Rise of the Drones – UAVs After 9/11

[Peter Lemkin]

The United States was reportedly able to target an alleged al-Qaeda operative named Adnan al-Qadhi for a drone strike after U.S. allies in Yemen convinced an eight-year-old boy to place a tracking chip in the pocket of the man he considered to be his surrogate father. Shortly after the child planted the device, a U.S. drone tracked and killed al-Qadhi with a missile. He was killed last November, less than 24 hours after President Barack Obama's re-election. Gregory Johnsen writes about the case in his new article "Did an 8-Year-Old Spy for America?" published in The Atlantic.

Transcript

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: We end today's show with a shocking new story out of Yemen. The article is called "Did an 8-Year-Old Spy for America?" and it's written by Gregory Johnsen for The Atlantic magazine. In it, Johnsen writes that the United States was able to target an alleged al-Qaeda operative named Adnan al-Qadhi for an American drone strike after U.S. allies in Yemen convinced an eight-year-old boy to place a tracking chip in the pocket of a man he considered to be his surrogate father. Shortly after the child planted the device, a U.S. drone tracked and killed al-Qadhi with a missile.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, for more, we go to Gregory Johnsen, author of a new book, The Last Refuge: Yemen, al-Qaeda, and America's War in Arabia. A former Fulbright fellow in Yemen, he's a Ph.D. candidate in the Near Eastern Studies Department at Princeton University.
Gregory Johnsen, welcome to Democracy Now! Tell us this story.
GREGORY JOHNSEN: Right. So this isit's a heartbreaking, it's a tragic story, obviously, any time a little boy is used as a pawn between different sides. The drone war that's been going on in Yemen is a very shadowy war. So this is a case where a little boy was living in this village. He was taken in by this individual, a man named Adnan al-Qadhi, who for a long time was a military officer in the Yemeni military. And at a certain point, the U.S. felt that this individual had become a leader in al-Qaeda, he was one of the imminent threats, the individuals that the U.S. wants to target and kill in Yemen. And so, allies in Yemen, apparently without the knowledge of the United States, convinced this little boy to plant a tracking chip on Adnan al-Qadhi. He was then killed, actually the day after President Obama won re-election last fall. So, on November 7, 2012, this particular individual, Adnan al-Qadhi, was targeted and killed by a drone strike.
And then the story goes on, and it gets even worse, because this little boy and his biological father, who helped convince him to plant the chip on his surrogate father, were then kidnapped by al-Qaeda. And we believe that his biological father was later executed. So this is a situation where the eight-year-old boy lost both his surrogate father and he lost his biological father. It's tragic and heartbreaking.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And there's actually a jihadist video where both the father and the boy are
GREGORY JOHNSEN: Right.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: are heard confessing to what they had done?
GREGORY JOHNSEN: Yeah, so there is a confession video that came out back in April in which al-Qaeda put together this sort ofit's a propaganda video, and it has clips of both the boy and his father telling the story of what they claim to have done.
AMY GOODMAN: Who were the allies that got the little boy to plant this chip?
GREGORY JOHNSEN: Well, this is Yemeni intelligence. This is the Republican Guard. These are the people that the U.S. works with on the ground. And the reason I think this is so important is because we often talk about drones as this amazing piece of technology, and we all know, from reporting that people like Jeremy Scahill and others have done, that the U.S. has been carrying out strikes in Yemen for the past three-and-a-half years, and drones are something that the U.S. continues to argue are this scalpel-like approach which we can go and get only the bad guys and no one else. The problem with that is that drones are a dependent piece of technology, which means they rely on intelligence from the ground. And the U.S. is very, very weak in human intelligence on the ground in places like Yemen, so they often rely on partners like Yemeni intelligence, like Saudi intelligence, and these groups don't have the same moral and ethical framework that we often take for granted. And so, the U.S. is really getting into bed with some very questionable people here.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And the whole issue of Yemen's track record in terms of using children in war, in combat?
GREGORY JOHNSEN: Right. This is something that the State Department documents every year in its Trafficking in Persons Report. And, in fact, in 2008, Congress passed a law, the Child Soldier Prevention Act. And this has beenthis is a law that's been in effect since 2010. And basically what it says it that any country that the U.S. designates as using children in conflict, the U.S. cannot then provide military training, and they can't provide military weapons. Now, this is something that impacts a lot of different countries, but President Obama, for the past three years, has signedeach and every year that the law has been in effect, he's signed a waiver exempting Yemen from that. And Yemen is the only country in the world that's received a waiver each and every year, a full waiver.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: So, in essence, that waiver then allows Yemen to do something like they did in this case and employee an eight-year-old boy.
GREGORY JOHNSEN: Right, so there's a little bit of willful ignorance going on. So the U.S. is aware that Yemen uses children in conflict, but Yemen is also very important for counterterrorism. And so, this is one of those issues where an ethical and a moral claim comes up against what the U.S. considers to be a security claim, and the U.S., on this side, has decided, "Well, we know Yemen does this, but we'll sign a waiver, and we'll continue to support them, because Yemen is such an important country in our fight against al-Qaeda, in our fight against terrorism."
