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CIA chief pressed to support annual count of drone casualties

Published

February 5, 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 CIA director and other intelligence chiefs were urged to increase transparency over covert drone operations by members of the House intelligence committee yesterday.

Adam Schiff, a Democratic Party congressman, called on CIA director John Brennan, to support an annual report detailing the number of alleged militants and civilians killed each year. This would enable the administration to ‘correct the record at times where there are misleading claims of civilian casualties’, he added, without providing detailed information to enemies of the US.

Brennan said this was ‘certainly a worthwhile recommendation’, but he refused to explicitly back it, insisted that the decision rested with the administration.

He added: ‘There’s a lot of debate about what is the basis for those determinations [of civilian and combatant casualties], and those numbers, so it’s something again I would defer to the administration on’.

Yesterday he emphasised his past efforts to increase transparency around the secretive campaign: ‘When I was at the White House [where he was Obama’s adviser on counter-terrorism] … I spoke repeatedly publicly about the so-called drones – remotely piloted aircraft – that had become an instrument of war and I spoke about that to the extent that I could.’

Brennan has repeatedly attacked ‘misinformation’ over civilian death tolls from drone strikes but the US administration has consistently refused to publish anything more detailed than lump-sum estimates of deaths. Where the US has published such estimates they are significantly below all independent estimates, including those assembled by the Bureau, Washington think-tank the New America Foundation, and security blog the Long War Journal.

Related story – Incoming CIA boss says drone strikes are ‘last resort’

Drones and targeted killing were a recurring theme as the heads of five US intelligence agencies faced members of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence as part of a wide-ranging hearing over international threats to the US. The committee is one of two Congressional bodies charged with overseeing the activities of the intelligence community.

Schiff’s Democrat Party colleague Jan Schakowsky said that public attempts to debate the use of drones were ‘thwarted by a lack of transparency’.

She added: ‘This year both Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have conducted serious research and raised very legitimate concerns about the consequences of the drone programme on US security yet the government has not responded.’

The hearing opened with committee chair Mike Roberts criticising Obama’s drone policy guidelines, introduced in May 2013, as an ‘utter and complete failure’. He claimed they were ‘today, right now, endangering the lives of Americans at home and our military overseas’.

The guidelines included a restriction on targeting when civilian casualties were a possibility, and an insistence that lethal action should be a last resort, taken only when capture was not possible.

A Bureau analysis of the six months following the introduction of the guidelines found that in Yemen, the number of incidents that killed civilians had actually risen.

Schakowsky asked a series of questions of Clapper and Brennan about the controversial practice of signature strikes, in which unidentified individuals are targeted by drones based on suspicious behaviour.

Clapper conceded that the US’ use of signature strikes could pose a threat to the nation if other forces developed drones of their own.

Schakowsky asked: ‘Do you believe that the signature strike model, if adopted by other countries that are developing an armed drone programme, can be a threat to the US?’

Clapper responded: ‘It could be – but I would have to comment, to the extent that is possible here, on the great care that is exercised by the US. And so I would hope in being very precise about which targets we strike, so I would hope as other countries acquire similar capabilities that they follow the model that we have for the care and precision that we exercise.’

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

Published

February 3, 2014

Written by

Alice Ross and Jack Serle

Web link

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

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

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

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

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

Pakistan

January 2014 actions

Total CIA strikes in January: 0

Total killed in strikes in January: 0

All actions 2004 – January 31 2014

Total Obama strikes: 330

Total US strikes since 2004: 381

Total reported killed: 2,537-3,646

Civilians reported killed: 416-951

Children reported killed: 168-200

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Yemen

January 2014 actions

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

All actions 2002 – January 31 2014*

Confirmed US drone strikes: 59-69

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

Possible extra US drone strikes: 87-106

Total reported killed: 306-486

Civilians reported killed: 24-47

Children reported killed: 6-8

Reported injured: 79-110

All other US covert operations: 12-77Total reported killed: 144-377Civilians reported killed: 59-88Children reported killed: 24-26Reported injured: 22-115Click here for the full Yemen data.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Somalia

January 2014 actions

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

All actions 2007 – January 31 2014

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Naming the Dead

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

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

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

Published

January 23, 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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Fahim Qureshi, injured in the first Obama strike

(Vocativ/YouTube).

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

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

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

Lethal strikes

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

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

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

Obama has sharply escalated the drone campaign in Pakistan.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Opaque operations

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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A changing drone campaign: US covert actions in 2013

Published

January 6, 2014

Written by

Alice Ross and Jack Serle

Web link

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

2013 in review

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Pakistan

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

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

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

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

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

Related story – Pakistan drone strikes visualised

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

All CIA strikes in Pakistan 2013

Total strikes: 27

Total reported killed: 112-193

Civilians reported killed: 0-4

Children reported killed: 0-1

Total reported injured: 41-81

Pakistan: December 2013 actions

Total CIA strikes in December: 1

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

All Pakistan actions 2004 – 2013

Total Obama strikes: 330

Total US strikes since 2004: 381

Total reported killed: 2,537-3,646

Civilians reported killed: 416-951

Children reported killed: 168-200

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

Yemen

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

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

Related story – Yemen strikes visualised

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

All Yemen actions in 2013

Total confirmed US operations: 16

Total confirmed US drone strikes: 16

Possible additional US operations: 15-16

Of which possible additional US drone strikes: 15-16

Total reported killed: 61-167

Total civilians killed: 11-30Children killed: 4

Yemen: December 2013 actions

Confirmed US drone strikes: 1

Further reported/possible US strike events: 3

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

All Yemen actions 2002 – 2013*

Total confirmed US operations: 71-81

Total confirmed US drone strikes: 59-69

Possible additional US operations: 142-167

Of which possible additional US drone strikes: 83-102

Total reported killed: 431-1,279

Total civilians killed: 83-205

Children killed: 30-40Click here for the full Yemen data.

Somalia

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

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

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

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

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

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

All Somalia actions in 2013

Total US operations: 2

Total US drone strikes: 1

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

Children reported killed: 0

Somalia December 2013 actions

Total reported US operations: 0

All Somalia actions 2007 – 2013

Total US operations: 12-25

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

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

Subscribe to the Covert Drone War newsletter, and follow @aliceross_ and @jackserle on Twitter.

The Bureau talks to Jeremy Scahill about Dirty Wars and drones

Published

December 6, 2013

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Published

December 5, 2013

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Subscribe to the drones newsletter. Follow @jackserle on Twitter.

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

Published

December 3, 2013

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

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

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

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

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

Pakistan

November 2013 actions

Total CIA strikes in November: 3

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

All actions 2004 – November 30 2013

Total Obama strikes: 329

Total US strikes since 2004: 380

Total reported killed: 2,534-3,642

Civilians reported killed: 416-951

Children reported killed: 168-200

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Yemen

November 2013 actions

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

All actions 2002 – November 30 2013*

Confirmed US drone strikes: 55-65

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

Possible extra US drone strikes: 83-102

Total reported killed: 302-481

Civilians reported killed: 23-48

Children reported killed: 6-9

Reported injured: 81-108

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Somalia

November 2013 actions

Total reported US operations: 0

All actions 2007 – November 30 2013

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

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

No US operations were reported in Somalia.

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

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

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

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

Naming the Dead

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

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

Follow Alice Ross and Jack Serle on Twitter.

New analysis questions constraint on US drone strikes

Published

November 26, 2013

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.

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

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

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

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

– President Obama

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Get the data: Obama 2013 Pakistan drone strikes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Against the prevailing trend

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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The Bureau launches drones podcast

Published

November 15, 2013

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.

The Bureau is launching a podcast that will provide regular comment and interviews on the covert drone war.

We will be producing a podcast every fortnight as part of our extensive coverage of the US’s secret drone campaign in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia.

Each package will include a report from Alice Ross, who leads the Bureau’s investigation into drone warfare, with analysis on recent drone-related news and events. There will also be interviews.

In the first of these podcasts Alice Ross talks about the Bureau’s investigations into the covert drone war, including the Naming the Dead project.

Jack Serle, who runs the Bureau’s extensive drones databases, discusses how the Bureau goes about assembling its data.

The Bureau has been covering the use of drones in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia for more than two years. Data collected by the team forms a public record of every reported drone strike in these regions along with the numbers of reported casualties of such attacks.

The drones team was awarded the Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism this year, with the head of the judges John Pilger praising the project as ‘pioneering’ and ‘truly extraordinary’.

Related story: Get the data – Drone wars

In September the Bureau launched Naming the Dead, in an attempt to increase the public understanding of how drones are being used in the remote tribal areas of Pakistan, by naming people who have been killed in strikes in this area.

All the Bureau’s work on the covert drone war can be viewed on the Covert Drone War project site.

You can subscribe to the Bureau’s podcast through iTunes. Or you can stream it or download from here.

To keep up-to-date with our work subscribe to our drones investigation mailing list or follow us on Twitter at @tbij, @aliceross and @jackserle.

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

Published

November 2, 2013

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.

Relatives hold photographs of victims of a January drone strike (Letta Tayler/Human Rights Watch).

A single strike kills up to five in Pakistan, at the end of a month of sharp criticism of the US drone war.

There are no reported drone attacks in Yemen for the second month running.

The US military attacks Somalia twice, the first strikes in almost two years.

The Bureau’s Naming the Dead project identifies more than 600 people killed by drones.

Pakistan

October 2013 actions

Total CIA strikes in October: 1

Total killed in strikes in October: 0-5, of whom 0 were reportedly civilians

All actions 2004 – October 31 2013

Total Obama strikes: 326

Total US strikes since 2004: 377

Total reported killed: 2,523-3,621

Civilians reported killed: 416-948

Children reported killed: 168-200

Total reported injured: 1,123-1,543For the Bureau’s full Pakistan databases click here.

There was only one drone attack in October, breaking 31 days of no strikes. The attack in the early morning on October 31 reportedly killed up to five people.

But while there was only one drone attack, the media was full of reports about the drone war in Pakistan.

In October, Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif met with President Obama, and asked him to end drone strikes. Two UN reports criticising the secret campaign in Yemen as well as Pakistan were presented to the UN in New York. And the family of 65-year old midwife Bibi Mamana travelled to Washington to speak to lawmakers. The event was the first time Congress had heard from relatives of drone strike victims.

In the first report to the UN, Special Rapporteur, Christof Heyns called for greater transparency around the use of armed drones. He also warned against ‘wide and permissive interpretations’ of international law to justify lethal strikes. The second report by Ben Emmerson called on the US to ‘release its own data on the level of civilian casualties’ and also criticised the lack of transparency around the secret drone programme.

Key members of the UN endorsed these calls for greater transparency. Pakistan, Russia and China were joined by the European Union, Switzerland, and key US ally the UK in calling for more openness. The US defended itself before the UN, saying drone strikes are ‘necessary, legal and just‘.

Also this month, international rights group Amnesty International published a field investigation into drone strikes in Pakistan. The report also stressed the need for more transparency around drone attacks, particularly in relation to the victims killed. The report said the lack of disclosure means that victims cannot access justice or compensation.

Pakistan’s Ministry of Defence released summary statistics on the US drone war in the country’s tribal agencies. According to the new Pakistan strike data 67 civilians and 2,160 militants have been killed in 317 drone strikes from 2008 onwards. The Bureau’s estimates show at least 308 civilians have been killed in 365 strikes since 2008.

This was the fourth time the Pakistan government has released drone strike data. In April the Ministry of Foreign Affairs told Emmerson at least 400 civilians have been killed by drones since 2004. Emmerson told the New York Times he would be writing to the Pakistan government to clarify the disparity. In May the Peshawar High Court published summary statistics of data collected by the tribal administration saying 896 civilians had been killed by drone attacks between 2007 and 2012. In July the Bureau published Pakistan’s secret internal assessment of 75 drone strikes from between 2006 and 2009. The document showed that 147 of 746 people were civilians.

Yemen

October 2013 actions

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

All actions 2002 – October 31 2013*

Confirmed US drone strikes: 54-64

Total reported killed: 268-397Civilians reported killed: 21-58Children reported killed: 5Reported injured: 65-147

Possible extra US drone strikes: 82-101

Total reported killed: 289-467

Civilians reported killed: 23-48

Children reported killed: 6-9

Reported injured: 83-109

All other US covert operations: 12-77Total reported killed: 148-380Civilians reported killed: 60-88Children reported killed: 24-26Reported injured: 22-111Click here for the full Yemen data.

For the second month there were no reported strikes in Yemen.

Reports by two international human rights organisations scrutinised US attacks in the country. Geneva-based Alkarama and New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) analysed 11 US operations between them, covering the period from 2009 to 2013. Both groups looked into five of the same strikes independently of each other. Alkarama looked at five more strikes that were not covered by HRW. And the US organisation scrutinised a sixth strike not investigated by Alkarama.

Alkarama researchers spoke with relatives, witnesses and survivors to build a comprehensive analysis of the events around each strike. The report said it was unclear if strikes in Yemen are carried out under ‘the rules of war, or law enforcement’. The US ‘plays on the confusion between’ the two, it added. Alkarama concluded that the strikes are extrajudicial executions, regardless of which set of international laws are applied.

HRW researchers analysed six strikes in detail, scrutinising evidence from the scenes and speaking with witnesses, survivors and Yemeni government officials. They concluded that two of the strikes violated the laws of war because they did not distinguish between civilians and combatants, or used indiscriminate weapons. The four other strikes were considered possibly unlawful because they caused disproportionate civilian casualties, or attacked an unlawful military target. However, the report said further information would be needed to draw more concrete conclusions.

Somalia

October 2013 actions

Total reported US operations: 2

All actions 2007 – October 31 2013

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

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

The US military launched two attacks on al Shabaab in southern Somalia this month. They are the first confirmed US operations for 20 months. Anonymous US officials said both were carried out by the US Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC).

The first JSOC raid on October 5 was a widely reported amphibious assault. US Navy Seals attacked a reportedly well fortified house on the coast in Baraawe, a town around 120km (75 miles) south of the capital Mogadishu. It was a bid to snatch Abdulkadir Mohamed Abdulkadir (aka Ikrima), a senior militant and leader of attacks on Kenyans in 2011 and 2012. The Seals met fiercer resistance than expected and withdrew without their target.

The second operation on October 28 was a JSOC drone strike. It targeted and killed Ibrahim Ali Abdi (aka Anta Anta), a senior al Shabaab commander and bomb maker. Abdi’s ‘friend’ Abu Ali also died in the strike, which hit a Suzuki car travelling from the town of Jillib to Baarawe. Somali Interior Minister Abdikarim Hussein Guled said Somali security services provided the US with intelligence for the attack.

Also in October, the UN-backed African Union peacekeepers reportedly began an offensive against al Shabaab positions. Kenyan forces led the fresh assault with airstrikes in what Reuters reported was retaliation for the bloody Westgate mall terrorist attack in Kenya.

