Rise of the Drones – UAVs After 9/11

[Jan Klimkowski]

Do you have children? Do they sit your house playing happily? Do they sleep sweetly scrunched up in their warm beds at night? Do they chatter and prattle like funny little birds as you eat with them at the family table? Do you love them? Do you treasure them? Do you consider them fully-fledged human beings, beloved souls of infinite worth?

How would you feel if you saw them ripped to shreds by flying shrapnel, in your own house?

How would you feel as you rushed them to the hospital, praying every step of the way that another missile won't hurl down on you from the sky? Your child was innocent, you had done nothing, were simply living your life in your own house and someone thousands of miles away, in a country you had never seen, had no dealings with, had never harmed in any way, pushed a button and sent chunks of burning metal into your child's body. How would you feel as you watched him die, watched all your hopes and dreams for him, all the hours and days and years you would have to love him, fade away into oblivion, lost forever?

Precisely.

There will be Hell to pay for drone murders.

[Lauren Johnson]

Do you have children? Do they sit your house playing happily? Do they sleep sweetly scrunched up in their warm beds at night? Do they chatter and prattle like funny little birds as you eat with them at the family table? Do you love them? Do you treasure them? Do you consider them fully-fledged human beings, beloved souls of infinite worth?

How would you feel if you saw them ripped to shreds by flying shrapnel, in your own house?

How would you feel as you rushed them to the hospital, praying every step of the way that another missile won't hurl down on you from the sky? Your child was innocent, you had done nothing, were simply living your life in your own house and someone thousands of miles away, in a country you had never seen, had no dealings with, had never harmed in any way, pushed a button and sent chunks of burning metal into your child's body. How would you feel as you watched him die, watched all your hopes and dreams for him, all the hours and days and years you would have to love him, fade away into oblivion, lost forever?

Precisely.

There will be Hell to pay for drone murders.

The drone murders could make for a great cover story. "Those terrorists aren't greatful for what we did for them freeing their country from terrorists. They just refuse to understand some times mistakes are made." Another Patriot act passes Congress with unanimous consent to fight the outbreak of 'domestic terrorism.'

[Peter Lemkin]

Drone Makers Push Congress to Open Skies to Surveillance
24th November 2012

By Gary Martin

Houston Chronicle, November 24, 2012

WASHINGTON Are unmanned aircraft, known to have difficulty avoiding collisions, safe to use in America's crowded airspace? And would their widespread use for surveillance result in unconstitutional invasions of privacy?

Experts say neither question has been answered satisfactorily. Yet the federal government is rushing to open America's skies to tens of thousands of the drones pushed to do so by a law championed by manufacturers of the unmanned aircraft.

The 60-member House of Representatives' "drone caucus" officially, the House Unmanned Systems Caucus has helped push that agenda. And over the last four years, caucus members have drawn nearly $8 million in drone-related campaign contributions, an investigation by Hearst Newspapers and the Center for Responsive Politics shows.

The Federal Aviation Administration has been flooded with applications from police departments, universities, private corporations and even the celebrity gossip site TMZ, all seeking to use drones that range from devices the size of a hummingbird to full-sized aircraft like those used by the U.S. military to target al-Qaeda operatives in Pakistan and elsewhere.

Patrolling the border

Domestic use of drones began with limited aerial patrols of the nation's borders by Customs and Border Patrol authorities. But the industry and its allies pushed for more, leading to provisions in the FAA Modernization and Reform Act, signed into law on Feb. 14 of this year.

The law requires the FAA to fully integrate the unmanned aerial vehicles into national airspace by September 2015. And it contains a series of deadlines leading up to that one: This month, the agency was supposed to produce a comprehensive plan for the integration, and in August it was required to have a plan for testing at six different sites in the U.S. Neither plan has been issued.

"These timelines are very aggressive," said Heidi Williams, a vice president of the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association, one of the stakeholders taking part in a working group put together by the FAA to help develop a regulatory plan. "These issues are very complex, and we have a long way to go."

Many potential uses for unmanned aircraft, which are cheaper to operate than piloted planes or helicopters, have been identified. Among them: monitoring pipelines and power lines, finding lost hikers, surveying crops and assessing environmental threats and damage from natural disasters. The FAA has predicted that 30,000 drones could be flying in the United States in less than 20 years.

An FAA official, who spoke on background, said "one of the main safety issues" with drones is lack of ability to "sense and avoid other aircraft." A September report by the Government Accountability Office identified the same concern. In addition, the GAO report said, "Concerns about national security, privacy and interference with Global Positioning System signals have not been resolved."

FAA Administrator Michael Huerta said at a conference on drones this year in Las Vegas that the agency is making progress working through the issues. FAA is working with "collision avoidance experts" from the Defense Department, NASA and private firms to determine what standards and requirements should be set.

Sources of funds

House members from California, Texas, Virginia and New York on the bipartisan "drone caucus" received the lion's share of the funds channeled to lawmakers from dozens of firms that are members of the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International, Hearst and CRP found.

Eleven drone caucus lawmakers from California, where many aviation firms are located, received more than $2.4 million from manufacturers' political action committees and employees during the 2012 and 2010 election cycles, according to an analysis of Federal Election Commission reports.

And eight Texas House members in the caucus received more than $746,000.

Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Laredo, said drone manufacturers contribute just as other interest groups do.

"We get contributions from media PACs, from teachers, from doctors and from a whole lot of companies that produce drones," Cuellar said.

Educating lawmakers

120124091543 fl police flying drone 00014604 story top Drone Makers Push Congress to Open Skies to SurveillanceA police drone

The House "drone caucus" was established three years ago. Senate lawmakers followed suit this fall.

Cuellar also said the purpose of the House caucus is to educate other members on the need for and uses of drones for public safety, border enforcement, search-and-rescue and commercial uses.

The Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International, which represents drone and systems manufacturers, has been far more generous to Republicans than Democrats when it comes to campaign donations. GOP drone caucus members received 74 percent of the group's donations.

In the House, the top recipient was Rep. Howard "Buck" McKeon, R-Calif., chairman of the House Armed Services Committee. He received $833,650 in drone-related campaign contributions.

McKeon and Cuellar are co-chairmen of the caucus.

Rep. Silvestre Reyes, D-El Paso, a former U.S. Border Patrol sector chief who lost his seat in the Democratic primary, received $310,000.

Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Austin, chairman of the House Homeland Security subcommittee on oversight, received $100,000, and Cuellar received almost $77,000. The two have pushed for drone surveillance of the U.S.-Mexico border.

Companies with drone aircraft currently used by the military, but with potential civilian applications, were among the largest donors to caucus members.

Those firms include BAE Systems, which makes the Mantis and Taranis drones; Boeing Co., maker of the hydrogen-fueled Phantom Eye; Honeywell International, maker of the RQ-16 T-Hawk; Lockheed Martin, which makes the RQ-170 Sentinel; Raytheon Co., which makes Cobra; and General Atomics, maker of the Predator.

Privacy concerns

Some lawmakers remain skeptical. Along with civil rights advocates, they worry over government eavesdropping, surveillance photography and other potential privacy violations.

"The drones are coming," shouted Rep. Ted Poe, R-Humble, earlier this year from the House floor, as he warned of encroachment by government into the rights of citizens.

A North Dakota court upheld the arrest of a Lakota, N.D., farmer by a police SWAT team using information from a Customs and Border Protection Predator drone over the northern U.S.-Canadian border.

The June 2011 incident began when several cows found their way to Rodney Bossart's 3,000-acre farm. He claimed ownership of the wayward bovines and allegedly brandished firearms at law enforcement officials.

During the ensuing standoff, a SWAT team received surveillance information from Customs and Border Protection, gathered from a high-flying Predator drone. That information was used to locate and arrest the farmer.

The Bossart case was apparently the first use of national security surveillance to aid the arrest of a U.S. citizen on non-terror-related charges. More such cases should be expected, said Jay Stanley, a senior policy analyst with the American Civil Liberties Union.

"Based on current trends, technology development, law enforcement interest, political and industry pressure and the lack of legal safeguards it is clear that drones pose a looming threat to Americans' privacy," Stanley said.

Law enforcement agencies say drones will better protect the safety of officers and the public in dangerous situations, and can be used for search and rescue during natural disasters.

Last year the sheriff of Montgomery County, north of Houston, purchased a $300,000 Vanguard Shadowhawk- a small unmanned helicopter with a grant provided by the Department of Homeland Security. But deputies have yet to use the drone, mainly because of FAA restrictions, said Randy McDaniel, the Montgomery County chief deputy.

The FAA limits, as well as maintenance costs, battery-life problems and poor video quality, prompted the Texas Department of Public Safety to discontinue its $298,000 drone program in 2010. The four hand-held drones were used in fewer than 10 missions in two years.

Seeking new oversight

Law enforcement officials are lobbying lawmakers to shift the oversight for use of drones from FAA to the Department of Homeland Security.

That position is supported by McCaul, who said DHS has more familiarity with drones and is best equipped to handle a potential risk of hijacking by terrorists. He's alarmed at the lack of federal preparation for the influx of drones, particularly in light of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

The privacy issue bothers both Democrats and Republicans. This year's Republican platform stated: "… [W]e support pending legislation to prevent unwarranted or unreasonable governmental intrusion through the use of aerial surveillance … with the exception of patrolling our national borders."

The Fourth Amendment governs when, where and how the government can gather information on an individual, including whether officials need a search warrant before acting. Courts have given the greatest protection to people when they're in the privacy of their homes.

For instance, in a 2001 Supreme Court case, the justices nixed the Interior Department's use of thermal imaging to detect heat patterns coming from the home of someone suspected of growing marijuana indoors using heat lamps, saying it was an illegal search and required a warrant. The court's reasoning relied in part on the fact that the technology was not in "general public use." That's language that might be applicable to drones using cameras to get glimpses of individuals inside their homes.

Not just police

Outside a home's walls, though, privacy rights decrease. Courts blessed an arrest after a flyover by police revealed marijuana growing in someone's back yard.

Liberal Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., and libertarian-leaning Sen. Rand Paul, R-Tenn., have crafted legislation to put a tight rein on drone use.

Privacy advocates note that not just the police, but individuals and commercial enterprises will be using the devices. TMZ's application for a permit illustrates that. Paparazzi are already using small drones on the Riviera to shoot photos of celebrities in otherwise hard-to-access areas. TMZ "does not have a permit" yet, FAA officials said recently.

Viveca Novak of the Center for Responsive Politics contributed to this report.

http://www.chron.com/news/nation-world/a...064133.php

[Peter Lemkin]

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Bipartisan group in US Congress promotes drone killings

By Patrick Martin
OpEdNews Op Eds 12/2/2012 at 20:51:57 [/TD]
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A large bipartisan group in Congress is promoting the building and use of drones, according to an investigative report published November 25 in the San Francisco Chronicle and the Houston Chronicle.
The report was made public the same day that the New York Times reported that drone strikes ordered by President Obama have killed more than 2,500 people over the past four years, and that the Obama administration was moving ahead to codify and formalize the procedure for targeting individuals and groups for deadly violence by CIA and Pentagon drone operators.
The report by the Center for Responsive Politics and Hearst newspapers examined the flow of campaign contributions from corporations engaged in building and arming drones to Democratic and Republican congressmen and senators.
The biggest donors include General Atomics, which makes the Predator, the number-one remote killer for the CIA and Pentagon; BAE Systems, which makes the Mantis and Taranis drones; Boeing Co., maker of the hydrogen-fueled Phantom Eye; Honeywell International, which makes the RQ-16 T-Hawk; Lockheed Martin, which makes the RQ-170 Sentinel; and Raytheon Co., maker of the Cobra.
More than $8 million in campaign contributions from drone manufacturers and operators has flowed into the coffers of the 60 members of the House Unmanned Systems Caucus. The majority of the House members are from California, Texas, Virginia and New York, including the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, Howard "Buck" McKeown, a California Republican, and Silvestre Reyes, a Texas Democrat who lost a primary election and leaves Congress at the end of the year.