AMY GOODMAN: And yet, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, AQAP, is only growing as the drone strikes grow.
GREGORY JOHNSEN: Right. This is one barometer. It's only one barometer of how strong it is, but the U.S. has been carrying out strikes since December of 2009. And in December 2009, this is, of course, when they put the underwear bomber on the plane bound for Detroit. He came very close to bringing down that airliner. At that point, the group was about 200 or 300 individuals. The U.S. has been bombing the three-and-a-half years since. Instead of the group getting smaller, like we'd think, the group has actually more than tripled in size. So it's well over a thousand members today. And Senator Susan Collins, back when John Brennan was giving his confirmation hearing, Senator Collins asked Brennan what I think is really the important question. And she said, "Look, if al-Qaeda is growing, instead of getting smaller, shouldn't we re-evaluate our approach to how it is that we're fighting this group around the world?"
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Well, and it's justit's not just in Yemen.
GREGORY JOHNSEN: Right.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: We're having the same situation in Syria, increasingly again in Iraq, and now of course in Egypt. Now, theI would be stunned if the current spate of violence in Egypt doesn't end up creating many more jihadists who recognize that the United States is financing this slaughter by the Egyptian military.
GREGORY JOHNSEN: Right. You look around the globe, you look in North Africa, you look in the Middle East, and it's a very frightening situation right now. We just had prison breaks in Iraq. A number of trained jihadis got out of prison. This is like a shot in the arm to al-Qaeda in Iraq.
AMY GOODMAN: Five hundred people escaped, and it was Abu Ghraib
GREGORY JOHNSEN: Yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: the famous prison where the U.S. was involved with torture.
GREGORY JOHNSEN: And then we see what's happening in Libya, with a prison break there, and in Pakistan. We see what's happening today with the Day of Rage in Egypt. It's a time where the Obama administration has claimedand I think rightlythey've claimed that they've sort of disrupted and dismantled the organization in Afghanistan and Pakistan, but now the organization is much longer in Yemen, in Libya, in Iraq, in Syria. It's a very worrying development.
AMY GOODMAN: Talk about the closing of the consulates, embassies, diplomatic posts throughout the Middle East. This was unprecedentedstill in Yemen.
GREGORY JOHNSEN: Right. I think what we have here is that the U.S. took thisthe State Department said it took this step out of an abundance of caution. So what's happened apparently is that U.S. intelligence analysts intercepted some electronic chatter between Ayman al-Zawahiri, who's the head of al-Qaeda's global network, and the head of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula in Yemen. But the problem is, is that intelligence analysts, they're essentially trying to put together a puzzle, but they don't know what the puzzle looks like.
AMY GOODMAN: Doesn't that mean they know where they each are now?
GREGORY JOHNSEN: I don't thinkI don't think that means that. I think what it means is that they have some indication that something might have been happening. So we saw, by how many embassies, how many consulates were closed, that the threat itself was very vague. And I think this is something that we'll continue to live with, and particularly in the aftermath of Benghazi. The United States is really going to have to determine where it goes on the risk management versus risk aversion.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Your book is entitled The Last Refuge: Yemen.... Could you talk about theYemen's role right now in the Arab world in terms of al-Qaeda and the jihadist movement, and especially after theYemen participated in the Arab Spring
GREGORY JOHNSEN: Right.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: in the protest against theAbdullah Saleh?
GREGORY JOHNSEN: Right.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Could you talk about its role now?
GREGORY JOHNSEN: Yeah, absolutely. So, President Obama and most U.S. national security officials continue to say that al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, this group that's based, that's headquartered in Yemen, they continue to be the most active and the most dangerous node of al-Qaeda. And I think they're correct. This is an organizationwe talked about them putting the bomb on the plane on Christmas Day. In 2010, they attempted to send cartridge bombs to the U.S. And in 2012, there was this underwear bomb 2.0, which, thankfully, they gave to an undercover agent who was working for Western and Saudi intelligence. But what we've seen is that in 2004, 2005you know, one of the most frustrating things for me and, I think, for a lot of people is that, look, the U.S. has more money, the U.S. has more men, it has better technology, it has better weapons, and it's self-evidently right in this war, and yet, in a place like Yemen, it appears to be losing on the ground. And that's really, really frustrating. And I think that begs a number of interesting questions about how it is that the U.S. handles this fight.
AMY GOODMAN: I mean, I don't know if people realize the U.S. has launched 21 air strikes in Yemen, vast majority drones, displacing Pakistan as the epicenter of the covert air war
GREGORY JOHNSEN: Right. What we've seen
AMY GOODMAN: so far this year.
GREGORY JOHNSEN: Yeah. What we've seen just in the past two weeks, there have been nine or 10 strikes. And the U.S. says that they killed the four guys that they were looking for. The problem is, is that they also killed 33 other people, who we're still struggling to identify. And that's really important. Who are these individuals that the U.S. has killed? It's great if you kill the guys that you're going for. No one in Yemen is upset when a high-value target is killed. What they're upset about are the women and the children and the tribesmen, the civilian casualties. And that's really driving recruitment for al-Qaeda.