Naming the Dead

The Bureau’s Naming the Dead project has named 613 people killed in drone strikes in Pakistan. Naming the Dead is a new project from the Bureau that aims to identify people killed by US drones in Pakistan.

This month the Bureau published the names of 20 previously unidentified people collected during a recent field investigation. On March 12 2009 (Ob6) multiple missiles hit a house in Kurram province, killing up to 26 people and injuring scores more. A local politician told the Bureau the dead were Taliban although he said some of them were children. The Bureau has discovered the ages of only three of the dead, a child and two adults.

Bureau researchers in Pakistan have also discovered the names of two children killed in the first strike in Pakistan, on June 17 2004 (B1). Amnesty International independently published different names for the two children. Amnesty also reported the names of 18 civilians killed in a 2012 follow-up strike (Ob281). Eight different names had already been independently reported by legal charity Reprieve. This highlights the challenge of reconciling different reports from drone strike witnesses and victims’ relatives. Amnesty also this month reported two named Taliban, killed in a May 2012 strike (Ob270).

Follow Alice Ross and Jack Serle on Twitter.

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

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

Published

October 26, 2013

Written by

Chris Woods

Web link

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

UN members call for greater transparency (Image: Chris Woods)

Key members of the United Nations – including some of Washington’s closest allies – broke with a decade of tradition on Friday when they endorsed calls for greater transparency over drone civilian deaths.

The European Union, the United Kingdom and Switzerland were joined by the Russian Federation and China in calling for greater openness from those carrying out drone strikes. Pakistan was particularly strident, insisting that there was ‘no implicit or explicit consent’ for US drone strikes on its territory, which it insists have a ‘disastrous humanitarian impact.’ In previous debates states had refused to support similar calls for greater transparency.

The nations were responding to a pair of reports delivered to a busy session of the General Assembly in New York by special rapporteurs Ben Emmerson QC and Professor Christof Heyns. The studies, announced a year ago in London, are part of an ongoing UN investigation into the legal and ethical problems posed by the use of armed drones – especially in non-conventional conflicts.

The United States, one of only three nations which presently uses armed drones, also indicated that it will continue to co-operate with the UN’s inquiry. So too did the UK. Only Israel – which has suspended its involvement with the UN’s Human Rights Council – has so far failed to engage.

Heyns, as UN special rapporteur for extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, stressed that existing international law should be sufficient to provide an adequate framework for managing strikes: ‘The drone should follow the law, not the law follow the drone,’ he told member nations.

The issue was not the law but how drones were sometimes used, Heyns said: ‘Armed drones are not illegal, but as lethal weapons they may be easily abused and lead to unlawful loss of life, if used inappropriately.

‘States must be transparent about the development, acquisition and use of armed drones. They must publicly disclose the legal basis for the use of drones, operational responsibility, criteria for targeting, impact (including civilian casualties), and information about alleged violations, investigations and prosecutions,’ his report notes.

Brandon Bryrant, former USAF pilot (photo: Chris Woods)

The South African professor of law also expressed concern that an increased reliance on drone strikes by nations risked a decreased emphasis on diplomacy, and on law and order operations.

Heyns once again raised the issue of possible war crimes in relation to the deliberate targeting of civilians with drones, saying there was an ‘obligation’ on member states to investigate such instances.

That appeared to be a reference to the now well-reported US practice of deliberately targeting first responders at the scene of an original drone attack. Earlier this week, Amnesty International became the latest organisation to produce evidence of so-called ‘double-tap’ strikes in Pakistan. Findings of similar attacks have been reported by the Bureau, by legal charityReprieve and by Stanford and New York university law schools.

Interim study

In his own report to the UN, British barrister Ben Emmerson –the rapporteur for counter terrorism and human rights -repeatedly emphasised what he described as the obligation of states to properly investigate credible reports of civilian deaths.

‘The single greatest obstacle to an evaluation of the civilian impact of drone strikes is lack of transparency, he said. ‘In any case in which civilians have been, or appear to have been killed, the State responsible is under an obligation to conduct a prompt, independent and impartial fact-finding inquiry and to provide a detailed public explanation.’ It was that call for transparency which other member states then endorsed.

Emmerson was also keen to stress that his study is interim. A team of legal investigators based in London has also been examining 33 problematic drone strikes carried out by the United States, Israel and the UK, which raise significant concerns regarding legality, civilian deaths or possible war crimes. As Emmerson told a later press conference: ‘The really difficult part of the process is this next stage,’ when the three countries will be asked to comment in detail on individual strikes. That final report is expected in 2014.

Responding in the General Assembly to Heyns’ report and comments, the US was careful not to imply that it accepted any definition of its own drone strikes as ‘extrajudicial killings’, actions it condemned outright. However, the US surprised some observers by indicating that it intends to continue co-operation with Emmerson’s ongoing investigation.

Constitutional rights

The two rapporteurs also spoke at a panel discussion at the UN’s Manhattan building. They were joined by a former US drone operator, along with academics and human rights investigators. A short film, prepared by Forensic Architects, showed in Emmerson’s words ‘an indication of the potential to mount investigations’ into problematic strikes. ‘With enough effort and political will it can be done,’ he insisted. ‘I refuse to give up trying to obtain that co-operation.’

In a late addition to the panel, former US Air Force drone operator Brandon Bryant also endorsed calls for drone strike transparency and accountability. He said that his own misgivings about some US actions came about after he was ‘party to the violation of the constitutional rights of a US citizen.’ This, he said, was despite his having sworn an oath to uphold the same Constitution when he joined the military.

Friday’s UN presentations came at the end of a week of reports covering aspects of the ongoing secret US drone war. After the weekend release of a major study into Yemen drone strikes by Swiss NGO Alkarama, both Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch followed with their own damning reports into recent US drone axctivity in Yemen and Pakistan. In a testy response a State Department official insisted that US civilian casualties from drones were ‘much lower,’ but refused to provide either estimates or evidence to back her claims.

On Wednesday, Pakistan’s Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif also told President Obama on a visit to Washington DC that drone strikes on his country had to stop. The impact of that call was muted by a leaked story in the Washington Post later that day, insinuating that Pakistan may still give its tacit consent to US drone strikes. In contrast Emmerson’s UN report states that whilst there is ‘strong evidence’ that Pakistan previously allowed US strikes on its territory, any such consent had been removed by April 2012 at the latest.

He also insisted that any side-deals cut between the US and Pakistan’s military or intelligence services had no validity:‘The democratically elected Government is the body responsible for Pakistani international relations and the sole entity able to express the will of the State in its international affairs,’ Emmerson writes.

Although Friday’s UN presentations appeared to make a reasonable impact, this was not the first time that the General Assembly had debated the issue of drone strikes. In 2010 former UN special rapporteur Philip Alston also presented a report to the UN, and some of his recommendations are being repeated by Emmerson and Heyns.

There is now more acknowledgement of the need for debate and transparency, the current rapporteurs believe.

Heyns said he believed that nations are now ready to ‘take stock’ of the use of armed drones, particularly given the potential for their proliferation. And noting that the European Union and others have now explicitly lined up behind calls for transparency, Ben Emmerson said that there was a far deeper public awareness of the impact of armed drones.

He also noted that alongside Washington’s co-operation with the investigation to date, CIA director John Brennan has indicated he would like to see US civilian drone casualty data published. ‘I am optimistic, and refuse to limit my expectations,’ Emmerson told assembled journalists.

Chris Woods is a freelance investigative reporter whose work with the Bureau on US covert drone strikes recently won the prestigious Martha Gellhorn Prize. His book on the pivotal role of armed drones in the War on Terror, Sudden Justice, is published next year.

Human rights groups say civilian drone deaths violate international law

Published

October 22, 2013

Written by

Rachel Oldroyd

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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.

Rafeequl Rehman and his children showing a picture of Mamana Bibi, killed by a drone in Pakistan. (Image: Amnesty International)

Leading human rights groups Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have raised serious concerns about the legality of drone strikes in Pakistan and Yemen.

The two organisations have conducted separate investigations into specific strikes to highlight how civilians are being killed. Such killings, they claim, are a violation of international law.

The groups say the US must investigate all drone attacks that kill civilians and those responsible for such ‘unlawful killings’ should be disciplined or prosecuted.

The reports follow calls last week by two UN experts for more disclosure of information about drone deaths.

A report by Christof Heyns, the special rapporteur on extrajudicial killings, called for nations that operate armed drones to be more transparent and ‘publicly disclose’ how they use them.

This was followed by the findings of Ben Emmerson, a British barrister and UN special rapporteur on counter-terrorism, who urged the US to ‘release its own data on the level of civilian casualties’ caused by drone strikes.

Amnesty’s report focuses on drone strikes in Pakistan. Human Rights Watch has concentrated on airstrikes, including those conducted by drones, in Yemen.

The Amnesty report, Will I be next? US drone strikes in Pakistan, names a group of 18 labourers, including a 14-year-old boy, killed in a drone attack on Pakistan in July 2012. This is the first time that all victims of the strike have been identified.

The group of men had been gathered for their evening meal when the first strike hit. In July field research by the Bureau found that this strike was then followed by another attack that killed rescuers trying to retrieve bodies. This was confirmed by Amnesty’s research.

The report states: ‘Amnesty International has serious concerns that this attack violated the prohibition of the arbitrary deprivation of life and may constitute war crimes or extrajudicial executions.’

Over nine months Amnesty researchers reviewed 45 incidents from the past 18 months in North Waziristan, the area hit most frequently by recent CIA-operated drone strikes. As well as the attack on the group of labourers the report also points to another drone strike in October 2012 which killed a 68-year-old grandmother who was looking after her grandchildren. The death of Mamana Bibi in this attack had already been highlighted by the Bureau’s Naming the Dead project, which records all named casualties of US drone strikes in Pakistan. ‘Bibi’ means ‘grandmother’ in Urdu and Pashtun, and much of the earlier reporting on this case refers to her as ‘Bibi Mamana’.

Related story: Bibi Mamana

Amnesty researchers spoke to Pakistani intelligence sources who said that a local Taliban fighter had used a satellite phone on a road close to where Mamana Bibi was killed about 10 minutes before the strike. The sources said they were not aware of the reason for the old woman’s killing but assumed it was related to the Taliban fighter’s proximity to her.

However Amnesty found no other evidence of militants in the area at the time of the attack, and the site of the drone strike was nearly 1,000ft away from the nearest road.

Mustafa Qadri, who led the research said: ‘We cannot find any justification for these killings. There are genuine threats to the USA and its allies in the region, and drone strikes may be lawful in some circumstances. But it is hard to believe that a group of labourers, or an elderly woman surrounded by her grandchildren, were endangering anyone at all, let alone posing an imminent threat to the United States.’

The Human Rights Watch report, Between a Drone and Al-Qaeda, looks at attacks in Yemen and similarly highlights incidents where civilians were killed. It looks at six strikes that together killed 82 people, including at least 57 civilians.

The strikes investigated included a a drone-assisted airstrike on a passenger van which killed 12 civilians. Human Rights Watch spoke to 23-year-old Ahmad al-Sabooli, whose father, mother and 10-year-old sister was killed.

A demand for transparencyThe reports stress the need for more transparency around drone attacks, particularly in relation to the victims killed.

Amnesty’s call for transparency focuses on the difficulties faced by the families of drone victims in getting compensation. The report argues that the lack of disclosure about drone strikes means that victims are able to access neither justice nor recompense.

‘Secrecy surrounding the drones program gives the US administration a license to kill beyond the reach of the courts or basic standards of international law… What hope for redress can there be for victims of the drone attacks and their families when the USA won’t even acknowledge its responsibility for particular strikes?’ the report asks.

More than a year after the death of the grandmother Mamana Bibi, for example, her family has not received any acknowledgement that she was killed by a US drone, let alone any compensation, says Amnesty.

The human rights group also expresses concern that the Pakistan government is failing to protect and enforce the rights of victims of drone strikes. It says: ‘Pakistan has a duty to independently and impartially investigate all drone strikes in the country and ensure access to justice and reparation for victims of violations.’

A question of names

The Amnesty report highlights some of the problems faced by researchers reporting on casualties of drone strikes in Pakistan.

Amnesty International names 18 labourers whom its field researchers found were killed in a drone strike in Pakistan on July 6 2012. Previous research by legal campaign group Reprieve had already named eight of the 18 people reported to have died in this strike.

However the two organisations have been independently given different names by people they spoke to in Pakistan. Only the 14-year-old identified as Saleh Khan is named by both Reprieve and Amnesty.

Furthermore independent research by the Bureau found that those killed included alleged militants and ‘local tribesmen’, although it did not find specific claims of civilian casualties.

Amnesty’s Qadri told the Bureau: ‘Our research is based on eye witness testimony. The people we spoke to knew the people who were killed.

‘We have done the best we can. The authorities both in Pakistan and the US need to now show us what they know.’

The Bureau’s Naming the Dead project, launched last month, aims to record the names of casualties of the CIA drone campaign in Pakistan in an attempt to bring more transparency to this under-reported conflict. The data is regularly updated, even when there is confusion, or more than one name provided.

The Bureau’s data suggests at least 2,500 people have died in these attacks including more than 400 civilians, and yet only one in five of the casualties can so far be identified.

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

Published

October 18, 2013

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.

Emmerson: Drones operate in an ‘accountability vacuum’ (Photo: United Nations)

A report by a UN expert urges the US to ‘release its own data on the level of civilian casualties’ caused by drone strikes and attacks the lack of transparency surrounding CIA and US special forces drone operations.

Ben Emmerson, a British barrister and UN special rapporteur on counter-terrorism, has released the second of two major UN reports in a week to examine the use of drones both in conflict zones and in covert settings.

In the earlier report, Christof Heyns also called for increased transparency around the use of drones. In the new report Emmerson emphasises that this is a vital step to ensuring accountability and redress for the civilian victims of drone strikes.

‘The Special Rapporteur does not accept that considerations of national security justify withholding statistical and basic methodological data’– Ben Emmerson

Emmerson says: ‘The single greatest obstacle to an evaluation of the civilian impact of drone strikes is lack of transparency, which makes it extremely difficult to assess claims of precision targeting objectively.’

Related story – UN expert calls for increased transparency over armed drones

The report says the involvement of the CIA in drone operations has created an ‘almost insurmountable obstacle to transparency’, and he is also critical of the ‘almost invariably classified’ nature of special forces drone operations in Yemen and Somalia. ‘The Special Rapporteur does not accept that considerations of national security justify withholding statistical and basic methodological data.’

Drones currently operate in an ‘accountability vacuum’, Emmerson says, adding that there is a legal obligation on states to launch a full investigation into claims from ‘any plausible source’ of civilian casualties – including those made by non-governmental organisations. The results of such investigations should be made public, ‘subject to redactions on grounds of national security’, he adds.

He notes that the current director of the CIA John Brennan has called for the release of data relating to civilian casualties. The US government is in the process of moving its drone operations from the CIA to the Department of Defense to improve transparency, he says, adding that he understands this is due to be completed ‘by the end of 2014’.

