 – August 31 2014*

Confirmed US drone strikes: 65-77

Total reported killed: 339-494

Civilians reported killed: 64-83

Children reported killed: 7

Reported injured: 78-196

Possible extra US drone strikes: 97-116

Total reported killed: 324-515

Civilians reported killed: 24-48

Children reported killed: 6-9

Reported injured: 87-120

All other US covert operations: 14-79Total reported killed: 150-386Civilians reported killed: 60-89Children reported killed: 25-27Reported injured: 22-115Click here for the full Yemen data.

A seven-week pause in attacks ended on August 9 with two possible US drone strikes in Yemen, killing six people.

The first possible US drone strike killed three people in the central Marib province. An unnamed military official told AFP that two women were injured in the strike, which reportedly targeted a house belonging to a local man who was renting it to three men from the north western province of Saada.

The strike came a day after AQAP fighters reportedly beheaded 14 captured Yemeni soldiers. They were killed because they were fighting AQAP in the eastern province of Hadramout, the armed group said in a statement. And the attack came the day before Yemen Air Force jets reportedly targeted al Qaeda training camps in the eastern province of Hadramout.

On August 16 a possible US drone strike in the eastern province of Hadramout also reportedly killed three suspected AQAP members. A local official told Reuters that “three armed men” were travelling in a vehicle when “the drone shot two rockets at them”.

A local military official reportedly said that the vehicle was heading towards an alleged military training camp, where “scores of al Qaeda militants” were gathering.

In addition, on August 16 there were two further possible US airstrikes in the southern province of Abyan. A Yemeni security official said that two separate airstrikes in the south killed seven suspected militants, but it is not clear if they were air or drone strikes and whether they were carried out by US forces or the Yemeni government.

Following the capture and beheading of 14 Yemeni soldiers by AQAP in Hadramout at the beginning of the month, Yemeni president Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi vowed a relentless fight against AQAP. Violent clashes between AQAP and the Yemeni military continue in Hadramout province, with AQAP claiming to have killed 50 soldiers on August 7.

On August 23 AQAP planted a bomb on the road which links the two towns of Seiyun and Shibam in eastern Yemen, reportedly killing three soldiers. Four days later three alleged AQAP members were killed outside the town of Shibam when they reportedly attacked troops setting up a checkpoint.

Following the launch of US air strikes targeting the Islamic State (IS) in Iraq, AQAP called for attacks on the US in “solidarity with our Muslim brothers.”

This month an AQAP propaganda film alleged the groups deceased second-in-command, Saeed al Shehri, was killed by US drones in 2013, not 2012 as previously thought. The video was the third of a three-part documentary about his life and death and said al Shehri had survived several US attacks. He also ‘was prisoner number 327 at Guantanamo Bay, captured as he tried to cross the border into Pakistan from Afghanistan late in 2001.’

Somalia

August 2014 actions

Total reported US operations: 0

All actions 2007 – August 31 2014

US drone strikes: 5-8

Total reported killed: 10-24

Civilians reported killed: 0-1

Children reported killed: 0

Reported injured: 2-3

All other US covert operations: 8-11

Total reported killed: 40-141

Civilians reported killed: 7-47

Children reported killed: 0-2

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

For the seventh successive month there were no reported US operations in Somalia.

Amisom and Somali forces were expected to begin a new drive to push al Shabaab out of territory they hold, according to Somalian President Hassan Sheikh Mohammed.

Al Shabaab spokesman, Abdulaziz Abu Musab, claimed the group killed three policemen in a suicide explosion in the north of the country at the beginning of the month. On August 15, 14 were killed when Somali forces and Amison launched an offensive against al Shabaab in a suburb of Mogadishu, Somalia’s capital.

A week later Lydia Wanyoto, acting special envoy of the African Union to Somalia, announced that the “roadmap” for Amison would be adhered to and troops would pull out of the country in 2016.

Other news from the drone war

An Amnesty International report found that the US military has a “poor” record for investigating war crimes and prosecuting suspected perpetrators in Afghanistan. In nine out of 10 incidents that Amnesty believes “raise concerns about the unlawful use of force” the US appears to have made little effort to document or record what happens, with eyewitnesses to the nine attacks saying they had never spoken to US military investigators.

The Bureau published an interactive timeline showing the growing number of voices calling for transparency on the US’s use of drones. The 20th call for transparency was from a report of the UN Secretary-General which recommended “improving transparency… and developing a robust oversight and accountability mechanism for targeted strikes outside active battlefields.”

Naming the Dead

Bureau reporter Jack Serle talked about the difficulty of identifying those killed in drone strikes with HuffPost Live, for their “Always at War” web series. The identities of less than one in three of those killed in drone strikes in Pakistan have been established by Naming the Dead, with some of those only identified by a single source.

Pakistani publication Dawn used data from Naming the Dead to create an infographic highlighting how little we know about drone strikes.

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Interactive: 21 calls for transparency around US drone strikes

Published

August 19, 2014

Written by

Victoria Parsons

Web link

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

In February 2011 the Bureau began investigating CIA drone strikes in Pakistan.

At that time there was a lethal US drone strike in Pakistan every four days or so, and there had been one hundred and eighty drone strikes there since Barack Obama became president. The US was publicly denying the drone strike campaign.

On August 6 2014 the Bureau recorded the 339th drone strike in Pakistan of President Obama’s presidency. The drone campaign in Pakistan, which is conducted by the CIA, remains an official secret.

In June 2012, Obama declassified the campaigns in Yemen and Somalia – but details of the attacks remain shrouded in mystery. The US has declined to release even the most basic details about the strikes, such as when or where they take place. As a result we also rarely know who or what they hit.

But a growing number of voices have been calling for transparency.

Follow Victoria Parsons on Twitter. Sign up for monthly updates from the Bureau’s Covert War project, subscribe to our podcast, Drone News from the Bureau, and follow Drone Reads on Twitter to see what the team is reading. Homepage photo: White House

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

Published

August 1, 2014

Written by

Alice Ross, Jack Serle and Victoria Parsons

Web link

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

Troops advance during an anti-al Shabaab operation in Somalia (UN Photo/Stuart Price)

Pakistan has the bloodiest month of drone strikes in two years.

July is the first month of the year with no drone attacks in Yemen.

Six months without a reported US attack in Somalia.

Naming the Dead database records 700 names.

Pakistan

July 2014 actions

Total CIA strikes in July: 3

Total killed in strikes in July: 32-46

All actions 2004 – July 31 2014

Total Obama strikes: 338

Total US strikes since 2004: 389

Total reported killed: 2,342-3,789

Civilians reported killed: 416-957

Children reported killed: 168-202

Total reported injured: 1,097-1,657For the Bureau’s full Pakistan databases click here.

At least 32 people died in three CIA drone strikes in Pakistan, making this the bloodiest month since July 2012. The strikes all reportedly occurred in and around Datta Khel in North Waziristan.

The high death toll from just three attacks dramatically increased the casualty rate – the average number of people killed in each strike on average. This month the casualty rate was 10.7 people per strike. That is more than double the rate for June (4.6) and the highest since April 2011, when 24 people died in two attacks.