[Magda Hassan]

Did an 8-Year-Old Spy for America?

When U.S. allies in Yemen needed help targeting an alleged al-Qaeda operative for an American drone strike, evidence suggests they turned to one of the people closest to him.
Gregory D. Johnsen Aug 14 2013, 8:20 PM ET

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Frank Stockton

On Thursday, October 25, 2012, as Barack Obama and Mitt Romney crisscrossed America in a final mad scramble along the campaign trail, three officers from Yemen's elite Republican Guard were holding an unusual meeting half a world away, on the tip of the Arabian Peninsula. That day was Eid al-Adha, the Feast of the Sacrifice, which in the Islamic tradition commemorates Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son Ishmael. Eid al-Adha is one of the holiest days on the Islamic calendar, but the men had likely forgone the traditional meal with their families to join the meeting that evening.
Standing in front of them was the reason for their clandestine gathering: an 8-year-old boy. Shy, frail, a little grimy, and in need of a haircut, he looked as vulnerable as he would several months later while describing this meeting on video.
At the time of the meeting, the boy didn't know that the United States had decided to kill a man named Adnan al-Qadhi, and had turned to its allies in Yemen for assistance. Now the Yemeni government needed the child's help. The Republican Guard officers told him what they wanted him to do: plant tiny electronic chips on the man he had come to think of as a surrogate father. The boy knew and trusted the officers; they were his biological father's friends. He told them he would try. He would be their spy.
By the time President Obama gave the order to attack Adnan al-Qadhi, the U.S. had been killing al-Qaeda fighters for years, in places ranging from the mountains of Afghanistan and Pakistan to the deserts of Yemen and Somalia. The strikes had taken a toll on the terrorist organization. More than a decade after September 11, Osama bin Laden and many of the most obvious targets were already dead.
Qadhi, a burly Yemeni military officer, was a less obvious target. But as the U.S. entered the second decade of its war against al-Qaeda, it increasingly found itself going after men like Qadhi, who were targeted not so much for what they had done as for what they might do.
The U.S. became aware of Qadhi in late 2008, after seven suicide bombers in a pair of modified Suzuki jeeps attacked the U.S. Embassy in Sanaa, the capital of Yemen. Only the quick reaction of a Yemeni security guard, who blocked their path just as he was shot in the chest, prevented the al-Qaeda bombers from breaching the inner walls of the compound and massacring the Americans hiding inside. Forced away from the main gate, the attackers detonated their bombs in the street outside the embassy, killing at least a dozen Yemenis, including some who were waiting in line for early-morning visa appointments. Al-Qaeda's branch in Yemen claimed responsibility.
After the attack, the deadliest on a U.S. embassy in a decade, the United States increased its security in Sanaa and the Yemeni government started arresting people. One of the names that Yemeni intelligence uncovered was Adnan al-Qadhi's. Investigators believed that Qadhi had provided military license plates to the bombers, which they used to breeze through the initial checkpoints around the embassy. Qadhi, it turned out, was a military officer in Yemen's 33rd Armored Brigade. He was still on the army's payroll even though he hadn't shown up for work in more than a year, ever since his commanding officer and father-in-law was removed from active duty after allegedly organizing a diesel-and-alcohol-smuggling ring, according to Yemeni newspapers. More distressing for the local investigators were Qadhi's tribal connections, which linked him to the top of Yemen's bizarre and byzantine power pyramid.
President Ali Abdullah Salih, an American ally who in 2008 was completing his third decade in office, was a fellow Sanhan tribesman. So was General Ali Muhsin, the regime's "iron fist," who fought Salih's domestic wars and made sure he remained in power. Like his two powerful clansmen, Qadhi had been born in the tiny village of Bayt al-Ahmar, barely 10 miles outside greater Sanaa.
This impoverished cluster of huts and houses, which for centuries had produced only peasant farmers and foot soldiers, changed under Salih's patronage. The president built himself a fortified palace overlooking the dusty fields and wadis where he had played as a child. So too did Ali Muhsin, who had risen alongside Salih to become an indispensable part of preserving the power of what critics referred to as the "Bayt al-Ahmar gang."
Yemeni politics can be rough and wild, rife with suspicious car crashes and untimely accidents. Salih's two immediate predecessors had been assassinated within eight months of each other in the late 1970sone went down in what appeared to be a gory gangland hit in which he was murdered along with his brother and two women, their bodies doused with alcohol; the other was killed by a briefcase bomb. When Salih, who was then a military commander, was elected president after the second assassination, CIA analysts took bets on how long he would last in office (six months or less, one wagered). But he held on to power by relying on the only people he could trust: his tribe. Adnan al-Qadhi was part of this presidential insurance policyone of the dozen or so commissioned military officers, nearly all members of the Sanhan tribe, who formed Ali Muhsin's inner circle.
Thus, in the aftermath of the 2008 embassy bombings, any arrest of Qadhi would have needed to be handled delicately, requiring the approval of Qadhi's powerful clansmen. Both Salih and Ali Muhsin eventually gave their consent for his arrest on suspicion that he had aided the attack, but Qadhi spent only a few months in jail before his patrons intervened. He was secretly released in early 2009, and no charges were ever filed.
But sometime recently, Qadhi's name came up again. U.S. intelligence had come to believe that Qadhi, who was still receiving his military salary, had moved beyond merely supporting al-Qaeda to take a leadership role within the organization. As the Obama administration increased the pace of its drone strikes in Yemen, Qadhi's name was added to the kill list.
When 8-year-old Barq al-Kulaybi was summoned to meet with members of the Yemeni Republican Guard last October, he probably didn't know anything about Adnan al-Qadhi's past, his time in prison, or his supposed links to al-Qaeda. What he did know was that the man had taken him in and given him a place to live when no one else would.
Barq was one of the unorphaned street children of Bayt al-Ahmar, Qadhi's village. Barq had a mother and a father, but they lived back in Sanaa with his five brothers and sisters. His father was an enlisted man in Yemen's Republican Guard whose salary wasn't nearly enough to put food on the table for all of them.
How Barq came to be living as a street child isn't entirely clear, but local residents say he first arrived in the village in 2011, after a wealthy member of his extended clan married into a prominent Bayt al-Ahmar family. The practice of sending children to stay with a more affluent branch of their extended family is common in Yemen, where poverty forces many families to make difficult decisions. But Barq's family members evidently declined to take him in, and he ended up living on the street.