The report highlights ‘differences of view’ over who should be considered a civilian in situations where non-uniformed fighters live and operate among the civilian population. He points to ‘considerable uncertainty’ over the criteria used to identify individuals as legitimate targets and calls for further clarification.

Emmerson examines US, British and Israeli drone operations in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, Iraq, Libya and Gaza.

‘Only in the most exceptional of circumstances would it be permissible under international human rights law for killing to be the sole or primary objective of an operation’– Ben Emmerson

The Pakistani government released data to Emmerson showing at least 400 civilian casualties – a number close to the Bureau’s lower-end estimate – and a further 200 were ‘regarded as probable non-combatants’. Emmerson wrote ‘those figures were likely to be an underestimate’ according to local officials. He told MSNBC there is no reason ‘on the face of it’ to question this data as it echoed independent estimates.

For Yemen drone operations, the report cites the Bureau’s estimate of 21-58 civilian casualties as the highest such figures. But the report does not provide estimates for drone operations in Afghanistan, Libya, Iraq, Somalia or Gaza, pointing to a lack of official figures specifically covering civilians killed in drone strikes.

Kat Craig, Legal Director of the human rights charity Reprieve, which represents civilian victims of drone strikes, said: ‘This report highlights the US’ failure to reveal any information whatsoever about their shadowy, covert drone programme. Hiding the reality of civilian deaths is not only morally abhorrent but an affront to the sort of transparency that should be the hallmark of any democratic government. Some basic accountability is the very least people in Pakistan and Yemen should expect from the CIA as it rains down Hellfire missiles on their homes and villages.’

Related story – Pakistan government says ‘at least 400’ civilians killed in drone strikes

Emmerson also addresses the legality of drone strikes outside of military conflict areas, saying that where no official conflict exists lethal action will ‘rarely be lawful… because only in the most exceptional of circumstances would it be permissible under international human rights law for killing to be the sole or primary objective of an operation’.

The US claims it can legally carry out such lethal operations – but Emmerson says this ‘gives rise to a number of issues on which there is either no clear international consensus, or United States policy appears to challenge established norms’. The US has claimed that it carries out drone strikes in countries including Pakistan and Yemen in legitimate self-defence against imminent threats and that it is in a state of continuing war against al Qaeda and associated groups.

The report recommends that a clear international legal consensus is reached and Emmerson is currently consulting states with a view to ‘clarifying their position on these questions’.

He writes that he has identified 33 strikes that appear to have led to civilian casualties and ‘undoubtedly raise issues of accountability and transparency’. The full findings on these strikes will be published at a later stage.

A White House spokeswoman, Laura Magnuson, said: ‘We are aware that this report has been released and are reviewing it carefully.’

The reports by Heyns and Emmerson will be presented to the UN General Assembly in New York next week. Also next week on October 22 Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch will publish reports on drone operations in Pakistan and Yemen respectively.

UN expert calls for increased transparency over armed drones

Published

October 17, 2013

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.

Heyns warns about a ‘lack of consensus’ over the international law governing drone strikes (Photo: United Nations)

A UN expert has called for nations that operate armed drones to be more transparent and ‘publicly disclose’ how they use them.

In a report prepared for the UN, Christof Heyns, the special rapporteur on extrajudicial killings, points to international secrecy surrounding who owns armed drones, how they are operated, and who they are killing.

He also warns against ‘wide and permissive interpretations’ of international law to justify lethal attacks using the capabilities offered by armed drones.

The report is the first of two major papers on drone strikes due to be presented to the UN this month. The second, by Ben Emmerson, special rapporteur on counter-terrorism, will be published next week.

Heyns highlights ‘concern that there is uncertainty about which States are developing and acquiring armed drones’ in addition to how nations use them.

He says nations have an obligation to publish details such as their targeting criteria, civilian casualties and investigations – and drone operations should not be run by institutions that are prevented from publishing such details. The CIA, which runs drone operations in Pakistan, operates under tight classification controls.

He points out that there is a ‘lack of consensus’ around the legal framework for their use. But international laws contain provisions that should regulate the use of armed drones, he adds.

The report examines the thorniest issues in the US’s covert drone campaign – although it does not refer directly to the US. Heyns explores civilian harm, ‘double-tap’ strikes, sovereignty and the consent of other nations, accountability, and the pillars of the US’s legal justification for using armed drones in Yemen, Pakistan and Somalia, where it is not on a formal war footing.

He cautions that drone technology lowers the bar for lethal action, making it ‘easier for States to deploy deadly and targeted force on the territories of other States’.

Hina Shamsi of the American Civil Liberties Union said: ‘Once again, a top UN rights official has confirmed that the international legal framework restricting the use of lethal force is clear and doesn’t need to change, but that the ease with which lethal drones can be used threatens that framework and the right to life. Violations of law and the right to life are real under the US targeted killing program, and the precedent it is setting for other countries such as China, Russia, or Iran is a very dangerous one, which the U.S. may well come to regret.’

She added: ‘Although top US officials insist publicly that the targeted killing program is lawful, effective, and wise, the government refuses to provide the meaningful transparency Mr. Heyns’ report requires, which would allow the American public and the international community to test those claims. In response to an on-going ACLU lawsuit seeking basic information about the use of lethal drones, the government has refused to disclose even the number and identity of who it has killed, on what legal basis, and why.’

Kat Craig of legal charity Reprieve said: ‘This report rightly states that the US’ secretive drone war is a danger not only to innocent civilians on the ground but also to international security as a whole. The CIA’s campaign must be brought out of the shadows: we need to see real accountability for the hundreds of civilians who have been killed – and justice for their relatives.’

Heyns calls for strong protections for civilians, writing: ‘If there is any doubt whether a person is a civilian, the person must be considered a civilian’.

The report also addresses ‘double-tap’ strikes – a controversial tactic first exposed by the Bureau and the Sunday Times in which drones attack a site, and then return to attack again as people are carrying out rescue work. Heyns told a meeting in Geneva last year: ’Reference should be made to a study earlier this year by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism… If civilian ‘rescuers’ are indeed being intentionally targeted, there is no doubt about the law: those strikes are a war crime.’

In the new report, Heyns says attacks on rescuers could be legal if they target civilians who are ‘directly participating in hostilities’ at the time of the strike. But where the strike is carried out in order to target the wounded it ‘constitutes a war crime’.

The US case for dronesThe US has justified drone strikes using two main arguments, which were repeated by President Obama in a major speech in May: that they are part of a war against al Qaeda and its ‘affiliates’, and that they are an act of ‘self-defence’.

In order for a state of war – in this case a non-international armed conflict – to exist, Heyns argues, a threshold of ‘protracted armed violence’ at a certain level of intensity must be met. He adds: ‘It is to be questioned whether the various terrorist groups that call themselves Al-Qaida or associate themselves with Al-Qaida today possess the kind of integrated command structure that would justify considering them a single party involved in a global non-international armed conflict.’

Senior US officials including Brennan and attorney general Eric Holder have claimed that drone strikes are an act of self-defence in the face of an ‘imminent threat of violent attack’.

But a governmental memo on lethal targeting obtained by NBC News showed officials at the Department of Justice embracing a ‘broader concept’ of what might constitute an ‘imminent threat’, with no requirement for ‘clear evidence that a specific attack on U.S. persons and interests will take place in the immediate future’.

Heyns adopts a narrower definition of what constitutes legal lethal action in self-defence. ‘It may not be done pre-emptively to prevent a threat from arising in the future,’ he writes. ‘The necessity of the self-defence, in the well-known phrase, must be instant, overwhelming and leaving no choice of means, no moment of deliberation.’

The US has long claimed that its drone operations have the consent of the countries in which they operate. Yemen’s President Hadi has openly acknowledged his government’s support for US drone operations in his country, while Pakistan’s former President Musharraf has admitted to giving his private approval for some early drone strikes – and in several cases the government even claimed such attacks were Pakistani military operations.

However relations between the US and Pakistan have grown increasingly rocky and senior politicians have claimed the US no longer has consent for strikes – although rumours persist that the strikes operate with the support of Pakistan’s intelligence services.

President Sharif, who entered power in May, announced after his first cabinet meeting: ‘The policy of protesting against drone strikes for public consumption, while working behind the scenes to make them happen, is not on.’

‘Only the State’s highest government authorities’ can offer consent for strikes, writes Heyns: ‘It is not sufficient to obtain consent from… particular agencies or departments of the Government’. Such consent doesn’t have to be made public, although he recommends that nations should acknowledge such consent ‘openly and clearly’.

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

Published

October 1, 2013

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.

Multiple drone strikes hit Pakistan, but no confirmed US attacks in Yemen

(Senior Airman Larry E. Reid Jr/US Air Force).

CIA drones strike Pakistan four times in September.

Drone attacks pause for a month in Yemen.

No strikes in Somalia. Al Shabaab violence grabs the world’s attention.

Pakistan

September 2013 actions

Total CIA strikes in September: 4

Total killed in strikes in September: 16-24, of whom 0 were reportedly civilians

All actions 2004 – September 30 2013

Total Obama strikes: 325

Total US strikes since 2004: 376

Total reported killed: 2,525-3,613

Civilians reported killed: 407-926

Children reported killed: 168-200

Total reported injured: 1,117-1,505For the Bureau’s full Pakistan databases click here.

The CIA launched four attacks this month – the second most attacks in one month so far this year. At least 16 people were killed in these attacks – none of them reportedly a civilian. This was the ninth consecutive month without a confirmed civilian casualty.

Six killed in the first strike of the month on September 6 were named (Ob322). Among them was Mullah Sangeen Zadran – an alleged commander in the Haqqani Network and reportedly the Afghan Taliban’s ‘shadow governor’ in Afghanistan’s Paktika province.

Analyst Saifullah Mahsud said the US had ‘scored really big’ by killing Zadran. Though he was second-in-command to Haqqani patriarch Sirajuddin Haqqani, he ‘was running the show, practically’.

The final two strikes came less than 24 hours apart. The first, on September 29, hit two days after Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif told the UN General Assembly drone strikes violate his country’s borders. He added that the civilian casualties from the strikes are ‘detrimental to our resolve and efforts to eliminate extremism and terrorism from Pakistan’.

The leading political parties demonstrated that resolve on September 9 by endorsing Sharif’s plan to start peace talks with the Pakistan Taliban, the TTP. But a series of bloody attacks in the following weeks may threaten that unanimity. A week after the announcement Major General Sanaullah Khan, Pakistan Army commander in Swat, was killed by a roadside bomb. The TTP claimed responsibility.

On September 22 an horrific suicide bombing killed more than 80 people. They were worshiping in a church in Peshawar when two bombers detonated inside the building. An armed group, Jundallah, claimed the attack as revenge for US drone strikes. The TTP, an alliance of armed groups, disowned the attack three days later. It declared Jundallah was not a member group.

The church attack was a significant blow to Sharif’s hopes for talks with the Taliban. According to US news wire McClatchy, Sharif said: ‘We had proposed peace talks with the Taliban in good faith but . . . because of this attack, the government is unable to move forward with what it planned and envisaged.’

On September 27 an Ansarul Mujahideen attack killed as many as 20 people on a bus in Peshawar. The group emerged earlier this year with the stated aim of avenging civilians killed in drone strikes, The News reported. And Peshawar was hit for a third time on September 29 when a TTP car bomb detonated in one of the city’s markets. The blast killed as many as 42 men women and children, 17 reportedly from one family.

Yemen

September 2013 actions

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

All actions 2002 – September 30 2013*

Confirmed US drone strikes: 54-64

Total reported killed: 268-397Civilians reported killed: 21-58Children reported killed: 5Reported injured: 65-147

Possible extra US drone strikes: 82-101

Total reported killed: 289-467

Civilians reported killed: 23-48

Children reported killed: 6-9

Reported injured: 83-109

All other US covert operations: 12-77Total reported killed: 148-377Civilians reported killed: 60-88Children reported killed: 25-26Reported injured: 22-111Click here for the full Yemen data.

There were no confirmed US drone strikes reported in September, although a single source reported an attack on a car as a drone strike on September 7.

The pause in attacks came after a barrage of at least six strikes in August. These strikes followed the report of a potential major al Qaeda attack. The strikes reportedly killed more than 22 people, six were claimed to be civilians of whom three were children.

Eleven of the dead have been named – two of them children. Two others featured on Yemen’s list of top 25 most wanted militants and a third was reportedly a leading al Qaeda member and a leader of a tribe violently at odds with Sanaa.

Al Qaeda has reportedly continued attacking Yemeni security forces this month. On September 21, three coordinated attacks on military and security positions in southern Yemen left as many as 56 people dead. A single attack on an army base, in which 38 soldiers were killed, was the army’s biggest loss in one assault since 2012, Associated Press reported. In the following week two senior officers were reportedly assassinated. And on September 30 armed men stormed an army base in southeastern Mukalla.

Somalia

September 2013 actions

Total reported US operations: 0

All actions 2007 – September 30 2013

US drone strikes: 3-9Total reported killed: 7-27Civilians reported killed: 0-15Children reported killed: 0Reported injured: 2-24

All other US covert operations: 7-14Total reported killed: 47-143Civilians reported killed: 7-42Children reported killed: 1-3Reported injured: 12-20Click here for the Bureau’s full data on Somalia.

Once again there were no reported US strikes in Somalia. However the brutal attack on a Kenyan shopping mall put the militant group al Shabaab into the spotlight.

A team of militants stormed the Westgate shopping complex in Nairobi armed with rifles and grenades. They moved from shop to shop and floor to floor killing some and taking others hostage. The Kenyan security forces encircled the mall and took control of the area the following day. As many as 61 civilians, six security officers and five militants were reportedly killed.

Also this month, it emerged the US has had to move its African drone base from a sprawling military complex at the international airport in Djibouti’s capital. The Washington Post revealed several drones had crashed during landing and take off from what was reportedly the busiest drone base outside Afghanistan. It was reported that the Djiboutian government asked the US to move its drones to an isolated airbase away from a civilian population.

Naming The Dead

The Bureau launched a new initiative this month: Naming the Dead. The aim is to record the names of those killed in nine years of CIA drone strikes in Pakistan. The work revealed that of the minimum 2,500 people reportedly killed in drone strikes in Pakistan, only one in five have been named. Just two women have been identified. The Bureau has published those 568 names in a filterable online database.

Of those names 295 are civilians. However little more than the name is known. The Bureau has managed to piece together biographical information for just a handful of them, including adolescent Tariq Aziz. There is more known about the top tier of militant commanders killed by drones, like Pakistan Taliban commander Baitullah Mehsud. The Bureau will continue to publish names and biographies of the dead in the coming months.

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

Published

September 2, 2013

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.

Secretary of State John Kerry meets President Asif Ali Zardari in Pakistan.(State Department photo/Public Domain).

One strike in Pakistan ends 34-day stretch without an attack.

Yemen sees more strikes in a month than any time since March 2012.

Medical charity Médecins Sans Frontières pulls out of Somalia.

