When U.S. drones kill civilians, Yemen’s government tries to conceal it. Within seconds, 11 of the passengers were dead, including a woman and her 7-year-old daughter. A 12-year-old boy also perished that day, and another man later died from his wounds. The Yemeni government initially said that those killed were al-Qaeda militants and that its Soviet-era jets had carried out the Sept. 2 attack. But tribal leaders and Yemeni officials would later say that it was an American assault and that all the victims were civilians who lived in a village near Radda, in central Yemen. U.S. officials last week acknowledged for the first time that it was an American strike. “Their bodies were burning,” recalled Sultan Ahmed Mohammed, 27, who was riding on the hood of the truck and flew headfirst into a sandy expanse. “How could this happen? None of us were al-Qaeda.” More than three months later, the incident offers a window into the Yemeni government’s efforts to conceal Washington’s mistakes and the unintended consequences of civilian deaths in American air assaults.
US drone strikes kill Jordanian, Yemeni AQAP operatives. The US targeted al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula fighters in the first reported drone strikes in Yemen in seven weeks. In the first stirke, a Yemeni and a Jordanian AQAP operative are said to have been killed after remotely piloted Predators or the more deadly Reapers fired several missiles at their vehicle as they traveled in the Manaseeh area of Baydah province in central Yemen, local intelligence officials and tribesmen told AFP. Three more "militants" are said to have been wounded. The Yemeni AQAP operative was identified as Abdullah Hussein al Waeli, a "member from Marib province who was wanted after he escaped from prison two years ago," according to AFP. The identity of the Jordanian was not disclosed. In a second strike in the eastern province of Hadramout, US drones are said to have killed four AQAP fighters as they were driving motorcycles in the town of Shehr, AFP reported.
Jordanians are known to fight in Yemen as members of AQAP. US strikes in Yemen. In the US, mass child killings are tragedies. In Pakistan, mere bug splats | George Monbiot. "Mere words cannot match the depths of your sorrow, nor can they heal your wounded hearts … These tragedies must end. And to end them, we must change. " Every parent can connect with what President Barack Obama said about the murder of 20 children in Newtown, Connecticut. There can scarcely be a person on earth with access to the media who is untouched by the grief of the people of that town. It must follow that what applies to the children murdered there by a deranged young man also applies to the children murdered in Pakistan by a sombre American president.
If the victims of Mr Obama's drone strikes are mentioned by the state at all, they are discussed in terms which suggest that they are less than human. Like George Bush's government in Iraq, Obama's administration neither documents nor acknowledges the civilian casualties of the CIA's drone strikes in north-west Pakistan. The wider effects on the children of the region have been devastating. The Guilty Conscience of a Drone Pilot Who Killed a Child - Conor Friedersdorf.
May his story remind us that U.S. strikes have reportedly killed many times more kids than died in Newtown -- and that we can do better. Reuters This isn't an argument against drone strikes -- it is a critique of the way that they're presently carried out. It begins with a tragedy. The German newspaper Der Spiegel has published a moving profile of an American drone pilot who flew armed, remotely piloted missions over Afghanistan, one country where the War on Terror is actually declared.
Drone strikes there are run under the supervision of Air Force officers operating under military procedures. One traumatic incident stands out in his memory: There was a flat-roofed house made of mud, with a shed used to hold goats in the crosshairs .... The United States kills a lot of "dogs on two legs. " Yet Obama has never remarked as he did Sunday that "as a nation, we are left with some hard questions" as a result of those deaths. We accept that properly valuing freedom sometimes lessens our safety.
The day 69 children died. The attack was on a religious seminary in Chenegai, in Bajaur Agency. The attack was on a religious seminary in Chenegai, in Bajaur Agency. PHOTO: AFP/FILE LONDON: It is one of the worst incidents of the entire drones campaign, yet one of the least reported. A CIA strike on a madrassa or religious school in 2006 killed up to 69 children, among 80 civilians. The attack was on a religious seminary in Chenegai, in Bajaur Agency. CIA drones attacked on October 30, flattening much of the school. Veteran journalist Rahimullah Yusufzai, speaking to the Bureau of Investigative Journalism from Peshawar, recalls visiting the village just after the strike: “People were devastated. Initially the Pakistan Army claimed that it had carried out the bombardment, even as shops and offices closed across the region and protests spread.