Stranded between a father in Sanaa who couldn't provide for him and a clan in Bayt al-Ahmar that didn't seem to want him, Barq made do as best he could in the hamlet. Villagers say that during the day he wandered dusty side roads looking for plastic bottles and other bits of trash that he could sell. At night he took shelter where he could find it. Sometimes villagers would give him some food, or offer him a night inside. One of these villagers was Adnan al-Qadhi, who, according to local tribesmen, took pity on the dirty little boy. After a few months, Qadhi invited Barq into his home. He gave the boy a place to sleep and treated him like one of his own five children, feeding him and helping to finance his education.
During the early months of the Arab Spring, as the leaders of Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya were sent to exile, prison, or death, the U.S. was hesitant to force President Salih out of office, worrying what his fall would mean for the fight against al-Qaeda. "He's been an important ally in the counterterrorism arena," thenSecretary of Defense Robert Gates told reporters in March 2011, adding that the U.S. hadn't done any post-Salih planning.
But while the Yemeni president had been useful to the Americans in combatting terror, he had also been fickle. American diplomats spoke of two Salihs: the good Salih could be accommodating, allowing the U.S. to go after nearly any target it wanted; the other Salih fed the U.S. false intelligence, and got American forces to do his dirty work. Most of the time, U.S. officials had no idea which Salih they were dealing with.
For instance, in May 2010, Yemeni officials passed along information to their American friends in the Joint Special Operations Command, alerting them that an al-Qaeda meeting would be taking place near an orange grove in the desert east of Sanaa. JSOC put drones in the area and, when the suspects were leaving, fired several missiles, killing most of the men present.
When the bodies were identified some hours later, JSOC realized it had made a mistake. Instead of the al-Qaeda suspect the group had been tracking for nearly a year, the strike had killed the deputy governor of the province, one of Salih's political rivals, who had helped to arrange the meeting in an attempt to get the al-Qaeda fighters to surrender. "We think we got played," a U.S. official involved in the strike later told The Wall Street Journal, though other U.S. officials disagreed that they had been set up. (The Yemeni government denied any wrongdoing.)
Despite the games and double-dealing, the U.S. remained convinced that it needed Salih in the fight against al-Qaeda. In 33 years of rule, Salih had made his tribe indispensable; his family effectively was the Yemeni military. But as the brutal cycle of Arab Spring protests and crackdowns continued throughout 2011, the U.S. gradually accepted the inevitable: Salih had to go. Worried that al-Qaeda would fill the vacuum of a government collapse, the Obama administration threw its support behind a transfer of power that gave Salih immunity and his deputy the presidencyleaving Salih's relatives and tribesmen in place throughout the military, at least for the time being. These were the people the U.S. had been working with for years; counterterrorism wouldn't suffer during the transition.
When Adnan al-Qadhi landed on the kill list, U.S. officials reached out to some of these compliant partners in Yemen, requesting assistance in locating their target. Could they help?
According to a confession video later released by al-Qaeda, the man tasked with locating Qadhi was Abdullah al-Jubari, a Republican Guard veteran with years of experience. Evidently without the knowledge of the United States, he called an enlisted man named Hafizallah al-KulaybiBarq's biological father.
Jubari told Kulaybi that he was sending another military officer to meet with him in Sanaa. "Major Khalid Ghalays will visit you," Jubari said. "Carry out everything he dictates."
The Republican Guard seems to have known that Kulaybi was short of money and that Barq was living with Adnan al-Qadhi in the village outside Sanaa. Kulaybi would later say on the video that someone, presumably Major Ghalays, explained that if Kulaybi could persuade his son to cooperate, by planting electronic chips on Qadhi, the Yemeni government would give the family a new car, a new house, and 50,000 Yemeni riyals (about $230). This would ease the family's financial troubles, while giving young Barq the chance to "serve his country."
Kulaybi's superior officer ordered him to retrieve his son from Adnan al-Qadhi's house. Kulaybi had sent Barq away because he could not afford to feed him. But now the top officials in the Yemeni military wanted the 8-year-old's help, and they were willing to pay for it. On October 22, 2012, Kulaybi drove the few miles through Sanaa's congested suburbs and past the military checkpoints that ring the city to collect the boy.
Father and son drove back to Sanaa that night, and the Kulaybi family was reunited. For the first time in months, Barq slept next to his brothers and sister and ate with his family. Three days later, on October 25, the feast night of Eid al-Adha, according to the video confession, a trio of Republican Guard officers visited Barq and his father.
A few months later, sometime early this year, Hafizallah al-Kulaybi, Barq's father, sat cross-legged on the floor in front of a shiny silver backdrop, talking into a camera that was recording high-quality video. On the video, Kulaybi pauses periodically, as if trying to remember everything he is supposed to say. Dressed in a sky-blue shirt with dark vertical stripes and a maroon headdress, he looks tired. The bottom button of his shirt is undone; when he moves, the shirt splits open, revealing a black undershirt and the outlines of a sizable paunch. Sitting beside him is Barq, who fidgets while his father confesses to spying on al-Qaeda, an organization that had already executed several spies in Yemen, including one by crucifixion.
In the confession, which was posted on April 19 to jihadi forums by al‑Malahim, al-Qaeda's media wing in Yemen, Kulaybi named both Abdullah al-Jubari and Khalid Ghalays as the men who'd recruited him and Barq for the mission. Two days later, both men denied the accusations. In a statement to Yemen Today, a local Arabic paper, Jubari said that he hadn't had any contact with Kulaybi in five years, and he described the whole thing as a "sick farce."
But parts of the story Kulaybi tells on the confession video have now been corroborated by several different sources in Yemen, including someone familiar with the operation. And numerous tribesmen, local journalists, and a nongovernmental organization have all independently stated that the story the Kulaybis tell aligns with what they believe to be true: 8-year-old Barq was a spy.