Pakistan

August 2013 actions

Total CIA strikes in August: 1

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

All actions 2004 – August 31 2013

Total Obama strikes: 321

Total US strikes since 2004: 372

Total reported killed: 2,508-3,588

Civilians reported killed: 407-926

Children reported killed: 168-200

Total reported injured: 1,112-1,494For the Bureau’s full Pakistan databases click here.

A Bureau investigation appears to confirm the CIA briefly revived its controversial tactic of deliberately targeting rescuers. The Bureau first exposed these so-called ‘double-tap‘ strikes in February 2012. The new study focussed mainly on strikes around a single village in early summer of 2012, aimed at one of the last remaining senior al Qaeda figures, Yahya al Libi.

US Secretary of State John Kerry started the month with a visit to Islamabad in which he said drone strikes in Pakistan would end ‘very, very soon’. This statement was quickly taken back by the Department of State. A spokesman said: ‘In no way would we ever deprive ourselves of a tool to fight a threat if it arises.’

On August 31 CIA drones killed four alleged militants from the Islamic Movement of Turkmenistan. Locals said they were foreigners affiliated with militant commander Hafiz Gul Bahadur. It was the only strike in the month.

The lull in strikes this month in Pakistan came as an international security alert centred on Yemen led to a reported shift in focus from Pakistan’s tribal areas to the Middle East. Yemeni officials claimed a Pakistani bomb-maker had been killed in the sudden surge of Yemen strikes after crossing into the country.

Also in August, the Pakistan government said there had been a tacit understanding between Washington and Islamabad over drone strikes, not a written agreement – although it did not say when the understanding had started, or whether it was still in place. This came in response to questions in the National Assembly. The Pakistan government also came under pressure in the Punjab assembly, which adopted a resolution condemning drone strikes.

Yemen

August 2013 actions

Confirmed US drone strikes: 6 Further reported/possible US strike events: 2 Total reported killed in US operations: 22-43Civilians reported killed in US strikes: 6

All actions 2002 – August 31 2013*

Confirmed US drone strikes: 54-64

Total reported killed: 268-393Civilians reported killed: 21-58Children reported killed: 5Reported injured: 65-147

Possible extra US drone strikes: 82-101

Total reported killed: 289-467

Civilians reported killed: 23-48

Children reported killed: 6-9

Reported injured: 83-109

All other US covert operations: 12-77Total reported killed: 148-377Civilians reported killed: 60-88Children reported killed: 25-26Reported injured: 22-111Click here for the full Yemen data.

A terror alert centred on Yemen gripped the US in August leading to six confirmed drone strikes. The US closed 21 diplomatic missions in the Middle East and east Africa in a move that one counter-terrorism expert called ‘crazy pants‘.

August saw the highest number of confirmed drone strikes since March 2012 when the Sanaa-based government, with considerable US air support, drove al Qaeda out of its southern and central provinces.

Of the 22-43 people killed, three were said to be senior militants. Alleged commanders of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) Saleh al Tays al Waeli and Saleh Ali Guti (aka Saleh Jouti) reportedly died on August 6, while Qaid Ahmad Nasser al Dhahab, described as AQAP’s ‘spiritual leader’ was killed in a night-time precision attack that was likely to be a drone strike on August 30.

Six civilians were reportedly killed, three children among them: two were adolescents, Hussain, 16, and Hassan, 17. The name and age of the third child is not known.

The unusual intensity of the drone strikes appears to support reports suggesting that restrictive new targeting rules, introduced at the time of President Obama’s major speech on drones in May, were relaxed in the face of the ‘elevated threat‘. A senior US official told the New York Times the list of people who could be targeted was increased: ‘Before, we couldn’t necessarily go after a driver for the organization; it’d have to be an operations director. Now that driver becomes fair game because he’s providing direct support to the plot.’

The exact details of the plot – believed to be the work of AQAP – are unknown. However President Hadi told Yemeni police cadets that it involved two huge car bombs, one intended for an oil terminal and the other a target in the capital.

Somalia

August 2013 actions

Total reported US operations: 0

All actions 2007 – August 31 2013

US drone strikes: 3-9Total reported killed: 7-27Civilians reported killed: 0-15Children reported killed: 0Reported injured: 2-24

All other US covert operations: 7-14Total reported killed: 47-143Civilians reported killed: 7-42Children reported killed: 1-3Reported injured: 12-20Click here for the Bureau’s full data on Somalia.

There were again no recorded US attacks in Somalia this month.

Médecins Sans Frontières announced it was ending all operations in the country after over 20 years of continuous work.

The medical charity said it was pulling out because of ‘extreme attacks on its staff in an environment where armed groups and civilian leaders increasingly support, tolerate, or condone the killing, assaulting, and abducting of humanitarian aid workers.’ Sixteen MSF workers have been killed in Somalia since 1991 and just last month two kidnapped MSF staff were released after 21 months in captivity.

It also emerged that six major British financial institutions are evaluating their investments with BT following allegations by legal charity Reprieve that the telecoms giant had supplied communications infrastructure that was used to target drone strikes in Somalia and Yemen. BT has the $23m (£15m) contract to provide telecommunications between RAF Croughton and Camp Lemonnier, the US base in Djibouti from which drone strikes in the countries are flown.

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

Published

August 2, 2013

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.

A US Air Force Predator on patrol (US Air Force Photo/Lt Col Leslie Pratt).

The CIA killed more people in Pakistan per strike than at any point since July 2012.

US drones return to Yemen‘s skies and al Qaeda confirms the death of its deputy leader.

UN report finds indications of increased US and UK involvement in Somalia.

Pakistan

July 2013 actions

Total CIA strikes in July: 3

Total killed in strikes in July: 23-29, of whom 0 were reportedly civilians

All actions 2004 – July 31 2013

Total Obama strikes: 320

Total US strikes since 2004: 371

Total reported killed: 2,514-3,584

Civilians reported killed: 410-928

Children reported killed: 164-195

Total reported injured: 1,112-1,493For the Bureau’s full Pakistan databases click here.

July was the busiest month since January for the CIA’s drones with three strikes and at least 23 dead, eight of them identified by name. This was the highest ratio of people killed in each strike in Pakistan since July 2012 when when four operations reportedly killed at least 38 people.

The first strike on July 3 (Ob318) skewed the kill ratio – it was the bloodiest attack in nine months with 16-18 people reported dead. This bucked a trend identified by the Bureau for low-casualty strikes: there has been a decline in the number of reported killed in each strike since the peak in 2009.

The death toll was unusually high: US drones have reportedly killed 16 or more people in a strike only three times in the past two years, most recently on October 11 2012.

Three weeks after the strike, anonymous US officials said Washington had cut the rate of attacks and tightened its targeting policy as a concession to the Pakistan army. The unnamed sources told the Associated Press the July 3 strike was based on ‘hugely detailed’ intelligence ‘laid out in a 32-page PowerPoint presentation’ that apparently indicated the targets were Haqqani Network militants gathering to plan an attack on the Ariana Hotel in Kabul.

On July 28 a further strike killed at least five people. Three were reportedly al Qaeda training experts. An unnamed Taliban source claimed the three had trained the team that attacked a Pakistani prison on July 29. At least 250 militants escaped in the assault, including several senior operatives. Reuters named the three alleged trainers as: Abu Rashid, from Saudi Arabia; Muhammed Ilyas Kuwaiti, from Kuwait; and Muhammed Sajid Yamani, from Yemen.

Also in July, the Bureau released an internal Pakistani record of drone strike casualties showing officials found CIA drone strikes have killed a significant number of civilians. Of 746 people listed as killed in the drone strikes outlined in the document, at least 147 of the dead are clearly stated to be civilian victims, 94 of those are said to be children.

Yemen

July 2013 actions

Confirmed US drone strikes: 1 Further reported/possible US strike events: 1 Total reported killed in US operations: 4-12Civilians reported killed in US strikes: 0

All actions 2002 – July 31 2013*

Confirmed US drone strikes: 47-57

Total reported killed: 243-358

Civilians reported killed: 15-52

Children reported killed: 2

Reported injured: 62-144

Possible extra US drone strikes: 81-100

Total reported killed: 286-460

Civilians reported killed: 23-48

Children reported killed: 6-9

Reported injured: 81-106

All other US covert operations: 12-77Total reported killed: 148-377Civilians reported killed: 60-88Children reported killed: 25-26Reported injured: 22-111Click here for the full Yemen data.

Reported US drones killed at least seven people in Yemen this month in the first air strikes since a suspected US drone killed a 10-year-old boy and as many as six others.

July’s strikes came as President Hadi was visiting the US and days before a scheduled meeting at the White House on August 1 to discuss counter-terrorism policies and political reform.

In July AQAP’s chief theologian Ibrahim al Robaish confirmed the group’s deputy commander Said al Shehri‘s death by video eulogy. Al Shehri has been reported killed on several occasions since co-founding AQAP in January 2009.

Al Robaish revealed al Shehri was killed by a drone while talking on his phone in Saada province. However it was not clear exactly when al Shehri died. The only strike in Saada in 2012 recorded by the Bureau is YEM121, which killed at least three people on October 28.

A US court held preliminary hearings in a lawsuit brought by relatives of US citizens killed in drone strikes abroad, including Anwar and Abdulrahman al Awlaki. District court judge Rosemary Collyer asked government lawyers who were attempting to get the case dismissed, ‘How broadly are you asserting the right of the United States to target an American citizen?’ She added that she was ‘troubled‘ by the US administration’s view it can kill US citizens abroad without judicial oversight. ‘The executive is not an effective check on the executive,’ she added.

And the UK Department for Business Innovation and Skills (BIS) has reportedly opened an investigation into UK telecoms company BT, though BIS refused to confirm or deny this to the Bureau. The British legal charity Reprieve has brought a complaint against BT over a contract to service and maintain a fibre-optic link between the US drone base at Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti and a US base in England. Reprieve believes the link is used as part of US drone operations in Yemen and Somalia.

Somalia

July 2013 actions

Total reported US operations: 0

All actions 2007 – July 31 2013

US drone strikes: 3-9

Total reported killed: 7-27

Civilians reported killed: 0-15

Children reported killed: 0

Reported injured: 2-24

All other US covert operations: 7-14

Total reported killed: 47-143

Civilians reported killed: 7-42

Children reported killed: 1-3

Reported injured: 12-20Click here for the Bureau’s full data on Somalia.

For the eleventh consecutive month there were no reported drone strikes in Somalia. A UN report found that al Shabaab retains control of ‘most of southern and central Somalia’ and is the country’s main threat to security.

According to the report, al Shabaab has steered clear of direct conflict, sticking to asymmetrical fighting. The group’s supplies and fighting force of 5,000 have been largely preserved. Al Shabaab attacks have risen from the end of 2012 into 2013, despite losing the key southern port of Kismayo in September 2012 to African Union forces. This month militants struck in the capital once again, killing a Turkish official and a Somali in a bomb attack on the Turkish consulate.

Al Shabaab continued presence is despite a reported increase in Western support for Somali counter-terrorism and counter-insurgency forces. ‘Multiple diplomatic and military sources’ told the UN monitors both the US and UK ‘are increasingly involved in directly supporting intelligence services in “Somaliland”, “Puntland” and Mogadishu.’ Some of this support is in violation of the UN arms embargo on the country, the investigators said.

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Is Congressional oversight tough enough on drones?

Published

August 1, 2013

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.

Dianne Feinstein (centre) and members of the Senate intelligence committee grill John Brennan (Photo: SenRockefeller via Flickr)

In the Bureau’s latest investigation into the tactic of ‘double-tap’ strikes on rescuers, our field researcher’s findings appear to directly contradict an account of a strike attributed to staffers of the Congressional bodies charged with overseeing CIA drone strikes.

The House and Senate intelligence committees are responsible for scrutinising the highly classified CIA drone programme. Details of CIA drone strikes are withheld from all other members of Congress.

Dianne Feinstein, chair of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) has said her committee devotes ‘significant time and attention to the drone programme’ and since 2010 has met each month to ‘review strike records and question every aspect of the program including legality, effectiveness, precision, foreign policy implications and the care taken to minimise noncombatant casualties.’

By law, the President is required to ensure that the committee is kept “fully and currently informed” of intelligence activities.’Senate intelligence committee

But committee members have complained about being denied information – and a source with knowledge of the committees’ functioning told the Bureau: ‘It’s a serious question as to how much any elected official could possibly understand about what’s going on inside’ the intelligence agencies.

In 2012 the Los Angeles Times published what it said was a detailed account of these meetings – based on anonymous briefings – outlining how committee members and aides from the House and Senate committees go to the CIA headquarters each month to watch video footage of recent drone strikes.

But new findings from the Bureau’s field research differ sharply from the account of what was reportedly shown to the committees on one occasion.

The LA Times reported that anonymous aides described seeing footage of a strike that took place on June 4 2012. The attack represented a major success for the agency, killing Yahya al-Libi, al Qaeda’s second-in-command. Aides reported seeing footage showing al-Libi alone being killed by a missile.

But Bureau field research and multiple credible reports tell a different story, in which the day’s events appear to be significantly more complex. The BBC, CNN and other international news outlets were among those reporting that the missile that killed al-Libi was the final part of a sequence of attacks that killed between 14 and 18 people. Sources including the Washington Post reported that after an initial strike, drones returned to attack those carrying out rescue work.

Related story – Bureau investigation finds fresh evidence of CIA drone strikes on rescuers

If the report of what was shown to the oversight committees is accurate – and if the Bureau and other news agencies are correct – then it appears that committee members were only shown video covering the final part of the incident, giving a misleading impression that concealed over a dozen deaths.

The SSCI’s website states: ‘By law, the President is required to ensure that the committee is kept “fully and currently informed” of intelligence activities.’

CIA spokesman Edward Price told the Bureau: ‘The CIA takes its commitment to Congressional oversight with the utmost seriousness. The Agency provides accurate and timely information consistent with our obligation to the oversight Committees. Any accusation alleging otherwise is baseless.’

Neither the House nor the Senate committee would comment, despite repeated requests from the Bureau. But Feinstein’s office did point the Bureau towards a five-month-old statement by the senator on oversight of the drone campaign, made shortly after the public nomination hearings for CIA director John Brennan, of which drones were a major focus.

The statement briefly outlined the review process for drone strikes. But it added the Obama administration had refused to provide the committee with memos outlining the legal justifications for drone strikes, despite repeated requests from senior committee members.

I’ve been on this Committee for more than 10 years, and with the exception of Mr. Panetta, I feel I’ve been jerked around by every CIA Director’Senator Barbara Mikulski

‘I have sent three letters [between 2010 and 2013]… requesting these opinions,’ Feinstein said. ‘Last week, senators on the committee were finally allowed to review two OLC [Office of Legal Counsel] opinions on the legal authority to strike US citizens. We have reiterated our request for all nine OLC opinions – and any other relevant documents – in order to fully evaluate the executive branch’s legal reasoning, and to broaden access to the opinions to appropriate members of the committee staff.’