The Senate group of drone promoters comprises eight members, including liberal Democrat Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, and is co-chaired by Democrat Joe Manchin of West Virginia.
The very existence of what the CRP/Hearst report calls the "drone caucus" is an indication of the profound degeneration of American democracy. It was not so long ago, in the 1970s, that leading Democrat Henry Jackson became notorious as the "senator from Boeing." Now an entire caucus has been formed of promoters of weapons of mass murder. What is next: The napalm caucus? The poison gas caucus?
According to the CRP/Hearst report, the principal activity of the "drone" caucus has been to promote the use of these weapons within the United States, including passage of the FAA Modernization and Reform Act, signed into law by President Obama on February 14, which requires the FAA to complete the integration of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) into the national airspace by September 2015.
Drones have become big business for US police agencies, beginning with the federal Department of Homeland Security, which recently signed a $443 million deal with General Atomics to increase its fleet of Predator drones -- capable of firing missiles as well as surveillance -- from 10 to 24.
The FAA projects that 30,000 drones could be flying in US airspace within 20 years, operated by local, state and national police and security agencies, as well as private corporations.
The US buildup has sparked a global arms race in drone building and deployment. More than 50 countries operate surveillance drones, and many of these are beginning to fit their drones with weapons.
According to a Pentagon study, enemy drones could be a "very serious threat" to US aircraft carriers and other large ships, and to "supply convoys and other combat support assets which have not had to deal with an airborne threat in generations."
While the US has 8,000 drones deployed and plans to spend $37 billion on drone warfare over the next eight years, a recent report by the Pentagon's Defense Science Board noted with considerable worry, "For UAVs, the US currently has limited dedicated defensive capabilities other than fighters or surface-to-air missiles, giving the enemy a significant asymmetric cost advantage. ... The increasing worldwide focus on unmanned systems highlights how US military success has changed global strategic thinking and spurred a race for unmanned aircraft."
For the time being, the US military-industrial complex holds the lead in the drone arms race, but the Pentagon study pointed to the "asymmetric cost advantage." In other words, drones can be a cheap and cost-effective alternative for countries that cannot afford ICBMs and aircraft carriers.

[Magda Hassan]

The coming drone attack on America

Drones on domestic surveillance duties are already deployed by police and corporations. In time, they will likely be weaponised

• • Naomi Wolf
    
  • guardian.co.uk, Friday 21 December 2012 19.36 GMT
    
  • Jump to comments (410)
    

By 2020, it is estimated that as many as 30,000 drones will be in use in US domestic airspace. Photograph: US navy/Reuters

People often ask me, in terms of my argument about "ten steps" that mark the descent to a police state or closed society, at what stage we are. I am sorry to say that with the importation of what will be tens of thousands of drones, by both US military and by commercial interests, into US airspace, with a specific mandate to engage in surveillance and with the capacity for weaponization which is due to begin in earnest at the start of the new year it means that the police state is now officially here.
In February of this year, Congress passed the FAA Reauthorization Act, with its provision to deploy fleets of drones domestically. Jennifer Lynch, an attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, notes that this followed a major lobbying effort, "a huge push by […] the defense sector" to promote the use of drones in American skies: 30,000 of them are expected to be in use by 2020, some as small as hummingbirds meaning that you won't necessarily see them, tracking your meeting with your fellow-activists, with your accountant or your congressman, or filming your cruising the bars or your assignation with your lover, as its video-gathering whirs.
Others will be as big as passenger planes. Business-friendly media stress their planned abundant use by corporations: police in Seattle have already deployed them.
An unclassified US air force document reported by CBS (pdf) news expands on this unprecedented and unconstitutional step one that formally brings the military into the role of controlling domestic populations on US soil, which is the bright line that separates a democracy from a military oligarchy. (The US constitution allows for the deployment of National Guard units by governors, who are answerable to the people; but this system is intended, as is posse comitatus, to prevent the military from taking action aimed at US citizens domestically.)
The air force document explains that the air force will be overseeing the deployment of its own military surveillance drones within the borders of the US; that it may keep video and other data it collects with these drones for 90 days without a warrant and will then, retroactively, determine if the material can be retained which does away for good with the fourth amendment in these cases. While the drones are not supposed to specifically "conduct non-consensual surveillance on on specifically identified US persons", according to the document, the wording allows for domestic military surveillance of non-"specifically identified" people (that is, a group of activists or protesters) and it comes with the important caveat, also seemingly wholly unconstitutional, that it may not target individuals "unless expressly approved by the secretary of Defense".
In other words, the Pentagon can now send a domestic drone to hover outside your apartment window, collecting footage of you and your family, if the secretary of Defense approves it. Or it may track you and your friends and pick up audio of your conversations, on your way, say, to protest or vote or talk to your representative, if you are not "specifically identified", a determination that is so vague as to be meaningless.
What happens to those images, that audio? "Distribution of domestic imagery" can go to various other government agencies without your consent, and that imagery can, in that case, be distributed to various government agencies; it may also include your most private moments and most personal activities. The authorized "collected information may incidentally include US persons or private property without consent". Jennifer Lynch of the Electronic Frontier Foundation told CBS:

"In some records that were released by the air force recently … under their rules, they are allowed to fly drones in public areas and record information on domestic situations."

This document accompanies a major federal push for drone deployment this year in the United States, accompanied by federal policies to encourage law enforcement agencies to obtain and use them locally, as well as by federal support for their commercial deployment. That is to say: now HSBC, Chase, Halliburton etc can have their very own fleets of domestic surveillance drones. The FAA recently established a more efficient process for local police departments to get permits for their own squadrons of drones.
Given the Department of Homeland Security militarization of police departments, once the circle is completed with San Francisco or New York or Chicago local cops having their own drone fleet and with Chase, HSBC and other banks having hired local police, as I reported here last week the meshing of military, domestic law enforcement, and commercial interests is absolute. You don't need a messy, distressing declaration of martial law.
And drone fleets owned by private corporations means that a first amendment right of assembly is now over: if Occupy is massing outside of a bank, send the drone fleet to surveil, track and harass them. If citizens rally outside the local Capitol? Same thing. As one of my readers put it, the scary thing about this new arrangement is deniability: bad things done to citizens by drones can be denied by private interests "Oh, that must have been an LAPD drone" and LAPD can insist that it must have been a private industry drone. For where, of course, will be the accountability from citizens buzzed or worse by these things?
Domestic drone use is here, and the meshing has begun: local cops in Grand Forks, North Dakota called in a DHS Predator drone the same make that has caused hundreds of civilian casualties in Pakistan over a dispute involving a herd of cattle. The military rollout in process and planned, within the US, is massive: the Christian Science Monitor reportsthat a total of 110 military sites for drone activity are either built or will be built, in 39 states. That covers America.
We don't need a military takeover: with these capabilities on US soil and this air force white paper authorization for data collection, the military will be effectively in control of the private lives of American citizens. And these drones are not yet weaponized.
"I don't think it's crazy to worry about weaponized drones. There is a real consensus that has emerged against allowing weaponized drones domestically. The International Association of Chiefs of Police has recommended against it," warns Jay Stanley, senior policy analyst at the ACLU, noting that there is already political pressure in favor of weaponization:

"At the same time, it is inevitable that we will see [increased] pressure to allow weaponized drones. The way that it will unfold is probably this: somebody will want to put a relatively 'soft' nonlethal weapon on a drone for crowd control. And then things will ratchet up from there."