This wouldn't have been the first time a Middle Eastern ally of the United States had used a child to spy on al-Qaeda. As Lawrence Wright recounts in his book The Looming Tower, in 1995, Egyptian intelligence agents lured two young boys into an apartment, drugged them, and then raped them. The agents photographed everything and used the photos as leverage to force the boys, who were sons of senior militants close to Ayman al-Zawahiri, to spy on al-Qaeda and try to kill the man who would go on to become Osama bin Laden's deputy and eventually his successor. That plot failed when Zawahiri discovered what the boys were doing. A Sharia court convicted them, and Zawahiri had them both executed.
Near the end of the slickly produced 12-minute videocalled "The Spider's Web," after a verse in the Koran, and complete with English subtitlesBarq speaks for the first time, giving his own version of the story. During his father's portion of the confession, Barq was restless, rocking in place, alternately staring into the camera and looking down at his lap. Once, he even appeared to stifle a smile at the man behind the camera. When it's his turn to speak, however, he becomes poised and still, staring straight into the camera with wide eyes. He starts by saying his name, but his voice is so soft that his father interrupts. "Sawt," he tells his son with an impatient gesture"your voice." Barq's eyes don't move from the camera, but he gradually speaks louder.
His performance is disconcerting. With his tiny head framed by big, looping curls, he looks like a typical 8-year-old rapidly reciting the lines he's memorized for an elementary-school play. But he's in an al-Qaeda confession video, not a school play, and he's explaining how he helped U.S. drone operators kill a man.
At the meeting on October 25, Barq explains, his father gave him the electronic tracking chips, and the Republican Guard officers showed him how to activate them. "They trained me," the boy says. A Yemeni official later confirmed to me that electronic tracking chips, which the U.S. has reportedly used in Afghanistan, are sometimes used for drone strikes in Yemen as well.
In the video, Barq explains that as the officers walked him through the process of using the chips, they stressed how important it was that he plant the chips on Adnan al-Qadhi on either Wednesday, October 31, or Thursday, November 1.
"Who told you?" his father interrupts.
Without shifting his gaze from the camera, Barq dutifully lists the names of three officers: Major Khalid Ghalays, Major Kahalid al-Awbali, and an adjutant named Jawwaas.
"But who was the first one to train you?" his father asks again, suddenly his son's interrogator. His insistent question seems to be an attempt to shift blame back onto the Republican Guard officers who enlisted his son to spy on al-Qaeda.
"Officer Khalid," the boy stutters in reply. "Your friend."
His father doesn't interrupt again.
Barq continues, explaining that once the officers were convinced that he was capable of activating the tiny chips, and that he understood the importance of keeping them a secret from Qadhi, they had his father take him back to the village. Barq was ready for his mission.
How did Adnan al-Qadhi, who was officially still an officer in the Yemeni military, end up on the American kill list years after his release from prison?
For much of President Obama's first term, intelligence officials from across the federal government gathered once a week, usually on a Tuesday, to discuss the kill list. These secret "Terror Tuesday" meetings, as administration officials called them, were designed to be rigorous debates about who would live or die half a world away.
In a series of preliminary meetings, dozens of officials argued the merits of each case. "What's a Qaeda facilitator?" asked one participant, according to a 2012 New York Times article. "If I open a gate and you drive through it, am I a facilitator?"
These officials struggled to be conscientious and fair. No one wanted to make a mistake and nominate an innocent person for death. But as spirited as the discussions could be, with officials interrogating one another over why a particular individual should be targeted for killing, there was no outside oversightall decisions were made and reviewed within the executive branch. The public's knowledge of the Obama administration's legal thinking regarding drone-strike targeting became slightly less murky earlier this year, when someone leaked a copy of a Justice Department white paper to Michael Isikoff, an investigative reporter at NBC News. The document, which focuses on the question of when it is legal to kill U.S. citizens abroad, states that if "an informed, high-level official" in the U.S. government determines that a citizen is a "senior operational leader" in al-Qaeda, then that person can be killed. The paper delineates two key restrictions. First, the U.S. has to determine that capture is not feasible. Second, whomever the U.S. wants to kill has to pose an "imminent" threat. The criteria for justifying a strike on a non-U.S. citizen are presumably the same, if not less stringent. (See Mark Bowden's accompanying story on page 58.)
But feasibility of capture is a judgment call. How many Americans or American allies must be exposed to potential danger to make a capture unfeasible? A drone is cleaner than an on-the-ground operation; it can kill from the sky without exposing a single U.S. soldier to danger.
The issue of imminence is similarly fuzzy. Government attorneys stretched the definition from "about to happen" to something much broader. According to the Justice Department white paper, an individual doesn't have to be on the verge of attacking, or even in the midst of a particular plot, to be a legitimate target. A person could be an imminent threat solely by virtue of being labeled a "senior operational leader," someone whom the U.S. believes is actively planning to kill Americans. In other words, once someone is identified that way, he is deemed an imminent threat and, as such, a fair target.
"I climbed on the table where his coat was and put [a tracking chip] in his pocket," the boy said. A week later, Adnan al-Qadhi was dead, killed by a U.S. drone strike.
According to U.S. intelligence, Qadhi was a senior operational leader in al-Qaeda who met both requirements for lawful killing: he was an imminent threat, and he couldn't be captured. Yemeni intelligence was less certain. After all, the Yemenis had captured Qadhi once before, when they arrested him in 2008. And in January 2012, he had been part of a tribal mediation team sent at the behest of the government to negotiate with al-Qaeda fighters who had taken control of a city fewer than 100 miles south of Sanaa. Besides, Qadhi wasn't hiding in the mountains with the rest of al-Qaedahe was living in his house in Bayt al-Ahmar, a stone's throw from former President Salih's hilltop palace.
Still, when the U.S. asked the Yemenis for permission to strike, the government agreed. Some officials even concurred with the American assessment that Qadhi was al-Qaeda's local commander in Bayt al-Ahmar, pointing to the fact that he had a giant mural of the black flag associated with al-Qaeda painted on his house. But according to one Yemeni official who reviewed the intelligence, others argued that Qadhi was a recruiter for al-Qaeda, not a senior operational leader. Whatever Qadhi's ties to al-Qaeda, one thing was clear: he had yet to carry out an attack. Thus, any strike against him would by definition be a preemptive one.
