Risk-Free And Above The Law: U.S. Globalizes Drone Warfare

[Jan Klimkowski]

The Bureau of Investigative Journalism has busted the Obama regime's Predator lies wide open.

The full report, with photos and details, to be read in sadness and horror, is here.

Please see the introduction to that report below.

Get the data: Twenty-five deadly strikes

July 18th, 2011 | by Chris Woods and Rahimullah Yusufzai |

A team of journalists led by Chris Woods has scrutinised reports and data relating to 116 US drone strikes on Pakistan, as part of an ongoing Bureau investigation into the US covert war on terror. These attacks occurred between August 23 2010 and June 29 2011.

Why these dates?
Anonymous US intelligence sources have been claiming for some time that no civilians have been killed in any Pakistan drone strike since last August. On June 29 President Obama's senior adviser on counter-terrorism, John Brennan, stated that no civilians had been killed for nearly a year. He was the first senior official to go on the record with the claim.

The CIA attacks take place in Waziristan and other semi-autonomous tribal areas of western Pakistan, regions that are notoriously hard to report from. Nevertheless, attacks are covered by local and sometimes international media. Villagers, Pakistani intelligence officers, medical, military and militant sources all provide valuable if sometimes contradictory information.

As well as reviewing all available media reports, the Bureau has worked with lawyers and researchers representing civilians reportedly killed in attacks. And we have employed our own researchers in Waziristan to corroborate evidence relating to particular strikes.

From our investigation we believe that while hundreds of militants and Taliban have been killed in the drone attacks, there are 25 strikes where civilians deaths have or are highly likely to have happened.

It is of course very difficult to get a completely accurate picture about anything happening in Waziristan. Drone strikes, Pakistani military activity and militant attacks make this a dangerous region for journalists to operate in.

But while we cannot always be categorical, in at least 10 of the 25 cases we have identified, we understand that civilians were killed. The evidence shows that at least 45 civilians died in these strikes. Six of them were children under 16 years old.

How are we so sure?
As part of our drone investigation we have read thousands of reports relating to over 280 strikes within Pakistan over seven years. Initial reports of suspected militants' killed might later be modified. The Bureau has tried wherever possible to locate credible reports about particular strikes written days, even months after the original event. In doing so, we and others have sometimes identified casualties that were not immediately notified.

Although there are reports of civilian deaths in up to one in five cases, this may actually be a conservative estimate.

Related article: Precision is relative': an interview with Anatol Lieven

Pakistan expert Professor Anatol Lieven told the Bureau: To be honest with you, I'm surprised it's not higher. These people live in compounds with families. Now it may be that precisely because of the drone strikes the commanders are now actually living separately from the women and children, but the whole point of guerrillas is they live among the population.'

Photographs
We have also been given photographs gathered by human rights lawyers working with Reprieve. These images have been sourced by Pakistani journalist Noor Behram, working in Waziristan. We have included the photos and evidence gathered by him when they back up reports that we had already identified.

However, we have been unable to fully corroborate the photos. Dates and times that are usually attached to digital pictures are not present on some of the images we have received and some were taken on a non-digital camera. We include them because, like the reports themselves, they raise questions about the particular strikes that the US administration claims killed only militants.

The Bureau presented a summary of its findings to the White House and to John Brennan's office on Friday July 15, offering them the opportunity to comment. Both declined.

The data
Below are details of 10 strikes that are likely to have killed at least 45 civilians. There are also details of a further 15 strikes that raise significant questions. In these cases at least 65 civilian deaths have also been reported but are contested, or are reported by a single source only.