And the risk of that? The New America Foundation's report on drone use in Pakistan noted that the Guardian had confirmed 193 children's deaths from drone attacks in seven years. It noted that for the deaths of ten militants, 1,400 civilians with no involvement in terrorism also died. Not surprisingly, everyone in that region is traumatized: children scream when they hear drones. An NYU and Stanford Law School report notes that drones "terrorize citizens 24 hours a day".
If US drones may first be weaponized with crowd-control features, not lethal force features, but with no risk to military or to police departments or DHS, the playing field for freedom of assembly is changed forever. So is our private life, as the ACLU's Stanley explains:

"Our biggest concerns about the deployment of drones domestically is that they will be used to create pervasive surveillance networks. The danger would be that an ordinary individual once they step out of their house will be monitored by a drone everywhere they walk or drive. They may not be aware of it. They might monitored or tracked by some silent invisible drone everywhere they walk or drive."

"So what? Why should they worry?" I asked.

"Your comings and goings can be very revealing of who you are and what you are doing and reveal very intrusive things about you what houses of worship you are going to, political meetings, particular doctors, your friends' and lovers' houses."

I mentioned the air force white paper. "Isn't the military not supposed to be spying on Americans?" I asked.

"Yes, the posse comitatus act passed in the 19th century forbids a military role in law enforcement among Americans."

What can we do if we want to oppose this? I wondered. According to Stanley, many states are passing legislation banning domestic drone use. Once again, in the fight to keep America a republic, grassroots activism is pitched in an unequal contest against a militarized federal government.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/...ck-america

[Magda Hassan]

Suspected US drone found in waters off Masbate baffles officials

AMANDA FERNANDEZ, GMA NEWS January 7, 2013 6:24pm
(Updated 7:56 p.m.) A drone bearing the markings of the United States military was found floating in the waters off Masbate on Sunday morning, baffling authorities, including the US Embassy.

"We are trying to confirm this interpretation and to determine how and when it may have landed in the sea," said embassy spokesperson Tina Malone in a statement on Monday.

[SIZE=2px]The US Embassy in Manila said the ty[SIZE=2px]pe of drone found off Masbate is not armed and not used for surveillance. Photo courtesy of [/SIZE]PNP-MPS[/SIZE]

The drone an unmanned aerial vehicle was recovered off Sitio Tacdugan in San Jacinto town Sunday morning, according to Masbate provincial police chief Senior Superintendent Heriberto Olitoquit.

The US Embassy, however, is still verifying if the drone belongs to the US military.

"We are aware of reports that an apparently US-made unmanned aerial vehicle was recovered in the waters off of Masbate this weekend," Malone said. "The recovered vehicle appears to be of the sort that is used as an air defense target in training exercises."

Malone added that the type of drone found off Masbate "is not armed and not used for surveillance."

Capt. Rommel Jason Galang, deputy commander of the Naval Forces Southern Luzon, said the drone was brought to the shore by the diver who found it with the help of local fishermen.

The drone was brought to the San Jacinto Municipal Police Station before it was turned over to the Philippine Navy.

When asked about the presence of the US drone in Masbate, Galang said: "Everything is just factual. We do not want to give any interpretation. Actually that's the same question we are asking."

A police report said the "US-made aerial dronean unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)" was a model BQM-74E Chukar III with a length of 12 ft. 11 inches, a wingspan of 5 ft. 9 inches, and height of 2 ft. 4 inches.

According to the website Northrop Grunman Corporation, Chukar III aerial target is used as a threat simulator for weapons training. It said its primary mission is to "emulate enemy tactical cruise missiles or fighter/strike aircraft."

Drifted to Masbate?

The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) has ordered Undersecretary Edilberto Adan, head of the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) Commission, to investigate why the drone ended up in the waters off Masbate.

In a statement, DFA spokesman Raul Hernandez said Adan was instructed to "look into the matter and file a full report."

"We are also coordinating with the [Department of National Defense] as well as with the concerned US Embassy officials," Hernandez said. He assured the public that "every effort is being undertaken to address this issue."

Reached for comment, Adan said the Chukar III is usually towed by an aircraft. He said the drone may have fallen somewhere else, and could have drifted to Masbate province since aerial practices involving drones are not done in the Philippines.

"It is not determined where it came from. We are not sure where it came, it may have been drifted by the waves," Adan told GMA News Online in a phone interview.

US troops in Mindanao

In a March 2012 Agence France-Presse interview, President Benigno Aquino III said the Philippines only allows US drones to conduct reconnaissance flights over Philippine territory. Strikes from these unmanned vehicles are banned.

When asked whether the Philippines would allow, or had allowed, US drones to drop bombs, Aquino said that would violate a ban on the American forces from participating in combat operations.

About 600 US forces have been rotating in Mindanao since 2002 to help train local troops to deal with Islamic militants. However, Masbate, where the drone was found, is many hundreds of kilometers from Mindanao and no US troops are known to operate there.

One major security problem in Masbate is the support there for communists who have been waging a decades-long rebellion that continues to claim dozens of lives every year.

In other countries, such as Pakistan, other types of US drones have been used against enemies of the United States. US drone strikes have killed many senior Taliban leaders and have dramatically increased since US President Barack Obama took office, peaking at 117 in 2010.

However, it is unlikely that the drone found off Masbate could be used in these kinds of strike or reconnaissance missions . According to the official website of the U.S. Air Force, these strike missions are carried out by either the MQ-1 Predator or the MQ-9 Reaper killer/scout drones.

These unmanned vehicles are equipped, primarily, with AGM-114 Hellfire air-to-ground guided missles mounted on underwing pylons or hardpoints. The wings on these propeller driven aircraft are substantial (27 feet on the Predator and 66 feet for the Reaper), provinding not only hardpoints to mount ordnance, but also plenty of lift and fuel to allow them to loiter over an area for up to 14 hours at a time.