According to the video confession, when Barq's father dropped him off back in Bayt al-Ahmar, the young spy did what the officers in the Republican Guard had instructed during their evening meeting. He reestablished contact with Qadhi, his surrogate father in the village, and waited. On Wednesday, October 31, when Qadhi went to the bathroom, the boy made his move.
"I climbed on the table where his coat was and put [a tracking chip] in his pocket," Barq says. Scrambling to complete his mission before Qadhi came out of the bathroom, he slipped back to the floor and slid a second chip under a freestanding cupboard, just as he had been taught.
Later that day, apparently worried that the chip under the cupboard was too obvious, Barq removed it. But the first chip, the one in the pocket of Qadhi's coat, was still in place and emitting a signal.
Neither the boy nor the man who had taken him in off the street could have known it yet, but by that point, Adnan al-Qadhi was effectively dead. All that was left was for a drone operator to push a button that would fire a missile.
In the United States, the presidential election was entering the home stretch. While President Obama and Mitt Romney stumped for last-minute votes, drones from a secret base in either Saudi Arabia or Djibouti followed Qadhi's every move. As soon as Qadhi put on his coat and U.S. forces got a lock on him, it didn't matter whether he found the electronic tracking chip or even whether he never wore his coat again. He had been marked. (Chips like this are supposed to help ensure that drone strikes hit only the target sought, and not a civilian who happens to be in the same location.)
Early in the morning on November 6, the polls in the U.S. opened. By 11 p.m. eastern standard time, the election was over. President Obama had won a second term. Less than two hours later, the first family made its entrance at Chicago's McCormick Place. Obama walked out onto the stage hand in hand with his 11-year-old daughter, Sasha, followed by the first lady and 14-year-old Malia, waving and smiling to Stevie Wonder's "Signed, Sealed, Delivered, I'm Yours."
By the time Obama finished speaking, it was nearly 1 a.m. in Chicago. Halfway around the world, in Yemen, where it was just before 9 in the morning on November 7, Adnan al-Qadhi was starting his day.
Several hours later, at about 6:30 p.m. local time, Qadhi walked out the front door of his house and climbed into a sport-utility vehicle with a man named Abu Radwan. Overhead, one of the drones that had been tracking Qadhi fired a missile, destroying the vehicle and instantly killing both men.
Two months later, on January 15, 2013, Barq was traveling with his father when an al-Qaeda operative, identified by sources close to al-Qaeda in Yemen as Rabi'a Lahib, managed to kidnap both of them. Lahib, who had been erroneously reported killed in the strike on Qadhi, turned the pair over to al-Qaeda commanders in a remote region east of Sanaa. On January 23, another American drone strike killed Lahib. But that was eight days too late for Barq and his father.
When pressed for comment, a senior White House official told The Atlantic, "The claim that the U.S. government was in any way involved in purportedly using an 8-year-old in this incident is unequivocally wrong." (The Yemeni government did not respond to a request for comment.)
Could the video be bogus, or the confessions coerced? The potency of the video as propaganda is obvious: if Yemenis can be convinced that the Republican Guard is recruiting 8-year-olds to help paint targets for U.S. drone strikes, that would likely rally support for al-Qaeda. But local tribesmen, as well as the source familiar with the operation, believe Barq's testimony to be accurate, and in interviews they provided details and background information that cannot be gleaned from the video. For his part, Himyar al-Qadhi, Adnan's brother, says he believes that what Barq says on the video is accurate. (Himyar says he does not blame Barq for the death of his brother; he blames the Yemeni and U.S. governments, whom he is planning to sue.) Moreover, if the narrative laid out by Barq and his father in the video is false, that would be a departure for al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. Since its founding in 2009, this group has developed a local reputation built in part around truthfulness. In a country where many people distrust official government statements, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula has taken pains to establish itself as a viable and accurate alternative information source. A Yemeni government official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject, said the group "tends to be more credible than the military."
Although it has not been possible to independently verify the identity of the Republican Guard members involved in Barq's recruitment, one thing is definitively true: someone exploited an 8-year-old boy. Either U.S. allies in Yemen used him to abet a killing, or al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula used him as a pawn in its propaganda strategy, or both. The evidence strongly suggests that America's allies in Yemen recruited the boy, but there is nothing to indicate that U.S. officials knew anything about Barq's role as a child spy. U.S. officials are aware, however, that Yemen uses children in conflicts, a practice the State Department annually documents in its Trafficking in Persons report. In 2008, Congress passed the Child Soldiers Prevention Act, which prohibits the United States from financing the militaries of countries that use child soldiers, or providing training to those militaries. Every year since the law took effect in 2010, President Obama has signed a waiver exempting Yemen. The U.S. has cited both "national interests" and a belief that continued engagement with countries like Yemen could "solve this problem." Yemen is the only country that has received a full exemption each year.
Near the end of the confession video, after Barq and his father have admitted their roles in the killing of Adnan al-Qadhi, Arabic text scrolls across the screen.
An unseen narrator explains that in light of the confessions, al-Qaeda's Sharia committee has decided the following:
1. Hafizallah al-Kulaybi is guilty of spying on al-Qaeda.
2. Hafizallah al-Kulaybi bears responsibility for the deaths of Adnan al-Qadhi and Abu Radwan.
3. The four Republican Guard officers who recruited and "trained" Barq are "wanted for justice."
As the narrator's voice trails off, the chanting of a jihadi anthem is heard in the background, and a single line of English flashes across the screen: "Every spy is killed after he's been filmed!"
The video doesn't show the executional-Qaeda has been wary of broadcasting executions since the bloody excesses in Iraqbut it leaves little doubt about what transpired. Though independent confirmation of Hafizallah al-Kulaybi's death has not been established, multiple tribal sources say that they believe Kulaybi was executed.
In the video, al-Qaeda declared that Barq's father had exploited his son's "innocence." According to a source close to al-Qaeda, the group later pardoned Barq because of his age, but his family, which has refused all requests for interviews, has yet to confirm his status.
Gregory D. Johnsen is the author of The Last Refuge: Yemen, al-Qaeda, and America's War in Arabia.