Just three of those killed have been named. All were members of al Qaeda according to Sanafi al Nasr, a Syrian-based al Qaeda leader, who eulogised the men. Fayez Awda al Khalidi, Taj al Makki and Abu Abdurahman al Kuwaiti died with three unnamed men in an attack on July 10 that reportedly destroyed a house and vehicle in Mada Khel village, near to Datta Khel.

July 16 saw the largest strike in Pakistan in over a year, killing at least 15 people. The CIA were targeting an important meeting, according to an unnamed security official. However one source said two mosques were targeted, killing 12 “people” in one and eight “people” in the other, without specifying whether they were civilians or members of an armed group. The Bureau has been unable to confirm these possible civilian casualties, or the report of strikes on mosques.

Three days later on July 19, Mada Khel village was reportedly hit again. At least 11 people died when a drone reportedly fired multiple missiles at a building or group of buildings.

The Pakistani army offensive against the Taliban in the region continued. The Pakistan military claims to have killed 500 militants with no civilian casualties since the offensive began in June.

On July 16 the military bombed the remote Shawal valley near the border of North and South Waziristan. The military claimed to have killed 35 militants. However AFP later reported that 37 civilians were killed, “including 20 women and 10 children”.

The military offensive has cleared entire towns of people, reportedly displacing a million people. Over 75,000 are said to have gone to Afghanistan and more than 990,000 have been registered in Pakistani camps just outside the tribal regions. The German government announced on July 30 that it would provide €1m (£796,000) to support the World Food Programme’s relief effort.

Yemen

July 2014 actions

Confirmed US drone strikes: 0

Further reported/possible US strike events: 0

Total reported killed in US operations: 0

Civilians reported killed in US strikes: 0

All actions 2002 – July 31 2014*

Confirmed US drone strikes: 65-77

Total reported killed: 339-494

Civilians reported killed: 64-83

Children reported killed: 7

Reported injured: 78-196

Possible extra US drone strikes: 95-114

Total reported killed: 318-509

Civilians reported killed: 24-48

Children reported killed: 6-9

Reported injured: 85-118

All other US covert operations: 14-79Total reported killed: 150-386Civilians reported killed: 60-89Children reported killed: 25-27Reported injured: 22-115Click here for the full Yemen data.

There were no reported drone strikes in July, making this the first month without a drone strike in Yemen this year.

This is in contrast to a year ago when a seven-week pause in attacks ended with a 15-day bombardment that lasted into August. Nine drone strikes killed 31-49 people, including three children. It was caused by a global terror alert that made the US close 20 embassies around the world – a move one analyst described as “crazy pants“.

This month a Freedom of Information request revealed that the Australian Christopher Havard, killed in a drone strike in Yemen last November, was subject to an Australian police arrest warrant. Havard was wanted for alleged involvement in a 2012 plot, linked to al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), to kidnap an Austrian and two Finnish citizens in Yemen.

The attack that killed Havard also killed a dual Australian-New Zealand citizen named Daryl Jones. A retired politician has urged New Zealanders to demand more information from the government over Jones’ death. Jones and Havard have been reported as the first Australians to die in a drone strike. However, the Bureau has previously reported the case of Saifullah, known locally as “the Australian”, who was killed in a July 2011 strike in Pakistan. The Australian government has denied he was a citizen.

AQAP continued to launch attacks, targeting military sites and personnel in three southern provinces. Local officials said at least eight people died in an attack on two army outposts on July 27.

Security was tightened on US-bound flights from 20 foreign airports, with efforts focusing on scrutinising phones and laptops. US officials said no specific threat caused the increased security measures, although CBS reported that shortly before the alert, AQAP released a video showing the “underpants bomber” shortly before his attempt to blow up an airplane in 2009.

The Guardian and others reported intelligence community fears that notorious AQAP bomb maker Ibrahim al Asiri was working with armed groups in Syria, raising concerns that he would seek to implant “invisible” bombs in fighters with Western passports in order to conduct attacks on European or US targets.

The US designated Anders Dale, a Norwegian, as a terrorist. The State Department alleges Dale joined AQAP and has travelled to Yemen multiple times since 2008. It claims he received terrorist training, including learning to make “bomb-belts, improvised explosive devices, and larger explosives used in car bombs”.

Somalia

July 2014 actions

Total reported US operations: 0

All actions 2007 – July 31 2014

US drone strikes: 5-8

Total reported killed: 10-24

Civilians reported killed: 0-1

Children reported killed: 0

Reported injured: 2-3

All other US covert operations: 8-11

Total reported killed: 40-141

Civilians reported killed: 7-47

Children reported killed: 0-2

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

For the sixth successive month there were no reported US operations in Somalia, though government troops and soldiers from the UN-backed African Union Mission in Somalia (Amisom) continue to battle al Shabaab.

On July 8 al Shabaab fighters attacked the presidential compound. The interior ministry said the president was elsewhere at the time though at least three militants and as many as 15 guards died. This is the second attack on the presidential palace of the year, following one in February that killed 12.

On July 15 Somali soldiers and Amisom peacekeepers repelled an al Shabaab attack on Mogadishu’s airport, stopping a car packed with explosives from entering the airport. Less than a week later on July 21, Amisom troops met officials from the new south-western regional state of Somalia, which brings together six provinces. The new administration declared war on al Shabaab, with the regional police chief vowing to kill the relatives of militants who continued to kill innocent civilians.

Hassan Sheikh Mohamed, president of Somalia, leaked information about a new, 150-strong, CIA trained counter-terrorism force called Gashaan, or “the shield”. Meanwhile the government of Djibouti said it would send an additional 950 troops to support Amisom.

On July 23 Somali MP and musician Saado Ali Warsame was killed by militants in a drive-by shooting. She was the fourth MP killed this year. An al Shabaab spokesman said she was killed for her politics and not her music. On the same day the group also reportedly executed a 13-year-old girl following a show trial in southern Somalia, after accusing her of spying for Somali armed forces and Amisom. The al Shabaab “judge” said of the girl: “She was trained to assassinate senior members of the group and pass sensitive information to our enemies.”

Other news from the drone war

A Bureau study on the use of drones in Afghanistan found that despite there being at least 1,000 drone strikes on the country in the past 13 years, almost nothing is known about where they took place or who they hit. Afghanistan is the most heavily drone-bombed country in the world, yet more is understood about the US’s secret campaigns in Yemen, Somalia and Pakistan.

A new Pew Research Center survey found that 39 of the 44 countries surveyed were opposed to US drone strikes in Yemen, Somalia and Pakistan, with opposition to drone attacks increasing in many nations since last year. Israel, Kenya and the US are the only surveyed nations where at least half of the public supports drone strikes.

Naming the Dead

The Naming the Dead project has now recorded over 700 names of those killed by CIA drones in Pakistan. Almost half of those identified were civilians, and 99 were children. Though the database of names has grown since the project launched last year, fewer than one in three of the 2,342 reportedly killed in drone attacks have been identified so far.

New case studies have been added, including profiles of TTP deputy leader Wali ur Rehman, senior al Qaeda operative Abu Sulaiman al Jazairi, and Mohammed Haqqani, who was the brother and son of senior fighters, but may not have been an active member of an armed group himself.

Follow Alice Ross, Jack Serle and Victoria Parsons 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 the team is reading.

