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All major publications from Airwars’ documentation, research, investigations and policy teams

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61490
1 Aug, 2012
Update
Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen

July 2012 update: US covert actions in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia

A US Predator drone flying at sunset – Charles McCain/Flickr The Bureau’s covert war investigation tracks drone strikes and other US military and paramilitary actions in Yemen, Somalia and Pakistan. Here we summarise our key work and findings for July 2012. Pakistan: CIA drones kill more people in July than any month so far this […]
61496
2 Jul, 2012
Update
Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen

June 2012 update: US covert actions in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia

An armed US military Reaper drone over Afghanistan (US Air Force/ Lt Col Lesley Pratt/ Flickr) The Bureau’s covert war investigation tracks drone strikes and other US military and paramilitary actions in Yemen, Somalia and Pakistan. Here we summarise our key work and findings for June 2012. We also compare the first six months of […]
61506
29 Jun, 2012
Update
Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen

‘A journey into moral depravity’ – US Congressman Dennis Kucinich on covert wars

When 26 members of the US Congress wrote to President Obama recently urging him to get a grip on his use of drones as ‘faceless ambassadors that cause civilian deaths,’ one man in particular was responsible. Congressman for Ohio Dennis Kucinich has been a career politician for more than 40 years – but he’s no […]
61508
21 Jun, 2012
Update
Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen

UN expert labels CIA tactic exposed by Bureau ‘a war crime’

The United Nation’s Human Rights Council in Geneva (UNHRC/ Flickr) The UN’s expert on extrajudicial killings has described a tactic used by the CIA and first exposed by a Bureau investigation as ‘a war crime’. Earlier this year the Bureau and the Sunday Times revealed the CIA was deliberately targeting rescuers and funeral-goers in its Pakistan drone strikes. […]
61510
19 Jun, 2012
Update
Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen

Analysis: Oversight failures help oil Obama’s killing machine

Revelations that President Barack Obama presides over key aspects of secret kill-list machinery that has sentenced thousands to death by drone have disturbed many. Torture and extraordinary rendition under Bush, it turns out, have been replaced with industrial-scale extrajudicial execution by his successor. Today, CIA and Pentagon armed drones range at will over Pakistan, Yemen […]
61512
16 Jun, 2012
Update
Somalia, Yemen

Is the secret war in Yemen and Somalia secret no longer?

Out of the shadows? President Obama in the Oval Office (Official White House/ Pete Souza) In what is being viewed by some as a significant move towards greater transparency, President Obama has officially acknowledged for the first time previously secret US military combat operations in Yemen and Somalia. The US military has been mounting aggressive […]
61514
14 Jun, 2012
Update
Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen

Death from above: the New Statesman’s drones issue

As reports of ‘kill lists’ have emerged and murmurs of increasing use of surveillance drones over US soil – not to mention the London Olympics – have grown louder in recent months, drones have leapt onto the news agenda and into public debate. In a special report this week’s New Statesman special looks in detail […]
61518
1 Jun, 2012
Update
Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen

May Update – US clandestine actions in Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen

A summary of US actions in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia in the secret war on terror. The Bureau’s Covert War project tracks drone strikes and other US military and paramilitary actions in Yemen, Somalia and Pakistan. Here we summarise our key work and findings for May. Yemen May 2012 actions Confirmed US drone strikes: 5 […]
61520
29 May, 2012
Update
Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen

Analysis: Obama embraced redefinition of ‘civilian’ in drone wars

President Obama with his Defense Secretary and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Two US reports published today provide significant insights into President Obama’s personal and controversial role in the escalating covert US drone war in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia. In a major extract from Daniel Klaidman’s forthcoming book Kill Or Capture, the author […]
61522
24 May, 2012
Update
Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen

The uphill fight against Obama’s drones: Code Pink’s Medea Benjamin

Medea Benjamin: ‘US peace movement is a fragment of what it was under Bush’ Walk into any US bookstore and the stacks are crowded with hundreds of books on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Yet more than a decade in, its hard to find anything on the escalating use of armed drones by the […]
61528
10 May, 2012
Update
Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen

Analysis: Why we must name all drone attack victims

Drone victim funeral December 29 2010 – two named civilians are known to have died that day. (AP) Sunday’s death of Fahd al-Quso in a CIA drone strike was a significant US success. The admitted al Qaeda bomber had long been sought for his role in the deadly attack on the US navy ship the […]
61552
22 Feb, 2012
Update
Somalia

Somalia: a bullet-riddled history

BackgroundSomalia has been without a functional government since 1991.  This was when socialist president Siad Barre was overthrown by a coalition of armed opposition groups and rebels, led by warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid and his group, the United Somali Congress (USC). The north-west region of Somalia split off, declaring itself the independent Republic of Somaliland. […]
61550
22 Feb, 2012
Update
Somalia