Contrast this with the Chukar, primarily a target vehicle, with jet engines and a wingspan shy of six feet. with Michaela del Callar and Agence France-Presse/KBK/YA, GMA News
http://www.gmanetwork.com/news/story/289...-officials

[Peter Lemkin]

CIA drones have already killed at least 40 since the start of the year


Pakistani demonstrators shout anti-US slogans during a protest in Multan on January 8, 2013, against the drone attacks in Pakistan's tribal areas. (AFP Photo/S.S Mirza)

The CIA has escalated its use of drones in Pakistan, launching seven deadly strikes during the first 10 days of 2013 and killing at least 40 people, 11 of which may have been civilians.

The flurry of strikes has raised speculation that the Obama administration is accelerating attacks in the wake of the 2014 withdrawal from Afghanistan, in fear of losing the capacity to carry them out.

In 2012, the US launched 43 drone strikes in Pakistan with an average 7 to 8 days between strikes. At the current rate, the US is set to kill far more people than last year.

This year's drone attacks have so far done little to spare civilians: the Long War Journal found that US drones have killed at least 11 civilians since Jan. 1, which exceeds the number of civilians US officials say were killed in all of 2012.

US intelligence officials claim the increase in drone strikes is an initiative to take out as many possible opponents of the Afghan government because of the looming 2014 withdrawal of 66,000 US troops.

These strikes "may be a signal to groups that include not just al-Qaeda that the US will still present a threat" after most American forces have gone, counterterrorism expert Seth Jones of Rand Corp. told the Washington Post. "With the drawdown in US forces, the drone may be, over time, the most important weapon against militant groups."

With less than 6,000 troops remaining in Afghanistan after 2014, the CIA's network of bases will be reduced from more than 15 to five, due in large part to a lack of security for its outposts.

"As the military pulls back, the agency has to pull back," a former US intelligence official told the Post.

While the Pakistani government has remained mute about the increase in attacks, some claim to be baffled by the CIA's surge in activity. In South Waziristan, thousands of Pakistani tribesmen took to the streets on Saturday to protest the killing of Taliban commander Maulvi Nazir, who had reached a truce with the Pakistani military but was killed in a US-led drone attack on Jan. 2.

"This is beyond our understanding why the drone strikes are increased," said a tribal elder from North Waziristan.

The Pakistani government has made no mention of the strikes, but politician Imran Khan publicly condemned the strikes on Sunday, calling them a violation of Pakistani sovereignty and international law.

Drone attacks in Pakistan's tribal region have significantly increased over the last few years, with US officials claiming they are an effective strategy to combat militant groups based in the tribal regions. The CIA has launched more than 340 drone strikes in Pakistan. It is unknown exactly how many civilians have been killed, but the Bureau of Investigative Journalism found that from June 2004 to mid-September 2012, drone strikes killed between 2,562 and 3,325 Pakistanis, many of whom were children.

"We will seek an end to drone strikes and there will be no compromise on that," said Pakistani ambassador to the US, Sherry Rehman, at an Aspen Security Forum in July.

Source: RT


More at EndtheLie.com - http://EndtheLie.com/2013/01/11/cia-dron...z2Hs9bcOhB

[Peter Lemkin]

Senator Asks CIA Nominee Brennan when Drones can Kill Americans Suspected of being Terrorists
15th January 2013

EDITORIAL: A question of lethal force
Wyden wants answers from Obama's CIA nominee

The Register-Guard, January 15, 2013

Sen. Ron Wyden has a simple, chilling question for John Brennan, President Obama's nominee to be director of the Central Intelligence Agency: When can a U.S. president target for death American citizens who are suspected of being terrorists?

Wyden sent a letter Monday to Brennan asking for the administration's legal reasoning and guidelines for targeted killings of U.S. citizens who are suspected of terrorist activity but who have not been convicted, of crimes, or even indicted.

The Obama administration has refused to make public its legal justifications and rules for such killings. Wyden, a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, is right to use upcoming Senate hearings on Brennan's nomination as a wedge to break through the wall of secrecy surrounding the administration's dubious claim to such extraordinary powers.

If anyone can answer Wyden's question, it's Brennan, who is the architect of what's called the "Yemen model" for fighting counterterrorism. It's a lethal mix of Special Forces raids and drone strikes targeting suspected al-Qaeda leaders, mostly on the Arabian Peninsula.

Wyden began pressing the administration for its legal rationale in such killings a year ago after the administration killed Anwar al-Awlaki, an American citizen reportedly linked to terrorist activities, in a drone attack in the mountains of Yemen. Another American, Samir Khan, also was killed in the attack, which incinerated the car in which the two were riding.

The administration should make public the legal underpinnings and rules for such killings so that, as Wyden says in his letter, "The American people can have full knowledge of how the executive branch understands the limits and boundaries of this authority."

In his current capacity as the White House's counterterrorism adviser, Brennan oversees what administration officials call the "disposition matrix," which is used to target suspected terrorists, especially when they're American citizens. As CIA director, Brennan presumably would have the authority, either independently or together with the president, to order such killings.

In his letter to Brennan, Wyden asks how much evidence the president needs to determine that a suspected American terrorist legally can be killed. "Does the president have to provide individual Americans with the opportunity to surrender before killing them?" he adds.

Wyden also wants to know how the administration determines that it is "not feasible" to capture American citizens suspected of terrorism and that lethal force is necessary. And he wants to know if the intelligence agencies can "carry out lethal operations inside the United States."

Anyone feel a shiver running up their spine?

Finally, Wyden asked for a list of countries in which U.S. intelligence agencies have used their lethal counterterrorism powers a disclosure that clearly is essential for congressional oversight.

After the attack on al-Awlaki, retired Gen. Michael Hayden, the CIA director under George W. Bush, observed: "We needed a court order to eavesdrop on him (al-Awlaki), but we didn't need a court order to kill him. Isn't that something?"

Yes, it's something something that should be explained fully to Congress and the American public.
----------------------------------------------
Brennan's Beastly Beatitudes
9th January 2013

John Brennan Links to Armitage, Mantech, Pinochet, Bush, Tenet, Kresa, Logicon-TASC, 9/11, Southern Asset Mgt., National Review, etc.