Podcast: the changing face of international terrorism

Published

July 4, 2014

Written by

Bureau Reporter

Web link

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

International terrorism has changed and that change is making lethal drone strikes more likely, according to Paul Rogers, Professor of Peace Studies at Bradford University.

‘The whole thing has really made a transition from what you would probably just about call a movement 10 years ago to an idea that really has spread and has taken root in groups that are aggrieved often for other reasons,’ Rogers explained.

Listen to the latest episode of Drone News.

This loose structure without a central leadership makes its harder to gather intelligence, he continued. ‘And if you can’t control them by finding out what they’re doing and what they’re planning you have to use other means which is where I think the use of special forces and drones is more likely to come in.’

Rogers continued: ‘Many of these groups are not looking at a world wide war against the ‘far enemy’ of the United States and its Western allies.’

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‘They are much more focused on their own countries – the one exception to some extent is the Yemenis.’

Also in this episode, the Bureau’s Alice K Ross discusses the Obama administration’s ‘gradual process of disclosure’ after the White House finally released a memo that outlines the legal justification for the US to kill its own citizens abroad.

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

Six-month update: US covert actions in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia

Published

July 1, 2014

Written by

Alice Ross and Jack Serle

Web link

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

An MQ-9 Reaper waits to take flight (Photo: US Air Force/Staff Sgt John Bainter)

Drone strikes restart in Pakistan after a pause of almost six months.

US drone strike casualty rate in Yemen jumps to 8.3 people killed in each attack on average.

Kenyan jets strike al Shabaab in Somalia.

The Naming the Dead project approaches 700 names.

Pakistan

June 2014 actions

Total CIA strikes in June: 3

Total killed in strikes in June: 14-24

All actions 2004 – June 30 2014

Total Obama strikes: 335

Total US strikes since 2004: 386

Total reported killed: 2,310-3,743

Civilians reported killed: 416-957

Children reported killed: 168-202

Total reported injured: 1,091-1,647For the Bureau’s full Pakistan databases click here.

CIA drone strikes in Pakistan‘s tribal area resumed on June 11 with an attack that killed at least four people. The first attack since December 25 2013, this brought to an end the longest pause in drone strikes of Obama’s presidency.

Within hours drones attacked again, killing 6-10 people shortly after midnight on June 12. Some reports said this was a follow-up strike on the same site that targeted rescuers. A third attack killed at least four more people on June 18.

After the first strike, the Foreign Ministry issued a statement condemning the violation of its sovereignty. However, a senior Pakistani official told Reuters: ‘The attacks were launched with the express approval of the Pakistan government and army.’

During the almost six-month hiatus in strikes, the Pakistani government held peace talks with the Pakistan Taliban (TTP), an armed group based in the tribal agency of North Waziristan. These were interrupted by terrorist attacks and retaliatory Pakistan Air Force strikes on the tribal regions. A Bureau investigation found that 15 Pakistani air strikes between December and June 15 reportedly killed 291-540 people, including 16-112 civilians.

The peace talks conclusively ended after a June 8 attack in which gunmen and suicide bombers stormed Karachi airport. At least 34 people were killed in the ensuing gun battle, including 10 attackers. The TTP and Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), also based in North Waziristan, claimed responsibility.

On June 15, the Pakistani government announced a long-awaited military offensive against the TTP in North Waziristan.

More than 450,000 people have fled their homes in North Waziristan since late May. On June 19 the Pakistan government said it would not ask aid agencies, including the UN, for help handling the refugee crisis. A week later the World Health Organisation warned the mass exodus risked increasing the spread of polio beyond the tribal belt – currently Pakistan’s worst affected area.

Nek Mohammed speaks during a tribal jirga in Pakistan (REUTERS/Kamran Wazir)

June 17 marked the tenth anniversary of the first drone strike in Pakistan. In June 2004, CIA drones killed Nek Mohammed and at least five others, including two children. On the anniversary, the Bureau published an interactive timeline of key milestones in the campaign, and eyewitness accounts of this strike. One local told the Bureau he heard a buzzing: ‘There was some noise then from the east, a flash of light came. There was a big blast.’

Also in June, a task force of legal experts, retired military and national security officials convened by the Stimson Center, a Washington-based think-tank, published a year-long analysis of the US use of armed drones for targeted killing.

The report called for more transparency over drone strikes and voiced concerns that the Obama administration’s ‘heavy reliance on targeted killings as a pillar of US counter-terrorism strategy … risks increasing instability and escalating conflicts.’ The authors also concluded drones do not ’cause disproportionate civilian casualties or turn killing into a “video-game”.’

Six-monthly trends

The absence of reported drone strikes in the first five months of 2014 led some to question whether the campaign in Pakistan had ended entirely.

Several factors may have contributed to the lengthy hiatus. The Pakistani government spent the first half of the year in often fractious peace negotiations with the TTP. A source close to the talks told the Bureau that Islamabad had asked the US to stop drone strikes during the process. All hope of the talks succeeding ended with the TTP’s joint attack on Karachi airport on June 8; drone strikes returned days later.

Drones reportedly continued flying over the tribal regions, and US officials said the administration reserved the right to use lethal force if a target presented itself. It is possible the CIA may have decided to pursue a more limited list of targets.

The campaign may have been affected by the scaling-down of the US intelligence network over the border in Afghanistan. CIA border posts and listening stations are closing ahead of the drawdown and AP reported the CIA is ending payments to its proxy militias in the region, which gather human intelligence on targets in Pakistan.

The strikes may also have been constrained by secret negotiations leading up to the May 31 release of Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl, the last US prisoner of war. He was exchanged for five members of the Afghan Taliban held in Guantanamo. Bergdahl had been held prisoner in Pakistan’s tribal areas by the Haqqani Network, members of which were the target of at least one of June’s three strikes.

The year’s three strikes so far killed 14-24 people, none of whom were described as civilians. This is the smallest reported death toll for a six-month period of drone strikes in Pakistan since the first half of 2006, when 13-22 people reportedly died.

The average number of people killed in CIA drone strikes in Pakistan during Obama’s presidency.

However the casualty rate – the average number of people killed per strike – for the first half of 2014 is 4.7. This rate has hovered between around 3.5 and 5 for the past three years, after peaking at more than 10 in the first half of 2009.

Yemen

June 2014 actions

Confirmed US drone strikes: 1

Further reported/possible US strike events: 2

Total reported killed in US operations: 5-10

Civilians reported killed in US strikes: 0

All actions 2002 – June 30 2014*

Confirmed US drone strikes: 65-77

Total reported killed: 339-494

Civilians reported killed: 34-83

Children reported killed: 7

Reported injured: 78-196

Possible extra US drone strikes: 95-114

Total reported killed: 318-509

Civilians reported killed: 24-48

Children reported killed: 6-9

Reported injured: 85-118

All other US covert operations: 14-79Total reported killed: 150-386Civilians reported killed: 60-89Children reported killed: 25-27Reported injured: 22-115Click here for the full Yemen data.

June saw one confirmed drone strike in Yemen, killing 5-6 people, and two further attacks that may have been drone strikes. One of these possible strikes, on June 4, killed 3-4 people. Casualties were unknown in the other.

Only two of the dead were identified, both described as members of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). ‘Tribal sources‘ told reporters that the June 4 strike killed Jafar al Shabwani, describing him as a mid-level AQAP commander. He was the fourth man with this name to have reportedly died in a drone strike this year, but their relation to each other is unclear.