[Magda Hassan]

2013/04/22

YEMEN: VIDEO RELEASED CLAIMING CHILD USED TO PLANT CHIPS TO GUIDE IN US DRONE

A disturbing video has appeared on social media within the last few days from Ansar al Shariah in Yemen claiming that a small child was used to plant chips to guide a US drone to its target. Drones are aimed at "alleged" terrorists in the region and are increasingly devastating the lives of civilians not involved in insurgency. The video features a father giving his "confession" as a drone spy and detailing his son's role in the targeted killing of Sheikh Adnan Al Qadhy and Aheikh Abu Ridhwan. We do not learn of the fate of the alleged spy though drones spies have been executed in the past with one allegedly crucified. However the last line of the 11minute 59 second film produced by Al-Malahem Media chillingly states, "every filmed spy is killed after he has been filmed".
Ansar al-Sharia, whose name means "Partisans of Islamic law" in Arabic, was formed by al Qaeda in Arabian Peninsular (AQAP) in response to the growing youth movement in Yemen, which has marginalised Salafi-jihadists who advocate the violent overthrow of the government and the establishment of an Islamic state. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-17402856
On October 4, 2011, the State Department designated AAS as a Foreign Terrorist Organization and as an extension of AQAP. It stated that "AAS is simply AQAP's effort to rebrand itself, with the aim of manipulating people to join AQAP's terrorist cause" http://www.currenttrends.org/research/de...hern-yemen Yemeni President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi has spoken of his support for US drone strikes during a trip to the United States in September and it was recently revealed that the CIA are operating a drone base in Saudi Arabia and Saudi spies may also be used to locate insurgents.
On January 4[SUP]th[/SUP] 2013 armed tribesmen took to the streets and threatened to occupy government buildings after a number of civilians were killed. http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/01/04...J920130104 A month later, I published a letter from Haykal Bafana, a Yemeni lawyer questioning the ethics of targeted killing. He also forwarded graphic photos of burnt and mutilated bodies showing the aftermath of a drone strike which hit a vehicle on 23[SUP]rd[/SUP] January 2013. The identity of those killed was unknown http://blog.approximatetargetfilm.com/us...ody-parts/ In the words of Haykal Bfana, "dear Obama, when a U.S. drone missile kills a child in Yemen, the father will go to war with you, guaranteed. Nothing to do with Al Qaeda,"

A letter to President Obama from Atlantic Council and Project on Middle East Democracy (Yemen Policy Initiative) back in June 2012 noted that the US had drastically increased the number of strikes and stated:-
We accept that the US will take action against those who plot attacks against Americans when there is actionable intelligence. However, removing members of militant groups with targeted strikes is not a sustainable solution and does not address the underlying causes that have propelled such forces to find fertile ground in Yemen. In order to systematically address the drivers of extremism, the US should focus on four key areas: a successful transition to a democratic government that upholds the rule of law and protects human rights; supporting the Yemeni government's provision of basic services and needs (food security, water, fuel, and health); effective military restructuring and the development of a unified command structure that provides legitimate internal security; and economic growth and job creation. http://www.acus.org/files/Yemen%20Policy...-25-12.pdf
It is easy for drone supporters to dismiss the Ansar al- Shari'ah video as mere propaganda but as we cannot verify one way or the other the "confession" from an alleged drone spy and his small son, human rights activists must keep an open mind regarding its accuracy. This serious allegation of using a child to plant drone chips is one that must be considered and investigated further by the UN inquiry into drone strikes. Therefore I have decided to publish the full transcript from the video which appears as English subtitles on the film:-