By Alex Constantine
Bang-bang, shoot-shoot

John Brennan, chief executive officer of the Analysis Corp., was a candidate for CIA director early in the first Obama administration.

Brennan is a former top CIA official who helped establish the National Counterterrorism Center in 2004. He left the agency in 2005 to become CEO of Analysis Corp. …

Ironically, in March, an Analysis Corp. employee working at the State Department was accused of improperly accessing Barack Obama's passport file. In a statement at the time, Analysis Corp. said, "We deeply regret that the incident occurred and believe it is an isolated incident." … He served as an advisor to the Obama campaign on national security and is the head of Obama's intelligence transition team. …

http://www.washingtontechnology.com/onli...920-1.html
Re SFA, Inc., Brennan, George Tenet, Bush & the National Review

… That "consultant" is John O. Brennan, a veteran intelligence official who served as former CIA Director George Tenet's right-hand man in both the Clinton and Bush administrations." …

Brennan is the president and CEO of the national-security consulting firm The Analysis Corp., which is owned by an even larger spook-assistance firm called SFA Inc. acquired by a British firm called the Global Strategies Group. …

John Hillen

The president of Global Strategies Group (USA) LLC is John Hillen, a former high-level State Department employee who served as Assistant Secretary of State for Political-Military Affairs from 2005-2007 just prior to being tapped to lead Global Strategies' U.S. operations.

Hillen also is a former contributor to the neo-con mouthpiece publication the National Review and served as an advisor on defense policy to George W. Bush' 2000 presidential campaign.

Upon Hillen's appointment to the State Department post in 2005, National Review ran the following short announcement:

John Hillen, an NR contributing editor, has been nominated by President Bush to be assistant secretary of state for political-military affairs. Hillen earned a Ph.D. at Oxford in international affairs, and a Bronze Star in the Persian Gulf War for his role in leading a cavalry unit that went into Iraq ahead of the main invasion force.

We regret that our formal association with him will be suspended, but are delighted that the State Department is getting the services of such a solid conservative and fine foreign-policy mind.

An interview published in the July/August 2004 issue of Duke Magazine, Hillen's alma mater, offers the following insight into Hillen's character:

In March 1999, John Hillen testified before the House of Representatives' Committee on Armed Services. "It is well worth thinking now about how to handle an Iraq on the brink of developing nuclear weapons," said Hillen, then a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "A pre-emptive invasion of Iraq might then be our least-worst course of action."

… Hillen is "one of the leading younger defense policy intellectuals in the Republican camp," says Duke political scientist Peter Feaver. "If Bush were to win in 2004, you'd expect he would be positioned to take a post."

"It's possible, it's possible," admits Hillen, who says he has long aspired to become assistant secretary of defense. "I certainly intend to serve again in my career as a public servant."

http://www.campusactivism.org/phpBB3/vie...3&start=90
SFA, Inc. and Skadden Arps

Attorneys at Skadden have long-standing relationships with representatives from the U.S. government, including the executive branch agencies that comprise CFIUS a critical element to a successful outcome. Skadden attorneys also speak and write frequently on developments regarding the CFIUS review process.

Clients that Skadden has represented in the CFIUS review process during the past several years include the following, among others …

British-owned Global Strategies Group on its acquisition of SFA, Inc., a leading U.S. defense technology provider

http://www.skadden.com/mobile/index.cfm?...ticeID=101
MICHAEL DELONEY PRESIDENT, GLOBAL STRATEGIES GROUP (INTEGRATED SECURITY) INC. [Owns SFA, Inc.]

Mike is the President of Global Strategies Group (Integrated Security) Inc. (GUSIS) headquartered in Northern Virginia, USA. … Prior to GLOBAL, Mike's previous industry employment was with SAIC, Unisys, Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC) and CACI.

http://www.globalgroup.com/user-assets/D...graphy.pdf A Global Securities Group Director was Behind the launch of ManTech

RON JONES MEMBER OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS, GLOBAL STRATEGIES GROUP (NORTH AMERICA) INC. AND PRESIDENT, TECHNOLOGY & SYSTEMS

… Prior to GLOBAL, Ron was Senior Vice President, Strategy & Corporate Development, and a member of the Board of Directors for Gray Hawk Systems, Inc. Ron helped build and transform Gray Hawk as a national security technology company, until he initiated, led, developed, and closed the strategic sale of Gray Hawk Systems to ManTech (NASDAQ: MANT), helping them to launch ManTech into the counter-terrorism community ….

http://www.globalgroup.com/user-assets/D...graphy.pdf

Richard Armitage and ManTech

… Shortly after leaving government in 2005, Richard Armitage was recruited to the board of directors of ManTech International, a $1.7 billion corporation that does extensive work for the National Security Agency and other intelligence collection agencies. He's also since advised two private equity funds with significant holdings in intelligence enterprises. Veritas Capital, where Armitage served as a senior adviser from 2005 to 2007, owns intelligence consultant McNeil Technologies Inc. and DynCorp International, an important security contractor in Iraq. For a time, Veritas also owned MZM, Inc., the CIA and defense intelligence contractor that was caught before the Veritas acquisition bribing former Republican Congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham. …

Re ManTech: Congressman Rick Renzi (R-AR), "one of House's most vocal advocates for increased funding for the DHS, is the son of the ManTech executive vice-president Eugene Renzi. ManTech was charged with developing an information-sharing system which is called the US public and private partnership (US P3), which links public-sector agencies and private sector to "significantly strengthen the flow of real-time threat information to state, local, and private sector partners, and provides a platform for communities through the classified secret level to state offices. … " http://alexconstantine.blogspot.com/2007...state.html
JACQUES S. GANSLER FORMER UNDER SECRETARY OF DEFENSE FOR ACQUISITION, TECHNOLOGY AND LOGISTICS; MEMBER OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS, GLOBAL STRATEGIES GROUP (NORTH AMERICA) INC.

Jacques Gansler, former Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics, is the first holder of the Roger C. Lipitz Chair in Public Policy and Private Enterprise. As the third ranking civilian at the Pentagon from 1997 to 2001 …

Prior to his appointment, Dr. Gansler served as the Executive Vice President and Director for TASC Incorporated [a Litton subsidiary], an applied information technology company. He also served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense (Material Acquisition); Assistant Director of Defense Research and Engineering (Electronics); Vice President of LT.T.; Program Manager at the Singer Corporation; and Engineering Manager for the Raytheon Corporation. …

http://www.globalgroup.com/user-assets/D...graphy.pdf
Partnership: Northrop Grumman Information Technology-TASC, Inc.