The confirmed US drone strike, on June 13 or 14, killed ‘leading AQAP figure’ Musaed al Habshi al Barasi al Awlaqi and two unnamed Saudis, along with at least two other unidentified casualties.

The US added alleged AQAP member Shawqi Ali Ahmed al Badani to a US sanctions list. According to unnamed officials, al Badani was the target of a disastrous US drone strike on a wedding procession in December 2013.

US citizen Anwar al Awlaki, killed in a drone strike in September 2011 (YouTube screengrab)

On June 23 the US government released, with redactions, a secret memo setting out legal justifications for killing a US citizen, Anwar al Awlaki. The release met with mixed reactions from national security analysts and legal experts.

June also saw the Islamic State of Iraq and al Sham (ISIS) overrun major cities in Iraq. So far Washington has refused Baghdad’s requests for airstrikes on ISIS fighters, but has started flying armed drones over the country. And there are now more than 180 US special forces in the country.

Six-monthly trends

Six confirmed drone strikes since January this year have reportedly killed at least 50 people, including four civilians. This makes it the bloodiest six-month period for drone strikes in the country since the first half of 2012, when the US launched at least 21 confirmed drone strikes, killing upwards of 140 people.

While more people died overall in January to June 2012, this year’s drone strikes have had higher death tolls. The casualty rate for the past six months was 8.3 people killed per strike – the highest yet recorded in Yemen, and almost double that recorded in the second half of last year.

The average number of people killed per US drone strike in Yemen and Pakistan during Obama’s presidency.

Since 2011 the casualty rate in Pakistan and Yemen has been at a similar level. But in the first half of 2014, as in the first half of 2012, the casualty rate in Yemen spiked. These periods both coincide with Yemeni government attempts to oust AQAP from territory it had seized.

The increased casualty rate this year is because a cluster of attacks on April 19 and April 20 killed at least 37 people.

This analysis examines only strikes considered confirmed by the Bureau – those described as drone strikes by three separate credible sources, or those acknowledged by US sources. In the first half of 2012, up to 102 air attacks were reported, so the true number of drone strikes is unknown but may be higher. And in the first half of 2014, the Bureau recorded a further 12 possible drone strikes, killing 18-30.

The civilian casualty rate – the number of civilians killed in each strike on average – fell sharply compared to the previous six months but continued a longer-term upwards trend.

The minimum number of civilians reportedly killed by US drones in Yemen during Obama’s presidency.

The high rate in the second half of last year is in large part because at least eight civilians were killed in the catastrophic wedding party strike on December 12 2013 strike. However, the civilian casualty rate in the first half of this year is more than three times that of the same period in 2012.

This could be due to improved reporting: journalists have, until recently, enjoyed better access to parts of the country than they did in 2011 and 2012, when the areas affected by drone strikes were often under AQAP control.

However journalists’ ability to report is now being restricted by the Yemeni government. Journalists have repeatedly been harassed by the security forces, and the government has closed media groups owned by the former president, Ali Abdullah Saleh. US journalist Adam Baron was expelled from the country, and UK reporter Iona Craig left shortly afterwards. They were the last accredited international journalists living and working in Sanaa.

Somalia

June 2014 actions

Total reported US operations: 0

All actions 2007 – June 30 2014

US drone strikes: 5-8

Total reported killed: 10-24

Civilians reported killed: 0-1

Children reported killed: 0

Reported injured: 2-3

All other US covert operations: 8-11

Total reported killed: 40-141

Civilians reported killed: 7-47

Children reported killed: 0-2

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

There were no reported US operations in Somalia for the fifth successive month. However al Shabaab sites came under attack from Kenyan Defence Force jets. Military sources claimed up to 80 alleged militants died, though there were no independent casualty estimates.

The strikes were reportedly in support of the African Union peacekeeping mission, Amisom, which has been trying to roll back al Shabaab control in southern and central Somalia. Amisom has had some success against al Shabaab but a report by the International Crisis Group predicted it will be a long war against the armed group.

Al Shabaab killed at least 48 people in a bloodthirsty attack on people watching the World Cup in Mpeketoni, a poor Kenyan coastal town. Scores of al Shabaab fighters poured into the town after dark, targeting a police station and hotels, reportedly killing men with guns and knives but sparing women and children. Mpeketoni is near the popular tourist destination Lamu. The continuing attacks are harming Kenya’s crucial tourist industry,

The attack echoed a 2010 al Shabaab bombing in Kampala, Uganda, which also targeted crowds watching the World Cup. In that attack more than 70 died.

Six-monthly trends

A single drone strike this year killed 2-9 people on January 26. It reportedly targeted Ahmed Abdi Godane, al Shabaab’s leader. It later emerged one of Godane’s aides, Sahal Iskudhuq, was killed in the attack. Godane had reportedly met with Iskudhuq that evening.

Ethiopian soldiers join the Amisom peacekeeping force in Somalia (Amisom/Flickr)

There have been between five and eight US drone strikes reported in Somalia since the first one in June 2011, a small number compared with Yemen and Pakistan. However, because much of the country remains beyond government control and out of reach for journalists and civil society, it is possible further attacks have gone unreported.

This year Amisom announced Ethiopia would contribute soldiers to the peacekeeping force. Ethiopia unilaterally invaded Somalia in December 2006 and its occupation was marked by accusations of war crimes.

Amisom have made territorial gains against al Shabaab, but the armed group has continued to launch lethal attacks in the heavily defended green zone around Mogadishu’s airport and the presidential palace.

Naming the Dead

This month the Bureau has added 14 names to Naming the Dead project, which identifies those killed in Pakistan drone strikes, taking the number of names published to 698.

These people were killed in June’s second strike. This poses a puzzle: there were only 6-10 people reportedly killed by the strike. However it was just hours after the earlier attack, so some of those 14 names could have belonged to those killed in that strike. Alternatively, the extra names could be pseudonyms or aliases.

The Bureau has profiled Nek Mohammed, the local Taliban commander who was the target of the first CIA drone strike in Pakistan, 10 years ago this month.

Additional reporting by Olivia Rudgard.

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

Published

June 3, 2014

Written by

Alice Ross and Jack Serle

Web link

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

CIA drones have not hit Pakistan for over five months – some now suggest it is a permanent end to strikes.

The hiatus in drone strikes continues as Pakistan’s military takes the fight to the Taliban.

A US drone strike kills at least four amid an ongoing Yemen military offensive against al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.

Another month without a reported US attack in Somalia as al Shabaab attacks neighbouring countries.

New case studies added to the Naming the Dead project.

Pakistan

May 2014 actions

Total CIA strikes in May: 0

Total killed in strikes in May: 0

All actions 2004 – May 31 2014

Total Obama strikes: 332

Total US strikes since 2004: 383

Total reported killed: 2,296-3,719

Civilians reported killed: 416-957

Children reported killed: 168-202

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

More than five months have passed without a drone strike in Pakistan, and some analysts suggest the campaign is drawing to a close.

The Associated Press reported that CIA drones are still flying armed missions over Pakistan and analysts are still adding targets to the kill list. But the US intends to continue drawing down its forces in Afghanistan, leaving altogether by 2016. This would mean the air bases from which the drones fly and the intelligence outposts that provide them with their targets will close.

