Update

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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. […]

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 […]

African Union troops advance on al Shabaab positions, May 2012 (AU/UN IST/Stuart Price) The Somali government has given free rein to international forces including the US and African Union to act with impunity in the country, a number of sources have told the Bureau. During the country’s two decades of conflict, its frail government invited […]

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 […]

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, […]

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. […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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. […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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. […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]