Study shows up to 6 British extremists killed in Somalia

UK military board a suspect boat off the coast of Somalia (Ministry of Defence/Flickr) A new Bureau study of western military operations in Somalia reveals that up to six UK citizens have died in attacks carried out by the US and its allies. The findings appear to support rising UK concerns about the security situation […]
61548
22 Feb, 2012
Update
Somalia

Militants and civilians killed in multiple US Somalia strikes

US Navy Seals in training (US Navy/Specialist 2nd Class John Scorza/Flickr) As many as 21 US military strikes in Somalia since 2007 have killed up to 169 people, new research by the Bureau indicates. Of those killed, between 11 and 59 people are reported to be civilians. US military intervention in war-torn Somalia is shown […]
61566
20 Jan, 2012
Update
Somalia

Ofcom revokes Press TV’s UK licence

Press TV, the news channel backed by the Iranian government, is to be taken off the air in Britain, regulator Ofcom ruled today. The station was fined £100,000 by Ofcom in December 2011, after the station hid the fact that a 2009 ‘interviewee’ was being forcibly detained in Iran. However, the station did not meet its […]
61574
14 Dec, 2011
Update
Somalia

Press TV Somalia drone strike reports cease after Bureau investigation

Press TV alleged that 749 Somalis were killed in US drone attacks in November alone. Earlier this month the Bureau published an investigation into how alleged US drone strikes in Somalia were being reported by Iranian broadcaster Press TV. In 56 reports between July and December this year, the station claimed that at least 1,370 people […]
61578
5 Dec, 2011
Update
Somalia

Analysis: An Iranian news station damages all war reporting

A WFP food distribution centre for displace people near Mogadishu  Revelations by the Bureau at the weekend that Iranian broadcaster Press TV is most likely fabricating multiple reports of alleged US ‘drone strikes’ in Somalia will do little to bolster the channel’s already tattered reputation. And its actions could impede those trying to hold the […]
61580
2 Dec, 2011
Update
Somalia

Iranian TV station ‘faked’ Somali deaths by US drones

Press TV claims at least 383 Somali civilians have been killed by US drone attacks. An Iranian TV station appears to have faked dozens of accounts of US drone strikes in Somalia which it says have killed hundreds of civilians. Press TV, which was fined £100,000 by Ofcom on Thursday after the station hid the […]
61586
21 Nov, 2011
Update
Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen

‘No place to hide’: Speaking up for armed drones

As US under-secretary of defense in the early 1990s, Major General Kenneth Israel was one of the first to see the potential of combat drones. Now a vice-president of arms manufacturer Lockheed Martin, he was in London recently to chair a conference on UAVs, where he spoke to the Bureau.  How did armed drones come about? […]
61582
21 Nov, 2011
Update
Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen

‘We have to do better’: Protester speaks out

Chris Cole is an activist and campaigner, pushing for accountability on armed drones. He writes the respected blog Drone Wars UK, which earlier this year uncovered details of the first civilian deaths caused by UK drones. Along with others he demonstrated outside the Unmanned Aircraft Systems conference held in London last week.  The conference appears […]
61588
18 Nov, 2011
Update
Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen

Deaths bring to six total Britons killed by CIA drones

Two British nationals are believed to have been killed in a US drone attack in Pakistan, family and friends of the men have told the Press Association. According to PA, Ibrahim Adam and Mohammed Azmir were killed in Waziristan three months or more ago. Their deaths were confirmed to PA by other sources. According to […]
61594
9 Nov, 2011
Update
Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen

Democracy Now! interviews Bureau reporter

On Monday October 31, 16-year-old Tariq Aziz was killed in a US drone strike near the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. Three days earlier, Bureau reporter Pratap Chatterjee met the teenager at a conference in Islamabad, where local people came together to discuss the impact of U.S. drone strikes in their communities. Related article: Bureau reporter meets 16-year-old […]
61604
28 Oct, 2011
Update
Somalia

Bureau Recommends: US flies secret drones from Ethiopia base

Al-Shabaab fighters in Somalia The Bureau Recommends an article in the Washington Post, which reveals that the US Air Force has been secretly flying armed Reaper drones from a remote airbase in Ethiopia. According to the report, millions of dollars have been spent on upgrading the airfield in Arba Minch, which now houses a fleet […]
61640
10 Aug, 2011
Update
Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen

Analysis: The Covert Drone War

In a recent edition of The Times a correspondent writes: ‘In a war in which information and perception play as important a role as tanks and jets, the images of wooden coffins on the shoulders of grieving men will make uncomfortable viewing in London and Paris.’ The journalist, Deborah Haynes, is reporting from a frontline town […]
61664
30 Jun, 2011
Update
Somalia

Somalia targeted in US ‘drone war’

US Special Forces can call on Navy assets in the region. Photo,US Department of Defense A military drone operated by elite US Special Forces has targeted al Qaeda-linked militants in Somalia, killing several people. The attack marks the first confirmed hostile use of drones in the east African country. Bureau research suggests unmanned surveillance craft […]