Congressman Mike Rogers, chair of the House Intelligence Committee, told AP: ‘By the end of this year we will have a noticeable degradation in our ability to collect intelligence on people of concern.’

President Obama made a major speech on foreign policy at West Point military academy, in which he confirmed the US will continue to conduct off-battlefield drone strikes. But he mentioned Pakistan only once, declaring that ‘al Qaeda’s leadership on the border region between Pakistan and Afghanistan has been decimated’.

The Pakistan military has stepped up operations in North Waziristan, continuing the air strikes that began in April and also attacking Taliban targets with artillery, helicopters and ground forces. There have been reports of high casualties from the strikes; at least 60 people reportedly died in a series of attacks on May 21. Thousands of people have already reportedly been displaced, fleeing to neighbouring Bannu region of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

The Pakistan Taliban has reportedly fragmented this month as infighting between factions continued. A faction based in South Waziristan, made up of Mehsud tribesmen commanded by Khan Said, has broken from the main group commanded by Mullah Fazlullah. Said’s Mehsud group is reportedly on good terms with the Pakistani government and there is hope this schism could lead to increased stability in South Waziristan.

The US government agreed to publish a redacted version of the memo outlining the legal basis for killing US citizens overseas. The move came after an appeals court ordered the publication last month. However, a week after the judgment, the Justice Department sought a fresh court hearing to redact further sections of the memo, beyond those agreed by the court. The government also sought to have the new hearing held in secret. The court agreed to hear the government’s case for further redactions but refused to do so entirely behind closed doors.

This month the Bureau published major research analysing all strikes that have taken place in Pakistan. This revealed that drones have attacked more domestic buildings than another type of target – more than 60% of strikes hit houses, killing at least 222 civilians.

Since 2008 in Afghanistan air strikes on domestic buildings have been banned in all but the most urgent situations, as part of measures to reduce civilian casualties. But they have been the most frequent targets of attacks in Pakistan in each year of the campaign, including since 2008. The research, a collaboration with Forensic Architecture and Situ Research, is also presented in an interactive map, Where the Drones Strike.

Yemen

May 2014 actions

Confirmed US drone strikes: 1

Further reported/possible US strike events: 0

Total reported killed in US operations: 4-6

Civilians reported killed in US strikes: 0

All actions 2002 – May 31 2014*

Confirmed US drone strikes: 64-76

Total reported killed: 334-488

Civilians reported killed: 34-84

Children reported killed: 7-8

Reported injured: 78-196

Possible extra US drone strikes: 93-112

Total reported killed: 315-505

Civilians reported killed: 24-48

Children reported killed: 6-9

Reported injured: 85-118

All other US covert operations: 14-79Total reported killed: 150-386Civilians reported killed: 59-88Children reported killed: 24-26Reported injured: 22-115Click here for the full Yemen data.

A US drone killed at least four people in a vehicle in the Wadi Abeeda area of Mareb province. Witnesses named two of the dead as alleged al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) members Naif Faraj and Mousleh al Arahabi.

The Yemeni military continued to carry out operations against AQAP in the central and southern Yemeni provinces of Shabwa, Abyan and al Bayda, with casualties to both sides. AQAP responded with attacks and bombings in the capital and other cities.

The UN estimates more than 24,000 refugees have been displaced by the fighting, as of May 20. The International Committee of the Red Cross and the Yemen Red Crescent have been providing humanitarian relief.

There have been few reports of civilian casualties beyond five civilians killed on May 22, when Yemeni government forces targetted their vehicle with artillery. However the Yemeni government appears to have been taking steps to shut down critical media coverage of its activities.

On May 20 a team of al Jazeera reporters were detained in Shabwa by government forces while covering the conflict and ‘evacuated’ to the capital, Sana’a.

On May 8 the Yemeni authorities expelled Adam Baron, a reporter for McClatchy who had worked in the country for more than three years. On May 12 Iona Craig of The Times left the country; at the airport she was told she would not be allowed to return. She later wrote: ‘The foreign media may not be welcome in Yemen, but if they are quietly trying to remove us then the greatest threat to be faced will be to domestic reporters.’

Barack Obama cited Yemen in his West Point speech, as part of his declaration that the US will continue to launch drone strikes ‘when we have actionable intelligence’. He also announced the US would spend $5bn on developing and training counter-terrorism forces in countries around the world, pointing to the US’s direct support for Yemen’s security forces as an example of the work this new programme will do.

Also this month, it emerged Saudi Arabia had bombed northern Yemen with US-made cluster bombs in 2009 and 2010.

Somalia

May 2014 actions

Total reported US operations: 0

All actions 2007 – May 31 2014

US drone strikes: 5-8

Total reported killed: 10-24

Civilians reported killed: 0-1

Children reported killed: 0

Reported injured: 2-3

All other US covert operations: 8-11

Total reported killed: 40-141

Civilians reported killed: 7-47

Children reported killed: 0-2

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

There was again no reported US strikes in Somalia – it is now more than four months since the last confirmed US attack in the country.

However al Shabaab continues to penetrate security to carry out attacks in Mogadishu, including an attack on the parliament building that killed 10 people.

The attack came two weeks after 100 Somali MPs signed a letter calling on the president to resign for failing to improve the security situation. The MPs threatened to impeach him. The president rejected the call for his resignation.

African Union peacekeeping forces (Amisom) continue to battle al Shabaab south and west of the capital. On May 18 Kenyan jets killed at least 50 alleged militants in a strike described as an Amisom operation. However the peacekeeper’s UN mandate extends to ‘an appropriate aviation component of up to twelve military helicopters’; not jets. On May 28 the militants hit back, ambushing a column of Amisom forces and killing 32 Ethiopian troops.

Al Shabaab also attacked a restaurant in the tiny African state, Djibouti to the north of Somalia, killing three people. This country is home to the only permanent US base in Africa as well as a French base and EU and Nato naval forces involved in counter-piracy operations. The group has also vowed to take its fight into Kenya. It has continued to attack targets in Kenya, in the capital, Nairobi and in the coastal city of Mombassa. At least 13 were killed in two bomb blasts in Nairobi on May 16.

There is increasing concern that the attacks in Kenya are doing serious damage to the economy, particularly to the tourism industry – the country’s second-biggest source of foreign currency.

Kenya has continued to crack down on ethnic Somalis living in the country in operations Amnesty International described as ‘a disturbing wave of serious human rights violations’.

Naming the Dead

New case studies on the Naming the Dead website this month include profiles of British brothers Abdul Jabbar and Mohammed Azmir Khan, who died in separate drone strikes in North Waziristan in 2010 and 2011. Following reports that an Australian and Yemeni citizen died in a drone strike in Yemen, we have profiled Saifullah, described in reports as an Australian militant, and Zahirullah, the owner of the house in which Saifullah died. Emeti Yakuf, commander of a Chinese militant group, has also been profiled.

Follow Alice Ross and Jack Serle on Twitter.

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

Published

May 1, 2014

Written by

Alice Ross and Jack Serle

Web link

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

The wreckage of a four-wheel drive destroyed by CIA drones in Yemen (EPA/stringer).

More than four months without a drone strike in Pakistan.

US drones and special forces launch barrage of attacks in Yemen.