Today, they do biometrics.

On board of General Motors a SAM holding, you find one of the powerbrokers of military industry: Kent Kresa from Northrop Grumman [and NG-Logicon-TASC]. Kresa handled the most important aquisitions of Northrop Grumman.

Logicon (a Northrop-Grumman subsidiary) TASC, Inc. was cobbled together by Booz Allen Hamilton Inc., Titan, Boeing, EDS, manufacturer of e-voting machines, Neil Armstrong's Veridian, and several other tech contractors. Logicon was a partner in the Eagle Alliance, the NSA-revamping group that included ACS, CACI, TRW, ManTech, etc., led by the aforementioned Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC).

In bestowing power [Bush], ChoicePoint is a critical element here CP is directed by Kenneth Langone, the Tricon/Yum! Brands (held by "The Path to 9/11″ sponsor SAM) and former NY Stock Exchange director. (Yum! Brands began as Tricon Global Restaurants, Inc. an independent, publicly-traded company that spun-off from PepsiCo, the Tom Kean ((9/11 Commission)) haunt….)

http://truthmovecom.blogspot.com/2008/05...asset.html

JACK DEVINE FOUNDING PARTNER AND PRESIDENT OF THE ARKIN GROUP LLC; MEMBER OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS, GLOBAL STRATEGIES GROUP (NORTH AMERICA) INC.

Jack Devine is a founding partner and President of The Arkin Group LLC, which specializes in international crisis management, strategic intelligence, investigative research and business problem solving. … He is a recognised expert in intelligence matters and has written Op-Ed articles for The Washington Post, The Financial Times and The Miami Herald. He has also made guest appearances on CBS, NBC, MSNBC, Fox News, as well as the History & Discovery channels, PBS & ABC Radio. …

http://www.globalgroup.com/user-assets/D...graphy.pdf

Jack Devine and Pinochet
Jack Devine was stationed in Chile during the [Allendé] coup as part of the Agency's Chile task force. He is now a crisis management consultant in New York with the firm The Arkin Group.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/dis...02×106324

MORE ON JACK DEVINE:

… Mr. Devine served as both Acting Director and Associate Director of CIA's operations outside the United States from 1993-1995, where he had supervisory authority over thousands of CIA employees involved in sensitive missions throughout the world. From 1995 through 1998, Mr. Devine was the senior CIA representative in Great Britain at the U.S. Embassy in London. In addition, he served as Chief of the Latin American Division from 1992-1993 and was the principal manager of the CIA's sensitive projects in Latin America.

Between 1990 and 1992, Mr. Devine headed the CIA's Counternarcotics Center, which was responsible for coordinating and building close cooperation between all major U.S. and foreign law enforcement agencies in tracking worldwide narcotics and crime organisations. From 1985-1987 [under Reagan], Mr. Devine headed the CIA's Afghan Task Force, which successfully countered Soviet aggression in the region. In 1987, he was awarded the CIA's Meritorious Officer Award for this accomplishment.

Mr. Devine's international experience with the U.S. government included postings to the United Kingdom, Italy, Argentina, Venezuela, The Dominican Republic, Mexico and Chile. During his more than 30 years with the CIA, Mr. Devine was involved in organising, planning and executing countless sensitive projects in virtually all areas of intelligence, including analysis, operations, technology and management. …

http://www.globalgroup.com/user-assets/D...graphy.pdf

DEVINE IS ANOTHER CIA PROPAGANDIST

To ensure national security, strengthen the CIA Jack Devine and Stanley Arkin Miami Herald op-ed/22 Jul 04

" … Instead of trying to run the CIA on the cheap, as we have for 25 years, it is time to bolster its resources in terms of people, money and authority … "

[Peter Lemkin]

Fascism, American-Style, and Killer Drones

Fascism, American Style, and Killer DronesBy Sherwood Ross
Scoop, February 3, 2013

Polite Fascism has come to America. If this concept sounds preposterous to Americans it may sound otherwise to foreigners who are getting the worst of it. The public judges the White House largely by its conduct of domestic affairs, about what it has done for them, and not by its foreign wars, which is where America's fascist brutality is largely exercised and of which the U.S. public knows little. Obama has quieted many Leftist critics by taking actions to appease their needs, such as securing passage of Obamacare. He has satisfied gays, by pledging to treat them as human beings. He has indicated he will not let the Republicans eviscerate Social Security, reassuring the elderly. And he is calling for enactment of gun control legislation, long sought by the Left.

What's more, neither the Pentagon nor the FBI is rounding up large numbers of domestic dissidents and putting them in "detention camps," as Nixon's Attorney General Richard Kleindienst once threatened would be the fate of anti-war demonstrators who tied up traffic in Washington, D.C. Obama's Department of Homeland Security may be a sword hung over the heads of the citizenry but its officers are not smashing store windows and beating Jews on the Hitler model. Suffice it to say the FBI now and then entraps Muslims in dangerous bomb plot "conspiracies," which are alleged plots, not actions. But it has made no wholesale arrests. The object of Polite Fascism apparently is to keep people in line by making examples of the few rather than mincemeat of the many.

Critics of the Bush and Obama regimes have been, and are, free to speak, write, and demonstrateeven though this last is becoming increasingly hazardous as the Feds militarize the once friendly cop on the beat. Demonstrators these days are in jeopardy of having their First Amendment rights quashed by the promiscuous use of tear gas against them. Overall, though, the Obama regime fits this Webster definition of "fascist": "A totalitarian governmental system led by a dictator and emphasizing an aggressive nationalism, militarism, and often racism." However, when it comes to "emphasizing an aggressive nationalism" and "militarism," Mr. Obama can't deny those terms don't fit him. They do. Even though he masquerades as a moderate, left-of-center liberal, he is the most powerful fascist who has ever lived, the commander-in-chief of the largest war machine ever, and he operates with a reckless brutality that is killing innocent people and inspiring fear over vast areas of the world, literally turning life for millions into a living hell and causing their populations to despise America.

Suffice it to say enactment of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) on New Year's Eve, 2011, gave Mr. Obama more power than any king. As the American Civil Liberties Union put it:

"Although President Obama issued a signing statement saying he had serious reservations' about the NDAA's detention provisions, the statement only applies to how his administration would use them, and would not affect how the law is interpreted by subsequent administrations. The provisions which were negotiated by a small group of members of Congress, in secret, and without proper congressional review are inconsistent with fundamental American values."