A week after the attack, a local English newspaper published the names and home villages of 80 victims. U.S. airstrike that killed American teen in Yemen raises legal, ethical questions. Unlike the secretive U.S. airstrikes that have killed hundreds of foreigners in Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen, this case involved an American teenager. He was killed by the U.S. military in a country with which Washington is not at war. Officials throughout the U.S. government, however, have refused to answer questions for the record about how or why Awlaki was killed Oct. 14 in a remote part of Yemen, along with eight other people.
The Obama administration has asserted the right to launch attacks against al-Qaeda members anywhere in the world, saying there is no difference between a battlefield in Afghanistan and a suspected terrorist hideout in Yemen or Somalia. But when U.S. forces kill civilians or operations go awry in traditional war zones such as Afghanistan or Iraq, the military routinely conducts official investigations. The results are often declassified and released as public records. “This country is much safer as a result of the loss of Awlaki,” said Defense Secretary Leon E. In Pakistan, Drones Kill Our Innocent Allies. Counting Civilian Casualties in CIA’s Drone War - by Meg Braun. A report released in September by human rights researchers at Stanford Law School and New York University Law School sets out to demonstrate that U.S. drone policies are "damaging and counterproductive.
" Media outlets from CNN to BBC hailed the report as new evidence of the U.S. government's false narrative on drones and the New York Times' Scott Shane described the study as "among the most thorough on the subject to date. " While the Stanford-NYU report certainly presents a comprehensive review of existing drone research, its new contributions to the evidentiary record are far more modest than its sweeping conclusions would suggest. Number Crunching The U.S. government claims that civilian casualties caused by drones are in the "single digits" during Obama's years in office, while the Stanford-NYU report seeks to establish that there is significant evidence that U.S. drone strikes have killed and injured a larger number of civilians.
However, this does not represent new evidence. Grandfather grieves teenage grandson killed by U.S. drone. U.S. drone strikes killing Americans Debate over U.S. drone strikes By Mick Krever, CNN Two years ago, Nasser al-Awlaki wrote a letter to President Obama. His request was simple: Please do not kill my son. He never got a response. “Anwar, it was expected, because he was … targeted,” Nasser al-Awlaki told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour in an exclusive interview on Wednesday. Nasser’s son, Anwar, was born in New Mexico in 1971 while he was studying for his master’s degree. For years, his father said, he gave sermons “like any other preacher.” Nasser’s chief concern, however, his is grandson, Adulrahman.
“I took care of him,” al-Awlaki said. Al-Awlaki is suing four U.S. officials, including Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Former CIA Director David Petraeus over his son and grandson’s deaths. He alleges that the government did not follow due process in killing American-born Anwar and Adulrahman. “I am not looking for compensation, I am not looking for money,” he said. U.S. Drone Strike Said to Kill 60 in Pakistan. Obama terror drones: CIA tactics in Pakistan include targeting rescuers and funerals: The Bureau of Investigative Journalism. Missiles being loaded onto a military Reaper drone in Afghanistan. The CIA’s drone campaign in Pakistan has killed dozens of civilians who had gone to help rescue victims or were attending funerals, an investigation by the Bureau for the Sunday Times has revealed. The findings are published just days after President Obama claimed that the drone campaign in Pakistan was a ‘targeted, focused effort’ that ‘has not caused a huge number of civilian casualties.’
Speaking publicly for the first time on the controversial CIA drone strikes, Obama claimed last week they are used strictly to target terrorists, rejecting what he called ‘this perception we’re just sending in a whole bunch of strikes willy-nilly’. ‘Drones have not caused a huge number of civilian casualties’, he told a questioner at an on-line forum. But research by the Bureau has found that since Obama took office three years ago, between 282 and 535 civilians have been credibly reported as killed including more than 60 children. U.S. Drone Strikes Are Said to Target Rescuers. US drone strikes target rescuers in Pakistan – and the west stays silent | Glenn Greenwald. The US government has long maintained, reasonably enough, that a defining tactic of terrorism is to launch a follow-up attack aimed at those who go to the scene of the original attack to rescue the wounded and remove the dead. Morally, such methods have also been widely condemned by the west as a hallmark of savagery.
Yet, as was demonstrated yet again this weekend in Pakistan, this has become one of the favorite tactics of the very same US government. A 2004 official alert from the FBI warned that "terrorists may use secondary explosive devices to kill and injure emergency personnel responding to an initial attack"; the bulletin advised that such terror devices "are generally detonated less than one hour after initial attack, targeting first responders as well as the general population".
"A van draws up next to the wounded man and Iraqis climb out. "Asked for documentation of Tariq and Waheed's deaths, Akbar did not provide pictures of the missile strike scene. The US has killed more than 168 children in Pakistan - Another World Is Possible. Chris Woods Drone War Exposed – the complete picture of CIA strikes in Pakistan. The Obama administration has come to rely heavily on CIA drone strikes to attack alleged militants in the country’s western tribal areas.