‘Western’ special forces support peacekeeper offensive in Somalia.

The Bureau has added more than 100 names to its Naming the Dead project since launch.

Pakistan

April 2014 actions

Total CIA strikes in April: 0

Total killed in strikes in April: 0

All actions 2004 – April 30 2014

Total Obama strikes: 332

Total US strikes since 2004: 383

Total reported killed: 2,296-3,719

Civilians reported killed: 416-957

Children reported killed: 168-202

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

It is now more than four months since the last reported drone strike in Pakistan. This is reportedly to allow peace talks to take place between the Pakistan Taliban (TTP) and the government.

While drone attacks have stopped, there have been reports of sightings of unmanned aircraft over Miranshah, North Waziristan and Hangu, beyond Pakistan’s tribal areas, indicating that CIA surveillance may be continuing.

The pause in drone strikes has been welcomed by senior Pakistani military officers, according to Owen Bennett-Jones, who recently visited Waziristan and described the trip for the Bureau’s drones podcast.

It was reported that the US drone strikes in Pakistan are carried out by US Air Force (USAF) personnel, under the direction of the CIA. The strikes are carried out by the USAF 17th Reconnaissance Squadron based at Creech Air Force Base in Nevada. The CIA manages the operations but the drones are operated by military crews. Former USAF drone operator Brandon Bryant said: ‘The CIA might be the customer but the air force has always flown it. A CIA label is just an excuse to not have to give up any information. That is all it has ever been.’

A ceasefire between the TTP and the government in Islamabad broke down this month, although both sides have said they want the peace talks to continue. There was a dramatic drop in militant attacks over the first quarter of 2014, according to research organisation the Conflict Monitoring Center. But attacks continued in April, including some before the ceasefire was officially dropped. Policemen and civilians were among those killed in various militant attacks. The Pakistan Air Force (PAF) jets reportedly killed at least 35 people including eight civilians in strikes on Khyber agency.

The US Senate Intelligence Committee dropped a provision from a major intelligence bill that would require the White House to publish yearly drone strike casualty figures. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper wrote to the committee saying that the administration is exploring ways to be more transparent about US drone strikes.

Clapper wrote: ‘To be meaningful to the public, any report including the [casualty] information… would require context and be drafted carefully.’

A separate bipartisan bill, also aiming to compel the White House to publish drone strike casualty figures, was put before Congress this month. The independent analysis firm GovTrack gives the bill a negligible chance of passing the committee stage.

Former Australian prime minister Malcolm Fraser said intelligence provided by Australian spies to the CIA could expose Australian spies to prosecution if it is used to target drone strikes in Pakistan. He said intelligence officers working at Pine Gap, a joint Australian-US listening station in central Australia, could be vulnerable to charges of crimes against humanity. Last year an investigation by the Sydney Morning Herald revealed that Pine Gap intercepts mobile phone and radio traffic in Pakistan’s tribal region to identify and track targets for drone strikes in both Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Yemen

April 2014 actions

Confirmed US drone strikes: 2-4

Further reported/possible US strikes: 1

Total reported killed in US operations: 37–55

Civilians reported killed in US strikes: 4-10

All actions 2002 – April 30 2014*

Confirmed US drone strikes: 63-75

Total reported killed: 330-482

Civilians reported killed: 34-84

Children reported killed: 7-8

Reported injured: 78-196

Possible extra US drone strikes: 93-112

Total reported killed: 315-505

Civilians reported killed: 24-48

Children reported killed: 6-9

Reported injured: 85-118

All other US covert operations: 14-79Total reported killed: 150-386Civilians reported killed: 59-88Children reported killed: 24-26Reported injured: 22-115Click here for the full Yemen data.

At least 40 people were killed in a blitz of attacks on Yemen between April 19-20. At least five civilians were reportedly among the dead, including children aged 14 and 16.

CIA drones destroyed a truck carrying alleged militants during the night of April 19, killing at least 10 people. However, a nearby vehicle was also caught in the blast. At least three labourers were killed by flying shrapnel. Up to six other civilians were wounded; they were taken to a nearby hospital where the Yemeni government reportedly paid for their treatment.

CIA drones and Yemen Air Force jets, possibly with support from US warships, killed at least 24 people on April 20. A 14-year-old boy was among the dead from a massive strike on an alleged Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) camp.

On the night of April 20 a further operation left three to four people dead. US and Yemeni special forces ambushed a car travelling through the southern Shabwa province. A 16-year-old boy was reportedly killed in the attack.

AQAP’s master bomb-maker Ibrahim al Asiri and the group’s leader Nasser al Wuhayshi were initially reportedly killed in this strike. However unnamed US officials said they were not the targets of the operation. And it subsequently emerged that DNA tests showed they were not among the dead.

Al Wuhayshi appeared in a widely publicised video with dozens of fighters in late March, reportedly filmed in the same area as the second strike. In the video al Wuhayshi tells the fighters: ‘We should remember that we fight the biggest enemy. We must overthrow the leaders of infidelity and remove the cross and its holder, America.’

After the strikes, Yemen’s armed forces, backed by local militia, began an offensive to ‘purge‘ AQAP from the districts in the southern provinces of Abyan and Shabwa. The militant group established a foothold in Abyan in 2011, spurring the US and Yemeni governments to launch a bloody offensive in 2012. One area the military has said it will focus on is al Mahfed in Abyan – a frequent target of US attacks. Every strike on Abyan since January 2013 has hit in the al Mahfed area, according to Bureau data.

It also emerged this month that two Westerners, described as AQAP ‘foot soldiers’, were killed in a US attack in November 2013. Christopher Harvard, 27, was an Australian citizen who had travelled to Yemen purportedly to teach English. The Australian foreign ministry confirmed his death in the operation. A dual Australian and New Zealand national initially identified as Muslim bin John also died, the New Zealand prime minister confirmed. He was later identified as Daryl Jones – he had reportedly been travelling in the Middle East since mid-2012. Two Yemenis and an Egyptian were also killed in the attack.

Meanwhile, a federal US court of appeal said the government must release its legal justification for killing US citizens abroad in drone strikes. The unanimous decision is in response to a Freedom of Information request by the American Civil Liberties Union seeking government records about the deaths of Anwar al Awlaki, his 16-year-old son Abdulrahman and Samir Khan – three US citizens killed in Yemen in 2011.

Somalia

April 2014 actions

Total reported US operations: 0

All actions 2007 – April 30 2014

US drone strikes: 5-8

Total reported killed: 10-24

Civilians reported killed: 0-1

Children reported killed: 0

Reported injured: 2-3

All other US covert operations: 8-11

Total reported killed: 40-141

Civilians reported killed: 7-47

Children reported killed: 0-2

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

There are no reported US attacks in Somalia in April, though ‘foreign Special Forces’ and US drones supported an offensive by African Union peacekeepers, according to AFP.

African Union troops (Amisom) soldiers made considerable gains capturing towns from al Shabaab, though the militant group continues to hold swathes of territory.

Sierra Leone sent a battalion of soldiers to join Amisom this month – the fifth state to contribute personnel. Kenya has had troops in the south of Somalia for three years, which are now part of the Amisom force. An investigation by a Kenyan newspaper revealed the strain the three-year occupation of Somalia is putting on its armed forces.