The law, in fact, allows the federal authority to arrest and detain any person indefinitely without trial, effectively giving the president the powers of a king and subverting the Constitution.

001000images1 Fascism, American Style, and Killer DronesIt is in the application of illegal force abroad that Obama has thus far brazenly identified his fascist-style cruelty and terrorism. By his admitted use of the drone war machine against alleged terrorist suspects he is murdering human beings wholesale and plunging wide communities into perpetual fear of his attacks. If one just enumerates the number of terror strikes, said to exceed 200 in Pakistan alone, (and killing 2,500), Mr. Obama is the foremost terrorist operating on the planet today.

Reports are emanating out of Pakistan, for example, of civilians living under the perpetual threat of the drones, of people being driven insane by the fear that their families will be killed by their dreadful Hellfire missiles, and, when they are, of not even being able to identify them from what remains of their body parts. In these communities, people are afraid to shop, to go to work, drive their cars, and to send their children to school or outdoors to play. They are afraid to go to mosques or gather anywhere for public meetings, which have been repeatedly struck. And they do not rush to the aid of the surviving wounded in need of medical care lest they be stricken in the act by a follow-up drone strike. Their communities have been brazenly converted into war zones by Mr. Obama, whose self-authorized attacks reportedly have killed more than a hundred children even as he takes care to provide armed guards to protect his own two daughters. And while the president brazenly lies that his attacks are only killing terrorists, in point of fact the follow-up attacks against first responders cannot possibly be confined to terrorists. Killing innocent people without judge or jury who have not been convicted of any crime is murder, pure and simple. These actions surely fit the Webster definition of fascism as it relates to "nationalism" and "militarism."

The only honorable course for dealing with this tyrant is impeachment and trial for murder. His knowing accomplices in the Pentagon, CIA, and the Congress need to be prosecuted with him. Such prosecution might also extend to the officials of Lockheed Martin Corp., of Bethesda, Md., manufacturers in Orlando, Fla., of the Hellfire missile. This war-enabling corporation blandly identifies itself as "a global security and aerospace company" involved in "advanced technology systems, products, and services." Its Board of Directors authorized a first quarter 2013 dividend of $1.15 per share, suggesting that business is good. Meanwhile, survivors of many cities in Pakistan are mourning the loss of their family members and friends. Survivors must also live with mutilated and incapacitated loved ones, including children maimed for life. They are also mourning the loss of homes, businesses, incomes, education, and sanity swept away by the Hellfire strikes. This is nothing less than the mass torture of large civilian populations, as deplorable as anything experienced by Londoners during the World War Two Nazi blitz, and a very crime against humanity as well. As the UK Guardian newspaper reported last June 21st, the UN rapporteur on extrajudicial killings, Christof Heyns, says the drone killings "challenge the system of international law that has endured since the Second World War."

[Jan Klimkowski]

No comment from NATO / ISAF.

Of course, NATO and the US will presumably continue to launch drone and air strikes without waiting for Afghan requests.

Karzai to decree ban on foreign air-strike assistance during Afghan ops

Afghan president says under 'no condition' will security forces be allowed to request Nato aerial bombardments

Reuters in Kabul
guardian.co.uk, Saturday 16 February 2013 16.57 GMT
Jump to comments (24)

Hamid Karzai
Afghan President Hamid Karzai says on 'no condition' will his forces call for Nato air-strike assistance. Photograph: Ahmad Jamshid/AP

Afghan security forces will be banned from calling for Nato air strikes in residential areas to help in their operations, President Hamid Karzai said on Saturday, three days after 10 civilians died in such a strike in the east of the country.

Nato air strikes and civilian casualties have become a significant stress point in the relationship between Karzai and his international backers. The issue threatens to further destabilise a precarious international withdrawal, which is due to be completed by the end of 2014.

Addressing a conference at Kabul's National Military Academy, Karzai expressed his anger about the strike and said he would issue a decree on Sunday preventing any resort to such measures by his forces. Speaking to more than 1,000 officers, commandos and students, he said: "Tomorrow, I will issue an decree stating that under no conditions can Afghan forces request foreign air strikes on Afghan homes or Afghan villages during operations."

If issued, the decree would for the first time bar Afghan security forces from relying on Nato air strikes, and increase pressure on them as they increasingly assume control of security from international forces. Nato and its partners are racing against the clock to train Afghanistan's 350,000-strong security forces, though questions remain over how well the Afghans will be able to tackle the insurgency in the face of intensifying violence.

On Wednesday, a Nato air strike requested during an operation in eastern Kunar province involving Afghan and American troops targeting Taliban fighters linked to al-Qaida struck two houses in a village in the Shultan valley. The strike killed 10 people, including five children and four women. Four Taliban fighters who had links to al-Qaida, according to Afghan officials were also killed.

Foreign air power is crucial for Afghan forces, particularly in areas like Kunar and Nuristan, which are covered with forests and rough terrain, making ground operations difficult. Nuristan and Kunar also share a long, porous borders with lawless areas inside Pakistan that are known to be home to foreign fighters and al-Qaida members.

Karzai said he had been told that the air strike was requested by the Afghan spy agency, the National Directorate of Security (NDS). "If this is true, it is very regrettable and it is very shameful. How could they ask foreigners to send planes and bomb our own houses?" he said. According to officials in Kunar, one of the dead insurgents was identified as a Pakistani citizen and Taliban leader named Rocketi. A second was identified as a Taliban commander called Shahpour.

A spokesman for Nato's International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) said there would be no comment on any presidential decree until it was actually issued.

In June last year, following the deaths of 18 civilians in a Nato air strike in the country's east, the Isaf commander at the time, General John Allen, issued a directive restricting their use against insurgents "within civilian dwellings". In a meeting with Isaf commander General Joseph Dunford following Wednesday's bombing, Karzai stressed Allen's 2012 directive and said such attacks must never recur.

Tensions have risen between Karzai and his foreign backers since his comments in October that the US and its allies should target supporters of terrorism in Pakistan and stop fighting their war in Afghan villages. Isaf says it has reduced civilian casualties in recent years, and that insurgents such as the Taliban are now responsible for 84% of all such deaths and injuries.