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Pakistan
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9 Jan, 2013
Update
Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen

New questions over CIA nominee Brennan’s denial of civilian drone deaths

Obama’s CIA choice. But Brennan civilian death claims raise issues. (White House/ Pete Souza) Claims by the Central Intelligence Agency’s new director-designate that the US intelligence services received ‘no information’ about any civilians killed by US drones in the year prior to June 2011 do not appear to bear scrutiny. John Brennan, President Obama’s nominee […]
3 Jan, 2013
Update
Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen

Emerging from the shadows: US covert drone strikes in 2012

An MQ-9 Reaper at Creech Air Force Base, Nevada (USAF/Lance Cheung) Reported civilian deaths fell sharply in Pakistan in 2012, with Bureau data suggesting that a minimum of 2.5% of those reported killed were civilians – compared with more than 14% in 2011. This suggests the CIA is seeking to limit non-militant casualties, perhaps as a […]
6 Dec, 2012
Update
Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen

UK parliament to investigate drones

A Reaper drone at Kandahar Airfield, Afghanistan (Photo: Ministry of Defence) The British parliament will examine the use of drones as part of an overarching inquiry into the future of the UK’s armed forces. The defence select committee – a panel of 12 politicians led by James Arbuthnot MP – has published its programme of […]
4 Dec, 2012
Update
Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen

Revealed: US and Britain launched 1,200 drone strikes in recent wars

An MQ-9 Reaper returns to Kandahar from an Afghan mission. (USAF/Tech Sgt Chad Chisholm) Recent conflicts in Afghanistan, Libya and Iraq have seen almost 1,200 drone strikes over the past five years, according to new data released to the Bureau. The information, much of it classified until now, shows that US Air Force drones carried […]
3 Dec, 2012
Update
Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen

November 2012 Update: US covert actions in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia

A US Reaper taxis at Kandahar Airbase, Afghanistan (ChuckHolton/Flickr). Pakistan: CIA drone strikes return to Pakistan after a 36 day pause, as Washington sets out to codify its covert drone strikes policy. Yemen: A strike nine miles from Sanaa targets a Yemen army colonel and alleged militant. But his family and others question why he was not […]
3 Nov, 2012
Update
Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen

‘OK, fine. Shoot him.’ Four words that heralded a decade of secret US drone killings

Predator drones increasingly a museum piece thanks to more lethal models (Justinpickard/ Flickr) The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) usually gets all the credit for the first US drone targeted killing beyond the conventional battlefield. But it was the military which gave the final go-ahead to kill on November 3 2002. Lt General Michael DeLong was […]
1 Nov, 2012
Update
Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen

Analysis: How Washington Post strips casualties from covert drone data

The Washington Post: is it telling the whole story? Alongside the Washington Post’s latest blockbuster reports on the Obama administration’s drone kill list is a new graphic, depicting US covert strikes since 2002. Based on studies by monitoring organisations, the graphic lists hundreds of US drone strikes in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia, in what the […]
1 Nov, 2012
Update
Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen

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

A new squadron of armed Reapers will soon be remotely operated from the UK (Photo: RAF) Pakistan: Reported casualties from CIA drone strikes in Pakistan double this month compared with September. Agency targets include a North Waziristan madrassa, killing at least 16. Yemen: Thirteen named militants are among those killed in Yemen, with US operations continuing below their […]
25 Oct, 2012
Update
Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen

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

In the loop? Officers at GCHQ have reportedly shared Taliban commanders’ locations with the CIA (Photo: Ministry of Defence UK intelligence officers may be assisting in murder or war crimes by sharing information with the CIA that leads to deaths in Pakistan drone strikes, a London court heard this week. Pakistani tribesman Noor Khan, whose father […]
25 Oct, 2012
Update
Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen

UN team to investigate civilian drone deaths

London-based UN expert says Geneva unit will investigate civilian drone deaths The United Nations plans to set up a special investigation unit examining claims of civilian deaths in individual US covert drone strikes. UN investigators have been critical of US ‘extrajudicial executions’ since they began in 2002. The new Geneva-based unit will also look at the legality of […]
18 Oct, 2012
Update
Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen

UK parliament launches group to focus on drones

Under scrutiny: The Watchkeeper surveillance drone, on its maiden UK flight. (Photo: Defence Images) Members of parliament Tom Watson and Zac Goldsmith are to lead a new parliamentary group set up to scrutinise the rapid spread of drones both on the battlefield and in civilian life. The All-Party Parliamentary Group on Drones launched yesterday, with […]
1 Oct, 2012
Update
Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen

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

A US Reaper drone on the tarmac at Creech, Nevada – achesonblog/Flickr Pakistan: CIA drone strikes pause for a short period as Muslims protest around the world against a US-made video. A senior al Qaeda leader is killed in resumed strikes. Yemen: Eleven named civilians die in a strike in central Yemen, the worst civilian tally since May. […]
30 Sep, 2012
Update
Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen

Obama risks handing ‘loaded gun’ drone programme to Romney

Obama ‘in thrall to the technological potential of drones’ says Columbia Law School author (Photo: spirit of America/Shutterstock). President Obama’s personal involvement in selecting the targets of covert drone strikes means he risks effectively handing a ‘loaded gun’ to Mitt Romney come November, says the co-author of a new report aimed at US policymakers. ‘If […]
21 Sep, 2012
Update
Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen

Judges greet US government drone secrecy with skepticism

Appeals court judges scrutinised the US government’s secrecy bid. (www.shutterstock.com) Three federal appeal court judges greeted US government efforts to block the release of information on the CIA’s targeted killings programme with skepticism on Thursday, as they grilled the administration’s lawyers for double the scheduled time. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is challenging the […]
21 Sep, 2012
Update
Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen

British PM Cameron: ‘We expect drone strikes to avoid civilian casualties’

Prime Minister Cameron and President Obama at the White House. (Photo: UK Government) David Cameron has called for those carrying out covert drone strikes ‘to act in accordance with international law’ and to take ‘all feasible precautions to avoid civilian casualties.’ However the British prime minister has carefully avoided any direct criticism of the US, […]
6 Sep, 2012
Update
Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen

Obama’s five rules for covert drone strikes

President Obama takes a phone call aboard Air Force One, July 2012 (Photo Official White House/ Pete Souza) In his most comprehensive public comments yet on the US covert drone war, President Barack Obama has laid out the five rules he says the United States uses to target and kill alleged terrorists – including US citizens. […]
3 Sep, 2012
Update
Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen

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

Somalia’s parliamentarians meet for the first time in for two decades on August 20 2012. (AU-UN IST / Stuart Price) Pakistan: August sees the highest number of CIA strikes in Pakistan since October 2011. A number of senior militants are killed along with at least two named civilians. Yemen: At least 26 people are killed […]
30 Aug, 2012
Update
Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen

Apple rejects app built from the Bureau’s data

This is what it could have looked like… An app that uses the Bureau’s covert war data to alert people to the far reaches of the US government’s secret wars has been blocked from Apple’s app store. Drones+, the creation of NYU student Josh Begley, was meant to be a simple way of notifying users […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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. […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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? […]
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 […]