Despite losing ground to Amisom, al Shabaab again launched attacks in Mogadishu, the capital. The militants shot dead a Somali lawmaker less than 24 hours after killing another Somali MP with a car bomb.

The militant group also issued a bloodthirsty video message to the world this month, declaring: ‘We will blow you up, until we finish you off.’

A French citizen and a Briton were shot dead as they arrived in Galkayo. The men were employed by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. Al Shabaab did not claim the attack, though they did celebrate the foreign workers’ death.

Also this month, Kenya continued to crack down on ethnic Somalis living in the country, reportedly detaining 3,000 and expelling dozens.

Dutch journalists revealed the Netherlands has been intercepting vast amounts of Somali telephone traffic and sharing it with US intelligence – although the Dutch government denied involvement in US drone strikes.

Naming the Dead

The Bureau has now added more than 100 names to the Naming the Dead database since the project launched in September 2013. Over 50 of the new names have come from Bureau research in Pakistan, while the others have emerged from media reports of drone strikes.

Bureau field researchers, working with local officials, have uncovered 35 new names of alleged militants this month. Six names were added to a strike in October 2012 that left 16-26 dead, and 15 alleged militants killed in a strike on January 6 2013 were also identified. The Bureau also added 14 names to three strikes in July 2013: eight new names from a July 3 2013 strike that killed 16-18 people emerged. Two new names were added to the data for a July 13 strike that killed 2-3 people. And four names were added to a July 28 2013 strike that killed 5-8 people.

Picture on homepage: USAF/Senior Airman Jack Sanders

Follow Alice Ross and Jack Serle on Twitter.

Drones podcast: An ethics special

Published

April 14, 2014

Written by

Bureau Reporter

Web link

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

Ethicists and drone experts discuss the morality of drone warfare in the latest episode of the Bureau’s podcast Drone News.

Dr Alex Leveringhaus of Oxford University and Dr Peter Lee, Portsmouth University lecturer of military ethics who teaches at the RAF College Cranwell, spoke to the Bureau about what they see as the key ethical issues of drone warfare.

Listen to the podcast.

In the podcast, Lee challenged the notion of drone operators having a ‘PlayStation mentality’, emphasising the professionalism of drone operators. He explained how he thinks drones ‘can be, if used properly, the most ethical means of delivering air power’ because they can drop smaller munitions and loiter for long periods, meaning ‘they can spend hours and days ensuring that they have got the right target’.

However, Lee added that drones could increase the risk of lethal force being used. ‘Because there is no aircrew involved, you can see there is a greater political temptation perhaps to want to use [drones] when otherwise there might not be a use of force.’

Previous episode: Noel Sharkey on the unreliability of ‘killer robots’

Leveringhaus said a moral justification for killing in war is ‘the idea that combatants… [are] liable to be killed because they are posing a material threat’ – something lacking in drone war. ‘There is no immediate threat posed to the life of the drone pilot,’ he explained.

He added that he is worried by the vagueness of the test of whether a drone target poses a threat to the US. He said that in his view ‘there needs to be somehow an immediate threat for the use of lethal force to be justified.’

Also in the podcast, the Bureau’s Alice K Ross and Jack Serle discuss these opinions with Chris Cole from Drone Wars UK, an advocacy and research organisation.

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US should gather accurate drone civilian casualty data, says military analyst

Published

April 10, 2014

Written by

Patrick Galey

Web link

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

The US should gather accurate figures of civilians killed in its drone strikes and subject them to Congressional oversight, a leading US military analyst has said.

Dr Larry Lewis, principal research scientist at the Center for Naval Analyses (CNA), a federally funded military research organisation, also called for better training and intelligence analysis in order to minimise the number of non-combatants killed in a report published today.

‘US drone strikes, past and present, should be analysed to identify both levels and root causes of civilian harm,’ Lewis wrote this week in a study published by the CNA. ‘Congress plays a role in shaping and validating US policy through its oversight activities. The issue of civilian casualties is a critical component to consider, as recent history has shown that civilian harm can derail a campaign or undermine US objectives if not handled effectively.’

Related story: UN launches major investigation into civilian drone deaths

Lewis added that civilian deaths in drone strikes were counterproductive to US national security, ‘fuelling threats to the US while simultaneously limiting needed freedom of action and hindering relationships with national partners.’

Last year Lewis analysed classified US military data on drones in Afghanistan in a study on behalf of the military, and found that unmanned aircraft were significantly more deadly to Afghan civilians than manned strikes. In his new report he analyses the available data on civilian casualties in drone strikes in Pakistan.

His call echoes that of a bipartisan bill, announced last week, which would force US President Barack Obama to reveal the number of casualties caused by drone strikes to Congress. The bill received the backing of more than a dozen human rights charities, who said it ‘would give the public and all members of Congress much-needed information’ on lethal drone strikes. However the independent legislative-data-analysis firm GovTrack gives the bill a negligible chance of passing the committee stage.

Last month the United Nations’ special rapporteur on counter-terrorism Ben Emmerson QC said countries that carry out drone strikes had a ‘legal obligation to disclose the results’ of each strike.

‘One could imagine that the US is in the best position to know the approximate number of civilian casualties from its drone campaign’

– Dr Larry Lewis, US military analyst

Since Obama took office in January 2009, there have been at least 397 drone strikes in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia. They have killed at least 2,183 people including 279 civilians according to the Bureau’s estimates.

The US has never published its own data on drone strike casualties but one CIA official described claims that hundreds of civilians had been killed by drones in Pakistan as ‘ludicrous’.

‘One could imagine that the US is in the best position to know the approximate number of civilian casualties from its drone campaign,’ Lewis’ report said. ‘But the US government has not shared this information with others, and quotes from US officials, while pointing to very low numbers, are not sufficient for generating an estimate.’

In his paper, Lewis used the Bureau’s data on drone strikes in Pakistan alongside that of the New America Foundation, a Washington-based think tank that also tracks drone strikes. He also identified some of the potential reasons for the disparity between the rare US estimates of civilian casualties and independent tallies.

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

As well as the logistical difficulty faced by the US in fighting ‘an irregular enemy’ in the form of the Taliban, al Qaeda or affiliated groups, Lewis said drone operators in Pakistan were sometimes unable to assess the damage inflicted by drone strikes ‘especially in situations when the US relies primarily on air surveillance for this assessment.’

In addition, US forces often mistook civilians for enemy combatants, Lewis said.

‘Individuals should not be counted as enemy personnel simply based on proximity to a known target,’ he said. ‘This approach, if employed, is inconsistent with both international law and US military practice in Afghanistan.’

2013 was the first year there were no confirmed civilian deaths in drone strikes in Pakistan since they began there in 2004. Lewis acknowledged the US’s ‘ability to reduce civilian casualties’ but added: ‘There remains room for improvement as drone strikes conducted since 2011 still appear to cause civilian casualties about 8% of the time, though this number decreased sharply for strikes in 2013.’

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Homepage image credit: This Khan/AFP/Getty Images

New bill would force Barack Obama to publish US drone strike casualties

Published

April 5, 2014

Written by

Jack Serle

Web link

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

A bill before the House of Representatives could force Washington to be more transparent about drones (Architect of the Capitol).