The challenges of oversight

The Bureau has previously questioned the effectiveness of the intelligence committees’ oversight of drone strikes. In February 2013. Feinstein used opening remarks at John Brennan’s nomination hearings to claim her committee had done its ‘utmost to confirm’ low civilian casualties in CIA drone strikes.

The Bureau contacted four fellow independent organisations which had carried out field investigations looking at civilian casualties in Pakistan. Each had published evidence of civilian casualties – yet none had ever been contacted by committee members or their staff in response to their findings, raising concerns the committee is too dependent on the intelligence community’s assessments.

Related story – No evidence Congress does ‘utmost’ to follow up drone civilian death claims

Current committee members have complained about being blocked from robust scrutiny. At Brennan’s nomination hearings, Senator Barbara Mikulski said: ‘I’ve been on this Committee for more than 10 years, and with the exception of Mr. Panetta, I feel I’ve been jerked around by every CIA Director. I’ve either been misled, misrepresented, had to pull information out – often at the most minimal kind of way… And quite frankly, during those questions, they were evaded; they were distorted, et cetera.’

Such evasions are not limited to CIA directors. In June the director of national intelligence, James Clapper, admitted he had given the SSCI a ‘clearly erroneous’ response earlier in the year when he told an open hearing that the National Security Agency (NSA) did not ‘wittingly’ collect data on millions of Americans. The public retraction came only after former intelligence contractor Edward Snowden leaked documents indicating that such mass surveillance programmes were in operation.

If you wanted to find out what’s really going on, you had to say, “Cut the crap. If you lie to me, I will have your head on a plate”Washington source

Even where members can access information, Feinstein has said the committee can be blocked from acting on it. Following Brennan’s hearing, Feinstein told political blog The Hill: ‘Right now it is very hard [to oversee the drone programme] because it is regarded as a covert activity, so when you see something that is wrong and you ask to be able to address it, you are told no.’

The present scrutiny system evolved in the wake of the Watergate affair. A series of controversial intelligence practices emerged, including attempted assassinations of overseas political leaders and illegal intelligence-gathering on US citizens.

Amid a growing sense that the intelligence services had been allowed to run amok, a series of inquiries – the most well-known of which was the Church Commission, headed by Senator Frank Church – combed through the activities of the CIA, FBI and NSA, identifying multiple abuses and overreachings. The Senate and House intelligence committees were established to provide the kind of scrutiny that might prevent such abuses happening again.

A source with knowledge of the intelligence committees under previous administrations pointed the Bureau to the significant challenges of overseeing operations that are by their very nature secret.

They pointed out that the committee has the power to request access to any information it requires. But this requires members or staffers to know such information exists. ‘It’s a serious question as to how much any elected official could possibly understand about what’s going on inside,’ the source said. Politicians had to ask themselves: ‘Do I know enough to ask the right questions, and how can I count on really being given the full picture?,’ they added.

‘If you wanted to find out what’s really going on, you had to get really tough – you had to talk to people and say, cut the crap. If you lie to me, I will have your head on a plate,’ the source told the Bureau.

Regarding the current committee’s oversight of the drone programme, they said, ‘Did somebody really do a tough job there and put the necessary pressure on people to get a result?’

While elected members might struggle to find the time to delve into complex matters of national security, the close links between committee staffers and the intelligence community can further hamper scrutiny, the source added.

‘You can’t get a job on one of these committees if you don’t have high-level security clearance – so you can’t get a job without being part of the system. This automatically puts you inside a circle of people who all can talk to each other, but in the knowledge that if they step out of line when the job’s finished, they will be finished.

‘There’s a huge risk for any staff member who crosses people inside the system,’ they said.

‘This is the problem of the netherworld and its interaction with democratic institutions… It really is a very difficult problem and the solution that Frank Church came up with wasn’t enough,’ said the source.

US officials attack ‘far from authoritative’ leaked drone report

Published

July 25, 2013

Written by

Chris Woods

Web link

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

A Pakistani soldier in FATA, where there have been 370 CIA drone strikes. (Photo: Chris Woods)

US officials are claiming that an internal Pakistani assessment of civilian deaths from US drone strikes – obtained and published in full by the Bureau – is ‘far from authoritative.’

The secret document was obtained by the Bureau from three independent sources. It provides details of more than 70 CIA drone strikes between 2006 and 2009, and was compiled by civilian officials throughout Pakistan’s tribal areas.

They noted that at least 147 of 746 people listed as killed in CIA drone strikes between 2006 and 2009 were said to be civilians. That number could be as high as 220 civilian dead, the leaked report indicates.

Related article: Exclusive – Leaked Pakistani report confirms high civilian death toll in CIA drone

Now unnamed US officials are questioning the contents of the leaked report. A written statement has been provided to news organisations including the Bureau.

At least 147 of 746 people listed as killed in CIA drone strikes between 2006 and 2009 were said to be civilians. That number could be as high as 220 civilian dead, the leaked report indicates.’

The statement notes that the leaked document was based on ‘indirect input from a loose network of Pakistani government and tribal contacts’. As such, an official indicated, ‘the result is a report whose findings are far from authoritative’.

The same statement added: ‘The notion that the United States has undertaken operations in Pakistan that resulted in the deaths of hundreds of innocent Pakistanis is ludicrous. There is no credible information whatsoever to substantiate the report’s distorted figures.’

Voice of America also reported receiving a written statement from US officials. Its version cited one as saying that the leaked document is not credible since it relies ‘in part on erroneous media reporting’.

Pakistan estimates

There seems little gap between Pakistan’s official position on civilian casualties, and the contents of the leaked report obtained by the Bureau.

Earlier this year Ben Emmerson QC, the UN’s special rapporteur on counter-terrorism, was officially informed by Pakistan Ministry of Foreign Affairs that CIA drones had so far killed at least 2,200 people in the country, including at least 400 civilians.

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

And reporting on leaked US intelligence documents obtained by news agency McClatchy suggests that US records privately indicate civilian deaths where publicly the administration denies them.

Those documents, which have not yet been published, are said to cover two periods: 2006 to 2008, and January 2010 to September 2011, and indicate that what US officials say publicly about drone strikes does not always match intelligence reports.

The notion that the United States has undertaken operations in Pakistan that resulted in the deaths of hundreds of innocent Pakistanis is ludicrous.’

US official

Pakistan’s government has so far refused to confirm the authenticity of the latest leaked document obtained by the Bureau – though it is not contesting the report’s claims of high civilian deaths.

‘I am not in a position to authenticate the veracity of this report, but the facts that are being revealed are something which is not new,’ Foreign Ministry spokesman Aizaz Ahmed Choudhry told Voice of America. ‘ We have always said that drone strikes cause civilian casualties.’

Lawyer Shahzad Akbar of legal charity Reprieve has brought a number of legal cases in Pakistan and Europe trying to force greater clarity on the issue of civilian deaths. He told the Bureau he found it troubling that the US appears to be claiming that only it can accurately assess civilian deaths in Pakistan.

‘How is it possible for the US to determine who has been killed, when they often do not know to start with who they are targeting?’ Akbar emailed from Islamabad.

‘Drone surveillance alone cannot determine who is militant and who is not.’

Related article: Get the Data – The Pakistan government’s secret document

‘Poor US intelligence’

In a fresh development, a retired military figure once responsible for security in Waziristan now says that historically, poor US practice may have contributed to higher non-combatant casualties.

Brigadier Mahmood Shah claimed to Voice of America that CIA drone strikes in the early days of the campaign were based on poor US ground intelligence:

‘They [the US] gave us 28 places that here are militants, then we had full recce [reconnaissance] of the area and we visited the places and we found that 27 out of 28 were incorrect, and one was correct,’ Shah told VoA.

‘So this was the amount of accuracy and if they had the permission to shoot at that time, which we never thought would be possible, you can imagine how many people, civilian people that would have killed.’

The Bureau presently estimates that 410-928 civilians are among 2,509-3,576 people killed in CIA drone strikes in Pakistan since 2004. This is based on a two-year analysis of news reports, court documents, field investigations, leaked intelligence papers and other credible sources.

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

Published

July 1, 2013

Written by

Chris Woods 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.

In May, President Obama admitted for the first time US drones have caused civilian casualties in the covert drone war (Image: Peter Souza/White House).

Bureau data suggests the CIA is killing fewer people in each strike in Pakistan.

Lack of official transparency means it remains unclear who is carrying out strikes in Yemen.

No reports of US operations in Somalia but al Shabaab continues to launch attacks.

Pakistan

June 2013 actions

Total CIA strikes in June: 1

Total killed in US strikes in June: 7-9, of whom 0 were reportedly civilians

All actions 2004 – June 30 2013

Total Obama strikes: 318

Total US strikes since 2004: 370

Total reported killed: 2,548-3,549

Civilians reported killed: 411-890

Children reported killed: 168-197

Total reported injured: 1,177-1,480For the Bureau’s full Pakistan databases click here.

A single CIA drone strike hit Pakistan in June. The attack, on June 7, killed seven including Mutaqi (aka Bahadar Khan), described by some sources as a ‘key Pakistan Taliban commander’.

The attack came two days after new prime minister Nawaz Sharif used his inaugural address to demand an end to US drone strikes. After the attack, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs summoned deputy US ambassador Richard Hoagland to protest.

Tensions in the region continue to grow after the killing of Pakistan Taliban (TTP) deputy leader Wali Ur Rehman in a drone attack in May hardened the stance of the militant group. Rehman’s death dashed hopes of peace talks between the militant group and Pakistan authorities in Islamabad. The TTP has since claimed that a spate of bloody attacks were in retaliation for Rehman’s death, including the murder of ten climbers and their guide in the mountainous north of the country.

While peace negotiations have faltered in Pakistan, across the border the US is trying to negotiate peace talks with the Afghan Taliban. The militant group opened its political office in Qatar – a move that provoked a visceral response from the Afghan government.

Six-monthly trendsMuch has been written about the steep decline in the number of US drone strikes in Pakistan: strikes are now at their lowest level since early 2008. The number of reported civilian deaths is also at an all-time low, a trend first high-lighted by the Bureau in 2012.

The average number of people being killed in each drone strike has fallen sharply too, an analysis of the Bureau’s data shows. An average of four people now die in each attack – just a third of the rate in the first six months of 2010.

Research by the Bureau and others indicates that some of the highest casualties in the US drone war occur when the CIA carries out ‘signature strikes’ – attacks on groups of men judged to be behaving in a suspicious manner.

The rate CIA drones kill people per strike has continued to fall since the first half of 2009.

The smaller death tolls seen in recent months suggest the CIA may be limiting its use of the controversial tactic.

The Bureau showed its analysis in the graph above to law professor Rosa Brooks who recently testified before a Senate committee on the constitutional and counterterrorism implications of the US drone wars. She said the White House’s use of drones has come under pressure and the drop in the casualty rate is ‘almost certainly an effort to respond to the criticisms’. However, she added, this is ‘the optimistic theory’. ‘The less optimistic theory would simply be they have started running out of targets.’

The first half of 2013 began with a flurry of strikes in January before the CIA scaled back operations. This coincided with a move by the White House to more transparency about the drone programme. In February new CIA director John Brennan discussed the Agency’s targeted killing programme with the US Senate during his confirmation hearing. And in May President Obama for the first time acknowledged US drone strikes have killed civilians, in a major foreign policy speech.

The past six months have been bookended with the death of two significant militant leaders. Maulvi Nazir, one of the most senior commanders of the so-called ‘Good Taliban’, was killed in January. And Wali Ur Rehman, deputy leader of the Pakistan Taliban (TTP) was killed in May.

In February a leak to NBC provided a summary of the secret legal justification that allows the US to kill its own citizens in drone strikes. In April another leak to the McClatchy news agency was reported as showing the that US is not clear who it has been killing in Pakistan. According to the leaked secret documents many killed by drones were merely classified as ‘unknown‘.

Yemen

June 2013 actions

Confirmed US drone strikes: 0

Further reported/possible US strike events: 2

Total reported killed in US operations: 0-15

Civilians reported killed in US strikes: 0-1

All actions 2002 – June 30 2013*

Confirmed US drone strikes: 46-56

Total reported killed: 240-349

Civilians reported killed: 14-49

Children reported killed: 2

Reported injured: 62-144

Possible extra US drone strikes: 80-99

Total reported killed: 284-454

Civilians reported killed: 25-50

Children reported killed: 9-11

Reported injured: 78-101

All other US covert operations: 12-77

Total reported killed: 148-377

Civilians reported killed: 60-88

Children reported killed: 25-26

Reported injured: 22-111Click here for the full Yemen data.

A 10-year-old boy reportedly died in a suspected US drone strike in June, alongside up to six alleged al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) militants. The boy, Abdulaziz, was the younger brother of alleged AQAP commander Hassan al-Saleh Huraydan – described as a key figure in enabling the movement of money and fighters from Saudi Arabia to Yemen. They were killed, reportedly along with Saudi nationals, in a vehicle as they travelled through the northern province of al Jawf on June 9.

The strike was the second of the month. The first hit Abyan province on June 1, killing alleged senior AQAP militant Awadh Ali Lakra and a second alleged militant, Lawar.

There was strong evidence to suggest both were drone strikes. Yemen Air Force commander Rashid al Janad said he was ‘unaware of any air strikes that have been launched’ by Yemeni planes. And June’s second attack targeted a moving vehicle which is potentially beyond the Yemen Air Force’s capability. However the Bureau could not confirm US involvement – or the use of drones – in either.

Six-monthly trendsThe covert drone war has been openly discussed by senior figures in the US administration. So too has President Obama’s wish to become more transparent about the drone programme – an effort to ‘push back against a lot of these allegations that are not true‘. And Brennan hinted at giving the Pentagon control of drone strikes outside Pakistan during his Senate hearing. Some suggest this would make the programme more transparent because unlike CIA strikes, Pentagon drone strikes can be publicly acknowledged by the government.

Moving the programme to military control is not a guarantee of more transparency. Earlier this year the US military significantly reduced its openness about its use of drones in Afghanistan, reversing an earlier decision to regularly publish data about the use of drones. It had originally agreed to declassify the data following months of discussions with the Bureau, but reclassified the data, claiming attention had ‘disproportionately focused’ on drones.

In Yemen the Pentagon has also run a targeted killing programme for four years or more, and does not publish details of these operations.

So far this year the Bureau has recorded four confirmed US strikes on Yemen. However it is not clear who carried out up to 12 other reported strikes. In the first half of 2012 this pattern was more pronounced – the Bureau recorded at least 21 confirmed US drone strikes, but cannot confirm US involvement in 42 more reported attacks.

US involvement cannot be confirmed in the majority of reported drone strikes.

The Yemen government has claimed its airforce carried out many of the ‘other’ attacks. But the Yemen Air Force is incapable of flying missions at night, let alone carrying out precision strikes such as many of those reported in Yemen.