To date, at least 236 drone attacks have been ordered in Obama’s name. CIA drone strikes have led to far more deaths in Pakistan than previously understood, according to extensive new research published by the Bureau. More than 160 children are among at least 2,292 people reported killed in US attacks since 2004. There are credible reports of at least 385 civilians among the dead.
In a surprise move, a counter-terrorism official has also released US government estimates of the numbers killed. Reassessment The Bureau’s fundamental reassessment of the covert US campaign involved a complete re-examination of all that is known about each US drone strike. The Bureau’s findings are published in a 22,000-word database which covers each individual strike in Pakistan in detail.
Drone strikes kill, maim and traumatize too many civilians, U.S. study says. A Pakistani man burns an American flag during a protest against U.S. drone attacks in Multan on February 9, 2012. A study by Stanford and NYU claims only about 2% of killed targets are "high-level"Innocent civilians are killed, maimed and traumatized by drone strikes, the report saysDrones in Pakistan killed 176 children from 2004 to 2012, an independent group saysObama has said a target must meet "very tight and very strict standards" (CNN) -- U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan have killed far more people than the United States has acknowledged, have traumatized innocent residents and largely been ineffective, according to a new study released Tuesday.
The study by Stanford Law School and New York University's School of Law calls for a re-evaluation of the practice, saying the number of "high-level" targets killed as a percentage of total casualties is extremely low -- about 2%. Obama reflects on drone warfare use Drones in Action "It has to be a target that is authorized by our laws. The Malalas You Don't See. The Pakistani teenager shot by the Taliban has rightly captured the world’s attention. But what about the invisible child victims of US drones? On October 24 in Northwest Pakistan, two children were injured in a drone strike authorized by the President of the United States. Other kids have been killed by similar strikes; Americans do not know their names. Unlike Malala Yousafzai, the teenager from the Swat Valley, who was shot by the Taliban for promoting girls’ education, Madonna did not dedicate a song to them, nor has Angelina Jolie spoken out on their behalf.
About the Author Sarah Waheed Sarah Waheed, a historian of modern South Asia, specializes in Islam in South Asia, nationalist politics in colonial... The media attention paid to the horrific attack on Malala Yousafzai—and the close tracking of her recovery—is certainly justifiable. Contrary to the narrative presented by much of the US media, the Taliban are not Pakistan’s only problem. Malians listen for the sound of drones | World news. A recent article in the Wall Street Journal argues that the fact Islamist extremists in northern Mali do not enjoy the support of the local population, combined with the area's flat desert landscape, "suggest that an aggressive Pakistan-style drone campaign can have results".
With the French reported to be moving surveillance drones into the region, an intensive drone campaign supporting a relatively small number of ground troops may seem an attractive option for the intervention forces. But the reality is unlikely to be quite so simple. The human cost of fighting Aerial reconnaissance and targeted drone strikes might have been effective a year ago when Islamist fighters were holed-up in the desert or camped in the Adrar des Ifoghas mountains. But now they have moved into the villages, towns and cities across their region. "Every day they are picking up 10 and 11-year-old children," a resident of Timbuktu who wished to remain anonymous told a source over the phone last week. 60 drone hits kill 14 al-Qaeda men, 687 civilians. Friday, April 10, 2009 By Amir Mir LAHORE: Of the 60 cross-border predator strikes carried out by the Afghanistan-based American drones in Pakistan between January 14, 2006 and April 8, 2009, only 10 were able to hit their actual targets, killing 14 wanted al-Qaeda leaders, besides perishing 687 innocent Pakistani civilians.
The success percentage of the US predator strikes thus comes to not more than six per cent. Figures compiled by the Pakistani authorities show that a total of 701 people, including 14 al-Qaeda leaders, have been killed since January 2006 in 60 American predator attacks targeting the tribal areas of Pakistan. Two strikes carried out in 2006 had killed 98 civilians while three attacks conducted in 2007 had slain 66 Pakistanis, yet none of the wanted al-Qaeda or Taliban leaders could be hit by the Americans right on target. The seventh such attack conducted in North Waziristan on October 31, 2008 had killed Abu Jihad al Masri, a top leader of the Egyptian Islamic group. The Drones Are Coming: New War on Civilians… « NWO Observer. Www.isaf.nato.int/images/stories/File/April2010-Dari/May2010Revised/Uruzgan investigation findings.pdf.