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

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140 posts
2 May, 2019
Update
Afghanistan, Somalia

Pentagon report: 120 civilians killed in operations abroad

American military operations killed 120 civilians in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Somalia last year, according to a report released by the Pentagon today. The report, mandated by Congress, contains a detailed breakdown of the incidents that led to the civilian casualties, including where and when these took place. This differs from last year’s release which […]
2 May, 2018
Update
Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen

US mulls more secrecy on drones

The Trump administration is considering overturning a key Obama-era policy which sought to make counter-terrorism operations more transparent, even as it ramps them up. The announcement, given to the Bureau by the US National Security Council late on Tuesday night, offers one of the clearest indications yet of the administration’s differing stance of transparency in […]
16 Apr, 2018
Update
Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen

A battle for transparency: putting names and numbers to the US drone war

This is an extract from the Bureau’s report, Naming The Dead, published in April 2018, written by Jack Serle The phenomenal assassination tool that is the attack drone was born of frustration – the inability of the US to kill Osama bin Laden. The CIA and its Afghan militia allies were pretty sure they knew […]
19 Jan, 2018
Update
Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen

Trump’s first year in numbers: Strikes triple in Yemen and Somalia

President Donald Trump launched at least 161 strikes in Yemen and Somalia during his first year in office, the Bureau’s latest figures show – more than triple the number carried out the year before. This means there were over 100 times more strikes in Yemen and more than 30 times as many strikes in Somalia […]
19 Dec, 2017
Update
Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen

US counter terror air strikes double in Trump’s first year

The number of US air strikes jumped in Yemen and Somalia in 2017, pointing to an escalation of the global war on terror. President Donald Trump inherited the framework allowing US aircraft to hit suspected terrorists outside of declared battlefields from his predecessor, Barack Obama. Bar some tinkering, his administration has largely stuck within the framework set […]
12 Dec, 2017
Update
Somalia

US strikes shoot up in Somalia

US strikes in Somalia shot up in November, with American planes carrying out five times as many strikes as they did in the previous month. Nearly half of these strikes targeted Islamic State, with the US hitting the group in Somalia for the first time at the beginning of the month. A band of fighters […]
19 Nov, 2017
Update
Somalia

New rules pave way for escalating war in Somalia

Last week’s US air operation in Somalia took the total number of strikes carried out in 2017 to a record 29, raising the possibility of an expansion in military operations outside of conventional battlefields under President Donald Trump. Trump’s predecessor Barack Obama had already escalated strikes in Somalia to 14 a year, reflecting the growing number of […]
25 Sep, 2017
Update
Somalia, Yemen

New tack for presenting data on Yemen and Somalia

The Bureau has decided to change how it presents its data on Yemen and Somalia to make our datasets more user-friendly. Our database records all reported US counter-terrorism operations in the two countries, dating back to November 2001 in Yemen and January 2007 in Somalia. Many of these were reported as drone strikes, whilst others […]
6 Sep, 2017
Update
Afghanistan, Somalia

US investigates civilian deaths in Afghanistan and Somalia

The US military is investigating allegations that two separate operations involving American troops killed at least 22 civilians in the space of a week.  The US military has confirmed it supported a Somali operation during which 10 civilians, including three young children, were reportedly shot dead. Reports suggest the raid targeted a farm in Bariire […]
20 Jan, 2017
Update
Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen

White House releases annual counterterrorism CIVCAS figures

The outgoing Obama administration said on Thursday the US had conducted 53 strikes outside areas of active hostilities in 2016, killing one non-combatant. This contrasts slightly with reports collated by the Bureau – we recorded 49 counter-terrorism strikes in Yemen, Somalia and Pakistan in 2016, killing four to six civilians. The White House began publishing casualty […]
19 Jan, 2017
Update
Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen

Trump, Obama and the future of targeted killing

Barack Obama’s foreign policy legacy is often discussed in terms of things he didn’t do: intervene in Syria, reset with Russia, get out of Afghanistan. In one area however, Obama developed and expanded a defining policy architecture which his successor Donald Trump now inherits: the ability to kill suspected terrorists anywhere without US personnel having […]
17 Jan, 2017
Update
Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen

Obama’s covert drone war in numbers: ten times more strikes than Bush

There were ten times more air strikes in the covert war on terror during President Barack Obama’s presidency than under his predecessor, George W. Bush. Obama embraced the US drone programme, overseeing more strikes in his first year than Bush carried out during his entire presidency. A total of 563 strikes, largely by drones, targeted […]
11 Oct, 2016
Update
Somalia

US accused of killing 22 Somali soldiers and civilians

US Special Forces AC-130 gunships have been the primary platform for attacks in Somalia Somali officials have claimed that the US killed 22 local soldiers and civilians in a drone strike that hit the north-central city of Galkayo late last month. The US has confirmed it conducted a strike in the area on the same […]
1 Jul, 2016
Update
Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen

Why White House civilian casualty figures on civilian are a wild underestimate

Chris Woods set up the Bureau’s award-winning Drones Project in 2011, and is the author of Sudden Justice: America’s Secret Drone Wars. He now runs Airwars, which monitors international airstrikes and civilian casualties in Iraq and Syria. Targeted killings or assassinations beyond the battlefield remain a highly charged subject. Most controversial of all is the number of […]
1 Jul, 2016
Update
Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen

Obama drone casualty numbers a fraction of those recorded by the Bureau

The US government today claimed it has killed between 64 and 116 “non-combatants” in 473 counter-terrorism strikes in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia and Libya between January 2009 and the end of 2015. This is a fraction of the 380 to 801 civilian casualty range recorded by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism from reports by local and […]
7 Mar, 2016
Update
Somalia

Unprecedented death toll from US air strike in Somalia

The US flattened an al Shabaab training camp in central Somalia and killed around 150 people, the Pentagon said today, making it the highest death toll in a US counter-terrorism strike yet recorded anywhere by the Bureau. The strike hit approximately 100 miles north of Mogadishu and killed al Shabaab terrorists who posed an imminent […]
1 Dec, 2015
Update
Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen

US drone war, November 2015: American troops in Afghanistan and Somalia supported by new strikes

Gen John Campbell, top US military officer in Afghanistan, admits human error behind the destruction of a hospital on October 3. US strikes continued in Afghanistan and Somalia last month. Strikes in both countries were carried out to counter a threat to US forces on the ground. There were no attacks reported in Pakistan, where the Pakistan […]
2 Nov, 2015
Update
Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen

At least 80 US airstrikes hit Afghanistan in October: The White House’s covert drone and air war – monthly update

On October 3 a US airstrike destroyed MSF’s hospital in Kunduz, northern Afghanistan (Photo: Victor Blue/MSF)   Scores of US air and drone strikes hit Afghanistan in October as the country’s military and police continued struggling to control the resurgent Taliban. While at least 80 strikes reportedly hit Afghanistan, the CIA’s drone strikes stopped at […]
15 Oct, 2015
Update
Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen

Podcast: US whistleblower Brandon Bryant on Germany’s role in America’s drone wars

Former US drone operator Brandon Bryant (photo: Democracy Now!/You Tube) As a parliamentary inquiry in Berlin explores Germany’s role in America’s drone wars, former drone operator Brandon Bryant tells the Bureau about what he saw of it during his time with the Air Force. Bryant, who himself gave testimony to the inquiry today, said that […]
5 Oct, 2015
Update
Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen

Monthly drone report: Total drone strikes under Obama in Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen now 491 after September attacks

A US Air Force Reaper in Afghanistan (Photo: US Air Force) EXECUTIVE SUMMARY i. Key points: CIA and Pakistan Air Force drones hit Pakistan’s tribal areas US strikes continue in Yemen as the civil war rages Al Shabaab continue to kill peacekeepers and civilians in Somalia The three drone strikes in Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen in […]
2 Sep, 2015
Update
Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen

Monthly drone report, August 2015: 32 US strikes hit Afghanistan alone

A US Reaper taxis at Creech airbase in Nevada, USA (US Air Force photo by Senior Airman Larry E Reid Jr) EXECUTIVE SUMMARY i. Key points: US actions continue in Afghanistan, eight months after combat operations officially ended. American drones continue to kill alleged AQAP fighters as Yemen’s civil war rages. The first strike in […]
3 Aug, 2015
Update
Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen

US drone wars in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen and Somalia: Monthly report, July 2015

African Union peacekeepers liberated towns from al Shabaab control last month, with US air support (AU UN IST PHOTO/Tobin Jones taken in 2014) EXECUTIVE SUMMARY i. Key points: As many strikes hit Afghanistan in July (17) as in January to June combined No strikes hit Pakistan for the second calendar month this year, now 56 […]
1 Jul, 2015
Update
Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen

Drone war report, January – June 2015: controversial ‘signature strikes’ hit Yemen and Pakistan

President Barack Obama publicly acknowledged a specific drone strike in Pakistan, an unprecedented step. He apologized for killing American Warren Weinstein and Italian Giovanni Lo Porto, two al Qaeda hostages, in a signature strike in Pakistan (Photo: White House) EXECUTIVE SUMMARY i. Key points: Signature strikes return to Pakistan and Yemen. First confirmed civilian casualties […]
19 Jun, 2015
Update
Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen

Podcast: deaths of 38 Westerners in US drone strikes raises serious questions for US allies

Rammstein in Germany is a key hub for US drone operations, including those that killed German citizens (Flickr/US Army Corps of Engineers) US drones have killed at least 38 Westerners since 2002 – most from some of America’s closest allies, raising serious questions for those governments about how much they knew and how much they helped with […]
5 Jun, 2015
Update
Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen

Podcast: “Sudden Justice” author Chris Woods on CIA accountability and the politics of US drone wars

John Brennan, the Director of the CIA since March 2013 Transferring control of the US drone programme away from the CIA could paradoxically result in less accountability, author and investigative journalist Chris Woods told this week’s Drone News. Since President Barack Obama announced in April that a CIA drone strike on an al Qaeda compound in […]
2 Jun, 2015
Update
Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen

Monthly drone report, May 2015: US strikes kill at least 48 in three countries

A US helicopter ferrying military advisers over Nangarhar province, Afghanistan, where US aircraft killed at least 34 this month (USAF) EXECUTIVE SUMMARY i. Key points: A Pew Research Center poll finds strong support in the US for drone strikes Three US strikes kill at least 34 in Afghanistan The US continues to bomb Yemen in […]
7 May, 2015
Update
Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen

ANALYSIS Counting the cost of US drones: Local wars killing local people

The funeral of Akram Shah, a government employee, killed with at least four other locals, all civilians, in June 2011 (THIS KHAN/AFP/Getty Images) As the Bureau revealed recently, the accidental killing of American Warren Weinstein and Italian Giorgio Lo Porto by the CIA in January now means at least 38 Westerners have been killed by covert US […]
1 May, 2015
Update
Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen

Monthly Drone Report, April 2015: Western drone deaths reach 38

Spanish citizen Raquel Burgos Garcia died in a CIA drone strike in Pakistan in 2005. (AP Photo/Nicolas Asfouri) EXECUTIVE SUMMARY i. Key points: Drones have killed 38 Westerners since 2002 including two al Qaeda hostages killed in January. US air strikes continue in Afghanistan but the vacuum of information remains. Most drone strikes in Yemen in a […]
27 Apr, 2015
Update
Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen

Could German court halt White House’s ‘illegal’ drone war? An exclusive extract from Chris Woods’ new book Sudden Justice

The US Air Base in Ramstein, Germany, has played a key role in the CIA drone strikes that killed seven Germany citizens (Flickr/US Army) The debate over America’s use of drones to kill its own citizens has never been as intense. Last week in an unprecedented announcement, President Barack Obama admitted that CIA drones had […]
23 Apr, 2015
Update
Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen

Hostage deaths mean 38 Westerners killed by US drone strikes, Bureau investigation reveals

Al Qaeda’s US hostage, Warren Weinstein, killed in a US drone strike in January 2015. In an unprecedented announcement today President Barack Obama admitted that two al Qaeda hostages, an American and an Italian, were killed in a US drone strike in Pakistan in January. He also said two other US citizens were killed in a […]