At least 183 people died in these unconfirmed drone attacks in the first half of 2012 – more than double the dead from confirmed US operations. And at least 28 people have died in possible drone strikes so far in 2013, double those killed in confirmed US attacks.

Journalists have struggled at times to investigate reported drone strikes, particularly in 2012 when neither government nor AQAP forces would allow journalists into areas under al Qaeda’s control. Retrospective investigations have uncovered evidence of US involvement in strikes, and discovered previously unreported civilian casualties.

This year investigators from human rights charities HOOD and al Karama and, independently, journalists from a Swedish radio programme visited the site of a January strike. They found fragments of Hellfire missiles, confirming it was a US attack. And they discovered the Yemeni government had acknowledged the deaths of two civilians in the strike, a university student and a teacher. This is despite anonymous government sources previously naming all the dead as al Qaeda militants.

More than half of this year’s reported strikes took place in January, before an 85-day pause while Yemen’s numerous tribes convened for the start of reconciliation talks in the capital. As this conference continued the drones returned in April killing at least four people in Wessab. A week later journalist and activist Farea al Muslimi, who was born in Wessab, testified before the US Congress about the effect of drones on Yemen and its people.

Somalia

June 2013 actions

Total reported US operations: 0

All actions 2007 – June 30 2013

US drone strikes: 3-9

Total reported killed: 7-27

Civilians reported killed: 0-15

Children reported killed: 0

Reported injured: 2-24

All other US covert operations: 7-14

Total reported killed: 47-143

Civilians reported killed: 7-42

Children reported killed: 1-3

Reported injured: 12-20Click here for the Bureau’s full data on Somalia.

Once again there were no US drone strikes reported in Somalia in June – the tenth consecutive month with no reported US operations in the country. However al Shabaab continues to threaten Somali security. The militant group once again successfully penetrated the heightened security area around Mogadishu airport to attack the UN Development Programme offices on June 19. As many as 22 people were killed in the assault and ensuing 90-minute gun battle.

Al Shabaab militants were driven from Kismayo late last year by a combination of Kenyan soldiers and local militia. Yet the government in Mogadishu has failed to exert sufficient influence on the southern port, and fighting between competing clans and militia on June 7 and 8 left 31 civilians dead and 38 injured, according to the World Health Organisation. At least seven were killed in further clashes on June 26 and 27.

It emerged that the US operates its drones over Somalia using a satellite relay station in Ramstein, Germany.

Another drone reportedly crashed in Somalia, this time in the north of the country in the autonomous region of Puntland. It is unclear who the drone belonged to, in contrast with an earlier incident in May when the Pentagon unusually claimed a crashed surveillance drone as its own.

Six-monthly trendsThe Bureau has not recorded a single US drone attack or other covert operation in Somalia in the first half of 2013. Whether this is due to poor reporting from the region or an absence of attacks is unclear.

This is in contrast to 2012 when there were a number of reports of US drone strikes in the African country including two that killed British citizens. This was reported on in a major Bureau investigation published by the Independent in February which revealed that two former British citizens died in US drone strikes in Somalia in 2012 after having their British citizenships removed. Bilal al Berjawi was killed by a drone in January 2012, with his childhood friend and fellow alleged militant Mohammed Sakr dying in a US drone strike the following month.

Both were UK citizens until Home Secretary Theresa May signed an order in 2010 removing their UK nationality while they were out of the country. May has the power to remove someone’s citizenship on national security grounds. Only individuals with dual nationality can be deprived of their British citizenship. But being born in the UK is not a protection. The Bureau has identified five dual nations who were born in the UK who have been deprived of their British nationality – including Mohamed Sakr.

Sakr’s lawyer Saghir Hussain told the Bureau there appeared to be a link between the deprivation of citizenship and subsequent US action. Leading immigration lawyer Ian McDonald QC said that stripping people of their citizenship ‘means that the British government can completely wash their hands if the security services give information to the Americans who use their drones to track someone and kill them’.

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

Published

June 3, 2013

Written by

Chris Woods 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.

A US drone crashed in al Shabaab-controlled southern Somalia this month

(Photo: Twitter)

The Pakistan Taliban’s deputy commander is killed in a CIA drone strike

A CIA drone attack in Yemen kills four, reportedly including a senior leader in al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula

The Pentagon admits a US surveillance drone has crashed in Somalia

Pakistan

May 2013 actions

Total CIA strikes in May: 1

Total killed in strikes in May: 4-7, of whom 0 were reportedly civilians

All actions 2004 – May 31 2013

Total Obama strikes: 317

Total US strikes since 2004: 369

Total reported killed: 2,541-3,540

Civilians reported killed: 411-884

Children reported killed: 168-197

Total reported injured: 1,174-1,479For the Bureau’s full Pakistan databases click here.

The only drone strike reported to hit Pakistan in May killed Wali Ur Rehman, second-in-command of the Pakistan Taliban (TTP). It was the first US attack in Pakistan for 42 days and came less than a week after President Obama set out his new drone policy. In a major speech, the president stipulated that a strike could only target individuals who posed ‘a continuing, imminent threat to US persons’, and that the US did not carry out revenge attacks.

Rehman was a prominent Taliban figure responsible for numerous bloody terrorist attacks within Pakistan. The US also blamed him for the December 2009 Khost bombing in which seven CIA officers were killed. An unnamed Pakistani intelligence officer said his death ‘is crippling for [the Taliban’s] top command’. The TTP held Pakistan partially responsible for the attack, promising ‘revenge in the strongest way’ and pledging, ‘attacks in Pakistan will continue’.

This was the first CIA attack in Pakistan since the elections on May 11. Prime minister-elect Nawaz Sharif had started preparing the ground for peace talks with the TTP. However after Rehman’s death Taliban spokesman Ehsanullah Ehsan said: ‘The government has failed to stop drone strikes, so we decided to end any talks with the government.’

Rehman’s successor, Khan Said (38), was selected hours after Rehman’s death. The attack that killed the Taliban commander, hit a mud-built house in North Waziristan in the early morning. Up to six alleged militants were also killed. They were identified by the Nation as Nasarullah; Shahabuddin; Adil; Nasiruddinand Saeedur Rehman; and Fakhar ul Islam, Rehman’s aide.

Earlier in the month the Obama administration admitted killing four US citizens in covert drone strikes, three in Yemen and one, whose death had previously only been a rumour, in Pakistan. The strike in Pakistan killed Jude Kenan Mohammed on November 16 2011 (Ob255).

Yemen

May 2013 actions

Confirmed US drone strikes: 1

Further reported/possible US strike events: 1

Total reported killed in US operations: 4-11

Civilians reported killed in US strikes: 0

All actions 2002 – May 31 2013*

Confirmed US drone strikes: 46-56

Total reported killed: 240-349

Civilians reported killed: 14-49

Children reported killed: 2

Reported injured: 62-144

Possible extra US drone strikes: 78-96

Total reported killed: 275-442

Civilians reported killed: 25-48

Children reported killed: 9-10

Reported injured: 76-98

All other US covert operations: 12-76

Total reported killed: 148-366

Civilians reported killed: 60-87

Children reported killed: 25

Reported injured: 22-111Click here for the full Yemen data.

The CIA conducted at least one drone strike in Yemen this month, reportedly killing Jalal Balaabed, described at a senior figure in al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). He commanded Abyan’s capital, Zinjibar, when the militant group controlled the province in 2011 and 2012. However al Mahfad district security chief Colonel Ahmed al Rab’i said he could neither confirm nor deny Balaabed’s death. The dead man’s relatives also reportedly denied he had been killed.

A second possible US strike killed alleged militants later named as Abd Rabbo Mokbal Mohammed Jarallah al Zouba and Abbad Mossad Abbad Khobzi by the Yemen defence ministry website. However Yemeni media could not independently verify their connection to al Qaeda.

Three additional airstrikes were reported in May. Two were labelled US drone strikes by a single source. The third, on May 24, was reported either as a US drone strike or as a Saudi Arabian airstrike. The attack hit an area close to the Saudi border in al Jawf province. While most local media sources attributed the strike to the US, several sources said the attack was carried out by Saudi jets. Responsibility remains unclear.

Also in May, a Yemen Air Force fighter-bomber crashed in Sanaa while on a training mission. The Russian-made Su-22 exploded in mid-air over a residential district. The pilot was killed and up to 22 people on the ground were injured. This was the third military plane to crash in the city in seven months. In February another Su-22 crashed in the capital, killing 12 people. And in November an Antonov M26 transport plane caught fire and crashed, killing all 10 on board.

The Air Force was the victim of ‘sabotage’, according to service chief General Rashed al Janad. The latest Su-22 was caused by ‘shots hitting the engine’ as it prepared to land he explained, adding ‘the black box of the aircraft was hit’. The Antonov crashed in 2012 after ‘shots caused a fire in one of its engines’, General al Janad said.

Also this month General al Janad said (Arabic) the US does not notify Sanaa before launching drone strikes. He told al Jazeera he had suffered personally from US attacks when a cousin of his died in a strike in Dhamar province. However an unnamed Yemen Air Force source said the country’s military high command is aware of any incursion by foreign military aircraft into its airspace. Yemeni analyst Saeed Obaid said al Janad appeared to be distancing himself from anger at civilian casualties.

Somalia

May 2013 actions

Total reported US operations: 0

All actions 2007 – May 31 2013

US drone strikes: 3-9

Total reported killed: 7-27

Civilians reported killed: 0-15

Children reported killed: 0

Reported injured: 2-24

All other US covert operations: 7-14

Total reported killed: 47-143

Civilians reported killed: 7-42

Children reported killed: 1-3

Reported injured: 12-20Click here for the Bureau’s full data on Somalia.

There were once again no reported drone strikes in Somalia in May. But the Pentagon admitted an unarmed US helicopter drone crashed in al Shabaab-controlled territory south of Mogadishu. The US said the aircraft was on a surveillance mission but would not say what kind of drone it was, or why it crashed. The local governor Abdikadir Mohamed Nur claimed militants shot the drone down. He said they were firing at it for hours before it crashed. But the US denied this and al Shabaab only said the drone crashed.

Al Shabaab militants tweeted pictures of the wreckage and in one image Schiebel, the name of a Viennese defence firm, is clearly visible on a piece of debris. Schiebel makes only one model of drone, a surveillance helicopter dubbed the S-100 Camcopter. This revelation prompted some speculation the drone was French, after Paris reportedly test-flew the drone as part of a failed attempt by commandos to rescue a captured French spy in January 2013.

Security remains perilous in Somalia. Al Shabaab killed six people in an attack at the Kenyan border on May 25. A 15-year-old boy, two police officers, a teacher and a Red Cross official were among the bodies. Also in May, UN deputy secretary general Jan Eliasson told reporters the African Union peacekeeping force Amisom has suffered up to 3,000 casualties since it began operations in 2007. The UN quickly backtracked on the statement, and Amisom’s spokesman told Pentagon-funded news site Sabahi Online the peacekeepers had lost fewer than 500 troops.

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White House briefings lay out new drone rulebook – but questions remain

Published

May 24, 2013

Written by

Chris Woods

Web link

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

Clarity from the White House (Photo: Michael Baird/ Flickr)

Two of the most controversial aspects of the US covert drone campaign – CIA control of strikes in Pakistan, and the use of so-called signature strikes – look set to continue until at least 2014, papers released by the White House indicate.

In the wake of President Obama’s Thursday speech on counter-terrorism policy, White House national security officials have released two key documents. The first, US Policy Standards and Procedures for the Use of Force in Counterterrorism, lays out the standards now being used to decide whether to deploy ‘lethal force’ outside the battlefield.

The White House has also released the transcript of a background briefing for journalists, in which anonymous senior administration officials offer their interpretation of the new guidance.

Between them, the two documents offer significant insights into how the US targeted killing programme is governed.

Related story – Obama frames covert drone war as necessary evil

Officials have also provided the most comprehensive understanding yet of how the US government defines a civilian – or ‘non-combatant’ – in places such as Pakistan and Yemen.

But claims that the US has ended controversial ‘signature strikes’ – and will transfer all covert drones from the CIA to the Pentagon – appear to have been overstated. As one official puts it, ‘you’ll see also a lot of continuity in the way in which we approach these things that are basically being codified in the guidance that’s been issued.’

Rule BookBuilding on President Obama’s counter terrorism speech at National Defense University on Thursday, officials have laid out ‘certain key elements’ of the standards and procedures governing the US targeted killing programme.

Noting that the US has a preference where possible ‘to capture a terrorism suspect’, guidance notes then lay out the circumstances in which a lethal covert drone strike or other form of targeted killing can take place.

All proposed killings outside the conventional battlefield must have a ‘legal basis’; must not be an act of punishment; and must only be used if the target represents ‘a continuing, imminent threat to US persons’, according to the document.

You’ll see also a lot of continuity in the way in which we approach these things that are basically being codified in the guidance that’s been issued.’Senior US administration official

But it goes on to make clear: ‘It is simply not the case that all terrorists pose a continuing, imminent threat to US persons; if a terrorist does not pose such a threat, the United States will not use lethal force.’

In recent months, some senior administration figures including CIA Director John Brennan have pushed for a far looser definition of imminence. That effort appears to have failed.

The White House then presents five rules which it says must now be followed before a targeted killing can take place:

1) Near certainty that the terrorist target is present;

2) Near certainty that non-combatants will not be injured or killed;

3) An assessment that capture is not feasible at the time of the operation;

4) An assessment that the relevant governmental authorities in the country where action is contemplated cannot or will not effectively address the threat to US persons

5) An assessment that no other reasonable alternatives exist to effectively address the threat to US persons.

‘Non-combatants’

In a key move, national security officials also offer an explanation of how civilians – or ‘non-combatants’ – are being defined in the context of targeted killings outside the battlefield.

‘Non-combatants are individuals who may not be made the object of attack under applicable international law,’ the document notes.

‘The term “non-combatant” does not include an individual who is part of a belligerent party to an armed conflict, an individual who is taking a direct part in hostilities, or an individual who is targetable in the exercise of national self defense. Males of military age may be non-combatants; it is not the case that all military-aged males in the vicinity of a target are deemed to be combatants.’

That final point – that military-aged males are not automatically classed as combatants in countries such as Pakistan and Yemen, may mark a major sea-change. A story in the New York Times generated huge controversy in 2012 when it reported that the US ‘counts all military-age males in a strike zone as combatants, according to several administration officials, unless there is explicit intelligence posthumously proving them innocent’.

Non-combatants are individuals who may not be made the object of attack under applicable international law’US Policy Standards and Procedures for the Use of Force in Counterterrorism

The list of rules issued by the White House concludes with an assertion that the US ‘respects’ national sovereignty and international law:

‘Whenever the United States uses force in foreign territories, international legal principles, including respect for sovereignty and the law of armed conflict, impose important constraints on the ability of the United States to act unilaterally – and on the way in which the United States can use force. The United States respects national sovereignty and international law,’ the document notes.

Ben Emmerson QC, the UN investigator currently looking into drone strikes, said he welcomed the Obama administration’s publication of its rule book.