A bipartisan Bill that would force President Obama to reveal casualties from covert US drone strikes has been put before the US Congress.

If successful, the bill would require the White House to publish an annual report of casualties from covert US drone strikes.

The reports would include the total number of combatants killed or injured, the total number of civilians killed or injured, and the total number of people killed or injured by drones who are not counted as combatants or civilians.

The Bill would also compel the White House to reveal how it defines combatants and civilians in its covert drone war.

However the annual casualty counts proposed by the bill will not include those killed and injured in drone attacks on conventional battlefields, including Afghanistan and any country where the US officially declares war in the future.

The Bureau revealed the US and UK had launched almost 1,200 drone strikes in Afghanistan between 2008 and 2012. However in March 2013 the Bureau discovered the US military had stopped publishing data on drone use in Afghanistan and had deleted the few months’ data it had previously released from its publicly available records.

‘An annual report will provide a modest, but important, measure of transparency’

– Rep Schiff (D-CA)

The bill says the first report would include casualties from the strikes in covert operations from the six previous years, ensuring all drone strikes under President Obama were included.

There have been at least 397 drone strikes in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia during Obama’s two terms. They have killed at least 2,183 people including 279 civilians according to the Bureau’s estimates, based on open-source information. While there were fewer drone strikes launching during President Bush’s administration – 52 strikes between 2002 and January 2009 – they killed more people on average than the Obama’s strikes. At least 416 people died in Bush era strikes, including 167 civilians.

The bill is co-sponsored by California Democrat Adam Schiff and North Carolina Republican Walter Jones. Schiff said: ‘An annual report will provide a modest, but important, measure of transparency and oversight regarding the use of drones.’

‘Despite our best efforts to ensure to a near-certainty that no civilians will be killed or injured, sometimes strikes do result in civilian casualties. We must be more transparent and accountable, both with ourselves and with the world, and narrow the perception gap between what really happens, and what is reported or assumed.’

Jones said: ‘Our government’s use of drones for targeted killings should be subject to intense scrutiny and oversight.’ He added: ‘I believe this legislation is an important step in that direction,’ he added.

The sponsors are trying to gather bipartisan support for their bill which has been referred to the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and the House Armed Services Committee. The intelligence committee then armed services committee will consider whether to allow the bill to progress to be debated by the House of Representatives.

The independent legislative-data-analysis firm GovTrack gives the bill a negligible chance of passing the committee stage. However the bill has similar language to the Intelligence Authorisation Act and could be offered as an amendment to that bill if it reaches the House.

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

Calls for transparency over drone strikes have grown steadily over the past 18 months. In October 2013 both Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch (HRW) called for greater transparency and accountability after investigating US drone attacks in Pakistan and Yemen.

Fourteen US-based human rights charities, including Reprieve, Amnesty and HRW, released a joint statement supporting the bill, saying the bill ‘would give the public and all members of Congress much-needed information’ about lethal drone strikes.

Steven Hawkins, executive director of Amnesty International USA, said: ‘The White House approach to drone killings has been “trust us,” but that’s untenable.’ The White House must provide its the drone casualty data, he added.

The bill has been put forward less than a month after a UN investigator called on the US to release casualty figures from drone operations.

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

Emmerson has been investigating the use of armed drones by the US, UK and Israel for the UN since January 2013. In that time he has repeatedly called on the US to ‘release its own data on the level of civilian casualties’ caused by drone strikes. He has been critical of the way information about the US drone programme has been controlled, calling it an ‘almost insurmountable obstacle to transparency’.

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

The majority of drone strikes outside conventional battlefields have been carried out by the CIA in Pakistan. Emmerson told a committee of British MPs and Lords last month the CIA is a fundamentally secret organisation that neither confirms nor denies the existence of its operations.

Giving the CIA the drone programme ‘is rather like giving MI6 a fleet of aircraft and telling them to go off and do what they needed to do. It is an unthinkable proposition in this jurisdiction and it was an unwise decision for the United States,’ he said.

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

Published

April 1, 2014

Written by

Alice Ross and Jack Serle

Web link

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

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

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

Strikes hit Yemen at an intensity not seen since July 2013

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

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

Pakistan

March 2014 actions

Total CIA strikes in March: 0

Total killed in strikes in March: 0

All actions 2004 – March 31 2014

Total Obama strikes: 332

Total US strikes since 2004: 383

Total reported killed: 2,296-3,718

Civilians reported killed: 416-957

Children reported killed: 168-202

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Yemen

March 2014 actions

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

All actions 2002 – March 31 2014*

Confirmed US drone strikes: 61-71

Total reported killed: 293-430

Civilians reported killed: 30-74

Children reported killed: 6

Reported injured: 76-187

Possible extra US drone strikes: 92-111

Total reported killed: 311-501

Civilians reported killed: 24-44

Children reported killed: 6-9

Reported injured: 81-114

All other US covert operations: 13-77

Total reported killed: 148-377

Civilians reported killed: 59-88

Children reported killed: 24-26

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Somalia

March 2014 actions

Total reported US operations: 0

All actions 2007 – March 31 2014

US drone strikes: 5-8

Total reported killed: 10-24

Civilians reported killed: 0-1

Children reported killed: 0

Reported injured: 2-3

All other US covert operations: 8-11

Total reported killed: 40-141

Civilians reported killed: 7-47

Children reported killed: 0-2

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

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

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

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

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

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

Naming the Dead

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

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

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

Published

March 25, 2014

Written by

Alice Ross

Web link

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Read the Bureau’s full submission here

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Other topics tackled in the wide-ranging report include:

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

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

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

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

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

The full report is here

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

Published

March 14, 2014

Written by

Bureau Reporter

Web link

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

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

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

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

Listen to the podcast.

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

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

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

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

Published

March 12, 2014

Written by

Jack Serle

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Patterns of civilian casualties

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

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

Related story: UN launches major investigation into civilian drone deaths

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

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

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

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

International consensus

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

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

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

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

Published

March 11, 2014

Written by

Jack Serle

Web link

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Highly influential

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Past directors

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

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

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

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

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

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

Published

March 4, 2014

Written by

Alice Ross and Jack Serle

Web link

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

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

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

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

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

No US operations are reported in Somalia.

Pakistan

February 2014 actions

Total CIA strikes in February: 0

Total killed in strikes in February: 0

All actions 2004 – February 28 2014

Total Obama strikes: 330

Total US strikes since 2004: 381

Total reported killed: 2,412-3,701

Civilians reported killed: 416-951

Children reported killed: 168-200

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Yemen

February 2014 actions

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

All actions 2002 – February 28 2014*

Confirmed US drone strikes: 60-70

Total reported killed: 293-429

Civilians reported killed: 30-75

Children reported killed: 6

Reported injured: 74-185

Possible extra US drone strikes: 88-107

Total reported killed: 305-487

Civilians reported killed: 24-43

Children reported killed: 6-8

Reported injured: 79-112

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Somalia

February 2014 actions

Total reported US operations: 0

All actions 2007 – February 28 2014

US drone strikes: 5-8

Total reported killed: 10-24

Civilians reported killed: 0-1

Children reported killed: 0

Reported injured: 2-3

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

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

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

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

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

Naming the Dead

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

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

Published

March 1, 2014

Written by

Alice Ross

Web link

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This level of transparency is rare.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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