Describing it as ‘a significant step towards increased transparency and accountability,’ he added that ‘it also disposes of a number of myths, including the suggestion that the US is entitled to regard all military-aged males as combatants, and therefore as legitimate targets.’

Background briefingIn advance of President Obama’s major speech, journalists also took part in a background briefing with anonymous senior administration officials on Thursday, which has now been published.

Much of that briefing focused on the proposed closure of Guantanamo, and whether the War on Terror is drawing down. But officials also offered their interpretation of the new targeted killing guidelines.

Claims by some that all US covert drone strikes will pass from the CIA to the Pentagon appear overstated, based on the comments of two officials.

One notes that there is an ‘expressed preference’ for the US military to have the lead in carrying out targeted killings, ‘given their traditional role and given the transparency [that] can be associated with actions by the United States military’. But he added that the US continues to ‘pursue a range of counter-terrorism operations around the world,’ indicating that the CIA might retain a role.

The New York Times has since cited US officials who indicate that the CIA will not transfer control of drone strikes in Pakistan to the US military until ‘the withdrawal of combat units from Afghanistan at the end of 2014’.

In another exchange with journalists, officials at Thursday’s briefing addressed whether the three US citizens killed in covert drone strikes who had not been intentionally targeted were being classed by the Administration ‘as collateral damage or guilty by association?’

‘There are times when there are individuals who are present at al Qaeda and associated forces facilities, and in that regard they are subject to the lethal action that we take,’ a senior official responded. ‘There are other instances when there are tragic cases of civilian casualties and people that the United States does not in any way intend to target.’

There are times when there are individuals who are present at al Qaeda and associated forces facilities, and in that regard they are subject to the lethal action that we take.’Senior US administration official

Signature strikes

There was further confusion on the question of whether signature strikes have now ended.

An editorial in today’s The New York Times claims that ‘From now on, the Central Intelligence Agency and the military will no longer target individuals or groups of people in countries like Pakistan based merely on the suspicion that their location or actions link them to al Qaeda or other groups allied with the terrorist network.’

Yet when asked, ‘Will signature strikes explicitly be prohibited now?’, an official at the briefing framed his response in the context of the war in Afghanistan, noting the need to ‘take action against forces that are massing to support attacks on our troops and on coalition forces in Afghanistan.’

The official then noted that ‘by the end of 2014, as we wind down the war in Afghanistan, we will not have the same need for force protection and those types of strikes that are designed to protect our forces in Afghanistan. Furthermore, we believe that the core of al Qaeda has been greatly diminished so, therefore, that will reduce the need for unmanned strikes against the core of al Qaeda as well.’

In short, officials appear to be indicating that signature strikes, along with CIA control of strikes inside Pakistan, will remain a reality at least until troops withdraw from Afghanistan next year.

// US Policy Standards and Procedures for the Use of Force in Counterterrorism Operations Outside the United States and Areas of Active Hostilities (PDF) US Policy Standards and Procedures for the Use of Force in Counterterrorism Operations Outside the United States and Areas of Active Hostilities (Text)

Obama frames covert drone war as necessary evil

Published

May 23, 2013

Written by

Chris Woods

Web link

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

Barack Obama at a recent meeting of the National Security Council. (Pete Souza/ White House)

Barack Obama has made it clear that the US will continue with its controversial targeted killing programme.

In a major speech the US president also announced that he has signed into force a new – and secret – rule book for lethal action that provides ‘clear guidelines, oversight and accountability’ for covert drone strikes.

Counter-terrorism officials indicated that control of covert drone strikes will progressively pass from the Central Intelligence Agency to the Pentagon.

The rules will also ‘impose the same standard for strikes on foreign enemies now used only for American citizens deemed to be terrorists’.

Related story – White House briefings lay out new drone rulebook – but questions remain

There was some dispute about whether the Presidential Policy Guidance would prevent much-criticised attacks on groups of men based on their patterns of behaviour – so-called ‘signature strikes.’ The New York Times insisted that this was the case. But other major US media were more cautious.

Impassioned defenceSpeaking for an hour in front of an invited audience at the National Defense University in Washington DC, Obama made an impassioned defence of the US targeted killing programme, insisting that it was both effective and legal. But he admitted that this may not be enough:

‘To say a military tactic is legal, or even effective, is not to say it is wise or moral in every instance. For the same human progress that gives us the technology to strike half a world away also demands the discipline to constrain that power — or risk abusing it,’ he said.

He addressed head-on controversies surrounding civilian casualties. Acknowledging that there was a ‘wide gap’ between US and non-governmental assessments, he bluntly conceded that civilians have died in US strikes. Obama said that for himself and ‘those in my chain of command, these deaths will haunt us as long as we live’.

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

But he also insisted that civilian deaths were sometimes a necessary risk. ‘As Commander-in-Chief, I must weigh these heartbreaking tragedies against the alternatives. To do nothing in the face of terrorist networks would invite far more civilian casualties – not just in our cities at home and facilities abroad, but also in the very places –like Sana’a and Kabul and Mogadishu – where terrorists seek a foothold.’

These deaths will haunt us as long as we live.’President Obama

Bureau estimates indicate that since 2002, at least 2,800 people have died in 420 covert drone strikes in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia. Of those killed, more than 400 are likely to have been civilians.

Obama has so far carried out seven times more covert drone strikes than his predecessor, George W Bush. However, the number of reported strikes has declined steeply over the past year, along with reported civilian casualties.

‘Boots on the ground’

Insisting that his administration had ‘a strong preference for the detention and prosecution of terrorists’, Obama said there were occasions when only lethal drone strikes would suffice.

At times ‘putting US boots on the ground may trigger a major international crisis’ and inflame local civilian populations, he said. Suspects may also ‘hide in caves and walled compounds’ in areas where there was little or no governance.

But he acknowledged that the use of drones was not without constitutional risk: ‘The very precision of drones strikes, and the necessary secrecy involved in such actions can end up shielding our government from the public scrutiny that a troop deployment invites. It can also lead a President and his team to view drone strikes as a cure-all for terrorism.’

Before any strike is taken, there must be near-certainty that no civilians will be killed or injured – the highest standard we can set.President Obama

President Obama announced that he would work with Congress towards greater oversight of the targeted killing campaign. And he said he would be seeking to ‘refine, and ultimately repeal’ the Authorization to Use Military Force (AUMF) passed by Congress in 2001, which the US asserts is the legal bedrock for its covert drone campaign.

Unlocking GuantanamoThe president also used the speech to challenge Congress to aid him in closing the detention facilities at Guantanamo Bay, calling on members to end the ban on detainee transfers to prisons on the US mainland. ‘I know the politics are hard. But history will cast a harsh judgment on this aspect of our fight against terrorism, and those of us who fail to end it,’ he said, adding that nobody had ever escaped a US supermax jail.

Obama announced the end of a moratorium on transferring detainees to Yemen: instead, transfers will be examined on a case-by-case basis. At least 84 current Guantanamo inmates are Yemeni.

The speech was repeatedly interrupted at one point by Code Pink protester Medea Benjamin. Obama was forced to pause and wait three times for Benjamin to finish comments including references to the death of Anwar al-Awlaki’s 16-year-old son in a drone strike in Yemen. As Benjamin was escorted out, he recovered his poise – joking that he was being forced to depart from his script, but saying she raised ‘tough issues’.

Obama administration admits killing four US citizens

In a related move, US attorney general Eric Holder released a letter on Wednesday evening admitting that four US citizens had been killed in US drone strikes since 2009. The Bureau’s own data suggests that seven or more US citizens have been killed in US drone strikes since 2002.

One of those named by the attorney general – Jude Kenan Mohammed – was until now only rumoured to have been killed. The New York Times reports that Mohammed died in a CIA attack in South Waziristan, Pakistan on November 16 2011.

According to an open US indictment dated September 2009, Mohammed ‘departed the United States to travel to Pakistan to engage in violent jihad’. He was also accused of engaging in ‘planning and perpetrating a Federal crime of terrorism against the United States, citizens and residents of the United States, and their property.’

The other three US citizens named by Holder were radical cleric Anwar al-Awlaki and his 16 year old son Abdalrahman al-Awalaki; and Samir Khan, a propagandist for Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula – all killed in Yemen in autumn 2011. According to the attorney general, only Anwar al Awlaki was ‘specifically targeted by the United States’.

In his speech, Obama insisted that it was right to target and kill Anwar al-Awlaki, stating that the citizenship of such an alleged threat ‘should no more serve as a shield than a sniper shooting down on an innocent crowd should be protected from a Swat team.’

At least three additional US citizens have been killed in US drone attacks. In the first ever drone strike outside a battlefield, US citizen Kamal Darwish was among six men killed by the CIA in Yemen in 2002. The Bush administration insisted at the time that the intended targets were alleged al Qaeda suspects accompanying Darwish in the vehicle.

And veteran Washington reporter Bob Woodward has revealed that on November 7 2008, ‘many Westerners, including some US passport holders’ died in an attack near Miranshah in North Waziristan.

As Woodward noted in his book Obama’s Wars, in a subsequent meeting with Pakistan’s President Zardari ‘The CIA would not reveal the particulars due to the implications under American law. A top secret CIA map detailing the attacks had been given to the Pakistanis. Missing from it was the alarming fact about the American deaths … The CIA was not going to elaborate.’

Addressing the fact that three of the four US citizens named by Holder were not the intended targets, New York University law professor Sarah Knuckey told the Bureau: ‘Does it mean that the three were killed as intentional but lawful collateral damage in a strike on some other legitimate target? Or that they were accidental collateral? Or does it mean that they were killed in signature strikes? We just don’t know what it is intended to mean. In a letter that touts throughout the government’s commitment to transparency and “unprecedented disclosure”, the government has introduced new vague language, and thus new concerns about its targeting policies and practices.’

This article was amended on May 24 to take note of ambiguities regarding the possible abandonment of ‘signature strikes.’

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

Published

May 2, 2013

Written by

Chris Woods 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 armed Reaper sits on the apron at Nellis Air Force Base. (cclark395/Flickr)

Two CIA strikes kill at least eight in Pakistan, including an al Qaeda commander.

US drone strikes return to Yemen after an 85-day pause.

Militants launch one of their most well organised and deadly attacks to date, on a court house in Somalia.

Pakistan

April 2013 actions

Total CIA strikes in April: 2

Total killed in strikes in April: 8-12, of whom 0 were reportedly civilians

All actions 2004 – April 30 2013

Total Obama strikes: 316

Total US strikes since 2004: 368

Total reported killed: 2,541-3,533

Civilians reported killed: 411-884

Children reported killed: 168-197

Total reported injured: 1,173-1,472For the Bureau’s full Pakistan databases click here.

The US launched two strikes on Pakistan, killing at least eight. CIA drones have attacked Pakistan’s tribal areas twice every month since January, when six strikes killed 27 people.

A strike on April 14 was the first of the month and the first to happen under Mir Hazar Khan Khoso, 84, who was declared caretaker prime minister in Pakistan on March 24. He will be in charge until the general election scheduled for May 11.

Campaigning has been dogged by violence. News agency Reuters reported that more than 50 people have been killed in terrorist actions targeting election campaigning. Militants have attacked rallies and Pakistan Taliban (TTP) leader Hakimullah Mehsud urged his followers to target senior politicians and party leaders. His group’s intention is to ‘end the democratic system’, he declared.

The April 14 strike reportedly killed a senior al Qaeda militant (Ob315), Abu Ubaydah Abdullah al Adam. His death was reported by two alleged militants, Al Wathiq Billah and Barod, on April 20. Al Adam was a Palestinian raised in Saudi Arabia.

An anonymous US intelligence official said he was ‘essentially al Qaeda’s intelligence and internal security chief’ and a ‘very dangerous operative’ who was ‘on the target list’. Al Adam had replaced Mohammad Khalil Hasan al Hakaymah (aka Abu Jehad al Misri) who was killed in a drone strike on November 1 2008 (B38). An alleged local Taliban commander, Madni was reported to have been killed in the second strike of the month, on April 17.

There were no credible reports of civilian casualties in Pakistan in April.

Leaked documents obtained by news agency McClatchy show US intelligence officials were aware of at least one civilian had died in CIA strikes in 2011, despite claims to the contrary by the Agency’s new director, John Brennan. In June 2011 Brennan, at the time President Obama‘s chief counter terrorism adviser, stated publicly that for ‘almost a year’ no civilian had died in US drone strikes in Pakistan.

Yemen

April 2013 actions

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

All actions 2002 – April 30 2013*

Confirmed US drone strikes: 44-54

Total reported killed: 232-333Civilians reported killed: 12-47Children reported killed: 2Reported injured: 62-144

Possible extra US drone strikes: 78-96

Total reported killed: 277-445

Civilians reported killed: 27-50

Children reported killed: 9-10

Reported injured: 76-98

All other US covert operations: 12-76Total reported killed: 148-366Civilians reported killed: 60-87Children reported killed: 25Reported injured: 22-111Click here for the full Yemen data.

Two strikes hit Yemen this month, at least one launched by a US drone. It was the first confirmed US strike in 85 days. This is the longest break between attacks since May 2011, when the US ended a year-long pause.

The confirmed drone strike on April 17 killed as many as five named alleged al Qaeda militants. One of those killed was reportedly Hamid al Rademi, who has been described as a senior al Qaeda commander by officials and other sources including Yemeni journalist Nasser Arrabyee.

Others, however, have questioned his al Qaeda links. Writer and activist Farea al Muslimi, a native of Wessab, where the strike hit, claimed al Rademi was called ‘an ordinary man’ by security officials and grew powerful in the area thanks to his government connections, not his terrorist connections.

The strike caused some controversy with campaigners, including al Muslimi, questioning the decision to kill rather than capture al Rademi. The noise around the strike echoed the response to one last year on November 7 (YEM122) which killed Adnan al Qathi – an individual with government and military connections, who like al Rademi could easily have been arrested rather than killed.

The strike that killed al Rademi was described in detail at a Senate subcommittee hearing by al Muslimi who was flown into Washington to testify. He spoke powerfully of the human toll of the US’s covert campaign in Yemen. The subcommittee also heard from retired general James Cartwright who said he feared the US had ‘ceded the moral authority’ through its use of drones. Retired US Air Force colonel Martha McSally also testified. She said there was ‘too much vagueness’ from the chain of command about the legal justification for drone strikes.

Somalia

April 2013 actions

Total reported US operations: 0

All actions 2007 – April 30 2013

US drone strikes: 3-9Total reported killed: 7-27Civilians reported killed: 0-15Children reported killed: 0Reported injured: 2-24

All other US covert operations: 7-14Total reported killed: 47-143Civilians reported killed: 7-42Children reported killed: 1-3Reported injured: 12-20Click here for the Bureau’s full data on Somalia.

For the eighth consecutive month, no US strikes were reported on Somalia. This was despite al Shabaab launching one of its most audacious attacks on Mogadishu since US-backed and UN-mandated African Union soldiers forced the militants from the capital in August 2011.

The city has been unstable since the militants were pushed out. Al Shabaab has persistently made it past security to launch terrorist attacks. However the coordinated bombings on April 14 were the most deadly with more than 90 reported dead and wounded.

A suicide squad burst into the court complex in the capital and fought ‘an extended gun battle’ with court guards, witnesses said. Somali investigators told the Toronto Star they believe a Canadian militant named Mahad Ali Dhore organised the assault. A second bombing hit a vehicle carrying Turkish aid officials. Western diplomats said the sophistication of the attacks and explosives used suggest foreign al Qaeda terrorists were involved.

Follow Jack Serle and Chris Woods on Twitter.

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

Letter to Obama on targeted killings

Published

April 18, 2013

Written by

Drones Team

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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.

Ten human rights and civil liberties groups have written an open letter to President Obama raising concerns over targeted killings and the use of drones. Here is the text in full:

Red Cross chief urges caution over covert drones

Published

April 18, 2013

Written by

Alice Ross

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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.

ICRC president Peter Maurer urged ‘very restrained’ use of drones

(Photo: Thierry Gassmann / www.icrc.org)

The president of the humanitarian organisation International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) this week warned of the organisation’s concerns over drones being used in situations that are not official armed conflicts.

Peter Maurer made the comments following a four-day trip to Washington, in which he met with President Obama and senior advisers to discuss issues including drones, Syria and Guantanamo.

The US is very aware… of where we disagree with the use of drones.’– ICRC president Peter Maurer

He discussed ‘the adequacy of international humanitarian law with new developments in terms of weapons, battlefields, actors to the battlefield’ with the US officials, he explained in a video briefing released after the visit.

He added: ‘It’s of crucial importance for the ICRC to have the latest views and thinkings on American strategies, and that we have an open and frank dialogue if there are points of disagreement on how we interpret battlefields, and how international humanitarian law is applicable in these new contexts.’

In a Geneva press conference following the visit, Maurer urged ‘very restrained use of drones’, adding: ‘The US is very aware… of where we disagree with the use of drones.’

‘If a drone is used in a country where there is no armed conflict… there is a problem,’ he told reporters.

Armed drones are used alongside other weapons by the US and UK in official armed conflicts including Afghanistan and Libya. But they are also used by the US in covert conflicts, away from formal battlefields and against ‘non-state actors’ such as informal militant groups, most prominently in the nine-year drone campaign in Pakistan against al Qaeda and other militant groups.

In armed conflicts such as Yemen and Afghanistan, drones are considered a legitimate weapon, Maurer told the press conference. But use of drones in Pakistan was ‘more problematic’, he reportedly told AFP reporter Nina Larson following the conference.

The comments came days after a high-profile coalition of US human rights and civil liberties groups wrote a public letter to Obama calling on the administration to track all civilian deaths relating to the drone programme, questioning claims by new CIA director John Brennan that civilian casualties are ‘exceedingly rare’.

‘Based on a review of a wide range of civilian casualty estimates, we are especially concerned that the administration may be consistently undercounting and overlooking civilian casualties. Moreover, the administration may be employing an overbroad definition of “combatant” or “militant” that would lead it to undercount civilian casualties,’ the letter said.

The letter called on the president to publish the criteria by which people are added to ‘kill lists’ for targeted killing by drones and other means, as well as the manuals and legal memos relating to such killings.

Amnesty International, the American Civil Liberties Union, and Human Rights Watch were among the signatories to the eight-page letter, alongside the Human Rights Institute of Columbia Law School, and NYU School of Law, each of which published or co-published major reports on Obama’s use of covert drones last autumn.

The organisations also raised ‘serious questions about whether the US is operating in accordance with international law’, and pointed to ‘troubling indications that the US regards an individual’s affiliation with a group as making him or her lawfully subject to a direct attack’.

Read the letter’s full text here

Secret US documents show Brennan’s ‘no civilian drone deaths’ claim was false

Published

April 11, 2013

Written by

Chris Woods and 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.

John Brennan being sworn in as CIA director in March 2013. (White House/ David Lienemann)

US intelligence officials were aware that at least one civilian had died in drone strikes in Pakistan during 2011, despite claims to the contrary made by the man now running the Central Intelligence Agency.

In June 2011, John Brennan, at the time President Obama’s chief counter terrorism adviser, stated publicly that for ‘almost a year’ no civilian had died in US drone strikes in Pakistan.

But leaked US intelligence documents obtained by news agency McClatchy show this was not true.

According to national security reporter Jonathan Landry, the intelligence documents, which chronicle the drone war in Pakistan, admit to a civilian death on April 22 2011 – two months prior to Brennan’s public claim.

At the time of the strike, an anonymous US official had insisted to CNN that ‘there is no evidence to support that claim [of civilian casualties] whatsoever.’

The April 22 drone strike hit a house before dawn, killing at least 25 people in North Waziristan. Seven media organisations reported that at least five civilians died, including three children. Both Associated Press and the Bureau sent investigators into the field. Each confirmed that civilians, including women and children, were killed in the attack.

‘Highly sensitive’The McClatchy investigation involves the most significant leak so far of US intelligence documents covering the CIA’s Pakistan drone war.

The documents, which have not yet been published, are said to cover two periods: 2006 to 2008, and January 2010 to September 2011.

Reporting on the leaked papers indicate that what US officials say publicly about drone strikes does not always match their private records.

Throughout the first half of 2011 US intelligence sources had been insisting that civilians were no longer being killed by drone attacks. On June 29 2011 Brennan said ‘there hasn’t been a single collateral [civilian] death‘ in Pakistan in 10 months.

The Bureau was the first to challenge this assertion. After carrying out a field investigation in Pakistan’s tribal areas, it submitted to the US administration a list of 45 civilians killed in drone strikes in the period Brennan had referred to. A senior US counter terrorism official refuted the findings at the time, insisting: ‘The most accurate information on counter-terror operations resides with the United States.’

None of these civilian deaths seem to be reflected in the US records obtained by McClatchy, including dozens killed in a strike in March 2011.

‘Forced approval’According to the news agency the documents also show that cooperation between Pakistan’s intelligence service the ISI and the CIA went far deeper than previously understood.

From 2006 to mid-way through 2008 the CIA sought approval for strikes from its Pakistani counterpart, according to the reports. In 2006, for example, the CIA asked permission to carry out seven strikes, with the ISI agreeing to five. It is not known if all of these took place.

The documents, if published in full, could prove important to the public’s understanding of the covert drone war. The Bureau’s data for example only records three US attacks for 2006, with New America Foundation, which also records drone strikes, listing two.

The documents reveal the US was also sometimes the beneficiary of negotiations. On at least two occasions the ISI gave its ‘forced approval’ for CIA attacks, having ‘relented under CIA cajoling’ according to the US news agency.

And the documents report at least one previously unrecorded drone strike. The ISI asked the US to target an ‘insurgent training camp’ in North Waziristan on May 22 2007. An assault by the Pakistani army on the camp had failed and the ISI called for drones, despite having been told the Agency’s Predators would not be used to support Pakistani combat operations, according to McClatchy.

‘The extended Haqqani family’Other civilian deaths are reported in the leaked documents – although these happened under President Bush. On September 5 2008 the US targeted a house belonging to Jalaluddin Haqqani, patriarch of the Haqqani Network.

Despite only declaring the Haqqani Network a terrorist group in 2012, the leaked records show that the CIA targeted the leader’s home four years earlier. And the documents confirm that Haqqani women and children were killed in the strike.

Another secret US intelligence report obtained by Dawn in 2009 also noted that the CIA knew ‘members of the extended Haqqani family were killed’ in the September 2008 attack.

The McClatchy investigation reveals other differences between US officials’ public statements and private records. In September 2012 President Obama told CNN that drone strikes can only be launched when there is a ‘serious and not speculative’ threat.

He added that drones could only be used in a situation ‘in which we can’t capture the individual before they move forward on some sort of operational plot against the United States’.

But the leaked documents indicate that far from targeting senior al Qaeda militants intent on attacking the US, they have killed vaguely identified Afghan, Pakistani or ‘unknown’ militants.

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

Published

April 2, 2013

Written by

Chris Woods and 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.

An armed Reaper waits on the ramp in Afghanistan (US Air Force).

Two strikes hit Pakistan, ending a month-long pause between attacks.

There were no reported US drone strikes in Yemen in March, marking the longest pause between covert attacks in three years.

No strikes were again recorded in Somalia.

Pakistan

March 2013 actions

Total CIA strikes in March: 2

Total killed in strikes in March: 2-7, of whom 0 were reportedly civilians

All actions 2004 – March 31 2013

Total Obama strikes: 314

Total US strikes since 2004: 366

Total reported killed: 2,537-3,581

Civilians reported killed: 411-884

Children reported killed: 168-197

Total reported injured: 1,174-1,465For the Bureau’s full Pakistan databases click here.

Two CIA drone strikes killed at least two people in March. All those reported killed were unidentified and there were no credible reports of civilian casualties.

The first strike of the month hit on March 10 (Ob313), ending a 29 day pause. It hit the day before UN special rapporteur Ben Emmerson arrived in Islamabad on a three-day visit. The second strike (Ob314) hit 11 days after the first, killing 1-4.

There were conflicting reports of both strikes. The March 10 strike killed alleged militants who were either riding a motorbike or a horse. The horse was killed. Other reports claimed a house was destroyed. The March 21 strike was reported by some as destroying a house. Others claimed a vehicle in a bazaar was hit.

The New York Times also cast some doubt on two strikes that occurred in the previous month, claiming that three ‘American officials’ had told the paper ‘they were not ours’. The Long War Journal’s Bill Roggio challenged this claim, later reporting that ‘US intelligence officials involved with the drone programme in Pakistan’ had said that the two strikes in February ‘were indeed US operations’.

Ben Emmerson QC met with government and tribal officials, and victim groups, as a part of his investigation into the legality and casualties of drone strikes. Pakistani officials told the UN investigator that US drones have so far killed a minimum of 2,200 people, including at least 400 civilians.

The civilian government in Islamabad also stated that 40,000 people have been killed in terrorist attacks on Pakistani soil since September 11 2001. However nearly two weeks later Pakistan’s spy agency the ISI told the Supreme Court that 49,000 had died – more than 25,000 of them in the post-2008 military offensives in the tribal regions.

Also in March, John Brennan was confirmed as CIA director. During his confirmation hearing, Brennan told the Senate he believes ‘the CIA should not be doing traditional military activities and operations’. So his appointment could be a prelude to the Agency ultimately surrendering control of drone strikes to the Pentagon. It is not clear if this will lead to greater transparency, as some believe. The US military’s established drone campaign in Afghanistan became less transparent, when it emerged that Isaf had stopped publishing drone strike data and had stripped all drone statistics out of each preceding release of its data.

Yemen

March 2013 actions

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

All actions 2002 – March 31 2013*

Confirmed US drone strikes: 43-53

Total reported killed: 228-325Civilians reported killed: 12-45Children reported killed: 2Reported injured: 62-144

Possible extra US drone strikes: 77-95

Total reported killed: 277-443

Civilians reported killed: 23-49

Children reported killed: 9-10

Reported injured: 73-94

All other US covert operations: 12-76Total reported killed: 148-366Civilians reported killed: 60-87Children reported killed: 25Reported injured: 22-111Click here for the full Yemen data.

There were no reported US operations in Yemen – confirmed or otherwise. There has not been a reported strike in Yemen for over two months, after nine attacks in January left 22-34 people dead, including up to 10 civilians.

This was the longest halt between strikes recorded by the Bureau since May 24 2010 when US jets mistakenly killed Jaber al-Shabwani, deputy governor of Marib province. He was travelling to meet his brother, a local al Qaeda leader, to attempt a reconciliation. Tribesmen loyal to al Shabwani rose up – enraged by his killing they destroyed a vital oil pipeline. There were no strikes for 12 months after that botched attack.

Yemen’s long awaited National Dialogue Conference started on March 18. The talks are aiming to reach a new draft constitution. This will set the stage for elections in February 2014.

Hundreds of representatives from political parties and civil society are attending. However southern Yemen secessionists and state security forces continue to clash and there remain fears that there will be further fighting.

Also in March, 31 academics, journalists and former US diplomats wrote to Barack Obama. Under the auspices of the Atlantic Council and the Project on Middle East Democracy, they urged US caution as it pursues its own security agenda in Yemen.

‘The chronic and pervasive perception both here and in Yemen [is] that the United States pursues its security interests with little regard to the strategy’s impact on Yemen itself,’ the authors noted. Signatories included Barbara Bodine, Washington’s former ambassador to Yemen.

The open letter described current US policy in Yemen as ‘counterproductive and in need of urgent re-evaluation’. This echoed the sentiment of General James Cartwright, the former vice chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff. The retired General said that US covert drone strikes could be undermining long-term efforts to battle extremism.

Cartwright was the not only former national security adviser this month to express concerns over US drone strategy. General Stanley McChrystal told Foreign Affairs magazine: ‘If we were to use our technological capabilities carelessly … then we should not be upset when someone responds with their equivalent, which is a suicide bomb in Central Park.’

Somalia

March 2013 actions

Total reported US operations: 0

All actions 2007 – March 31 2013

US drone strikes: 3-9Total reported killed: 7-27Civilians reported killed: 0-15Children reported killed: 0Reported injured: 2-24

All other US covert operations: 7-14Total reported killed: 51-143Civilians reported killed: 11-42Children reported killed: 1-3Reported injured: 15-20Click here for the Bureau’s full data on Somalia.

Once again no US strikes were reported in Somalia – the seventh month in a row. However security remains fragile, even in the capital. An al Shabaab bomber penetrated the most secure district of the city, targeting Mogadishu’s security chief and killing 10.

Government forces reportedly retook Hudur, capital of Bakool, from al Shabaab fighters. The militants had occupied the town near the Ethiopian border, northwest of Mogadishu, after Ethiopian troops had vacated the area. Militants reportedly ‘arrested’ 10 people and killed three, including beheading a 75-year-old Imam.

US operations in Africa could be set to expand further, after the establishment of another drone base on the continent last month in Niger. The State Department also added Mali-based militant group Ansar Dine to its list of ‘terrorist organisations’. A US military adviser said this could be the precursor for US intelligence-gathering operations to evolve into direct action.

Follow Jack Serle and Chris Woods on Twitter.

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

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

Pakistan government says ‘at least 400 civilians’ killed in drone strikes

Published

March 15, 2013

Written by

Alice Ross

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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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Related story: Covert War on Terror – the datasets

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

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

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

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

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

Related story: Pakistan drone statistics visualised

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Related story: UN launches major investigation into civilian drone deaths

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

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

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

Parents of British man killed by US drone blame UK government

Published

March 15, 2013

Written by

Chris Woods

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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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mohamed Sakr

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Letter from the Home Office.

His parents say he was too scared to come back.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Follow Chris Woods on Twitter.

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