THE VIDEO

Ansar al-Shari'ah in Yemen reveal details (ENGLISH SUBTITLES)

In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious the Most Merciful

US drone programme uses children to plant chips on targets

The likeness of those who take (false deities as) Awliya (protectors helpers) other than Allah is the likeness of a spider who builds (for itself a house) but verily the frailest of houses is the spider's house if they but knew (29.41)

THE SPIDER'S WEB

The American media doesn't stop nor become bored with the endless bragging about its advanced military technology. And they are still boasting about their arsenal, the largest in the globe. But in their tons of boastful words in the material strength, they miss out the defeats their forces faced, in the Forests of Vietnam and in the hands of the Mujahideen who wage guerrilla warfare in the Cities of Somalia, the Plains of Iraq and the hill and valleys of Afghanistan.
I am stressing on this point these battles which take place daily in Afghanistan against the Arab Mujahideen and Taliban in particular have uncovered the frailty of the American government, the American weakness and the extent of the delicacy of it soldiers. In spite of their highly advanced military technology, they could do nothing except by depending on the murtadeen and the munafiqueen.

SHAKE THE EARTH

The defeats which America experienced in the hands of the Mujahideen throughout the last decade have made a great impact in dissolving the fake power over which America and its media have sketched and propagated to portray it as the undefeatable force, the irrestistible power.
As usual America couldn't get in to the Muslim land through puppet rulers who betrayed their fealty, sold their nations and became servants of the invading occupier. They opened land for his troops, seas for his warships and skies for his planes. Moreover they engaged in the vilest of treachery; they recruited spies for the occupier so that they would unearth Muslims' honour and secrecy. They became his partners in the killing of the elite of the Sons of Islam, under the pretext of the War On Terror.
And among the victims of this treacherous crimes are Sheikh Adnan Al Qadhy and Sheikh Abu Ridhwan (may Allah accept them). They are men who refused any hegemony above the hegemony of Shari'ah. They refused any law apart from the Law of Allah. They have been true to their covenant- we count them so- martyred by American missiles guided by a chip planted on Sheikh Adnan Al- Qadhy. To Allah he has left Adnan. So did our Sheikh Ridhwan. Sad he has become Ibn Shanaan Sheiks relative. These verses express his heart.
To Allah he has left Adnan
So did our Sheikh Ridwan
A few days after the martyrdom Allah enabled the Mujahideen to get hold of the spy responsible. I am Hifdullah Muhammad Ahmed Dureib Al Kuleibi from Dharmaar Governate. I am an adjutant at the Republican Guard in Camp Sawaad. I live in Qa'il Qedhi in Sana'a. I have 6 children. This is my child Barq. Before Eidul Adh-Haa, Major Gen, Abdallah Hamuud Al -Jabry called me. He told me "Major Khalid Gleis will visit you. Carry out everything he dictates." He did come. He told me to bring Barq from the house of Al-Ahmar. My son Barq was at the Al Ahmar's. I went and took my son Barq before Eid by three days.
On the night of Eid, Major Khalid Gleis, Majot Khalid Al Awbali and Adjutant Jawaas visited me. They came and said. "Barq is ready to serve his country, we will give you a luxurious house and a deluxe car" They gave me 50,000 Rial Yemeni 233$. They said that Barq will achieve goals for us and that they will give me everything. Indeed they told me to give Barq missile guiding chips which h would plant on Adnan Al Qadry. I gave them to Barq ater they had explained to him how to plant and activate them.
Therefore this is the reality of America which claims to be the most powerful country in the world and which he brags and professes that he's the protector of human rights and the vanguard which protects children's rights from any menace.
Abu Yahya al-Libi... We've seen livestock and beasts before, so have we lived many years with this army's soldiers and recruits. Never have we seen as disgraceful, as vile as these, criminals. To the extent their intelligence, interrogators sometimes are feeling shame for what they see and hear from their soldiers, they would apologise for that savagery. We hope the soldiers won't give you the wrong picture of American people, these are the garbage of the Society.
If the soldiers are the garbage, then the intelligence are the garbage of the garbage, since they have no values, no principals, no morals, no shame, "Unquestionably the curse of Allah upon the dhalimin (polytheists, wrongdoers, oppressors)".
The puppets of America who pursue the sordid American way, then contradict with Islamic morals and the just Sharia'ah. They are only concerned with pleasing their American master, the ruler of Whitehouse, regardless of the Islamic teachings and morals. One question, why wasn't Adnan Al Qadhy summoned and given a fair trial? Brothers he's human, not an animal. As to me the American forces in Yemen, Alborabo Mansur Hadi, the coalition government, the Parliament and its members are accountable. Because they are the rulers, now they come to me with evidence after they have killed him.
The treacherous rulers who sold their religion and lands to the occupying crusader enemy do not stop at sharing the enemy in his crimes. But they also fabricate lies and ascribe falsehood to the Mujahideen.
(Below, video shows Yemeni officials making allegedly incorrect statement on Al Qaeda)
I will frankly tell you that those Al Qaeda organisations are penetrable. As per Al Qaeda's strategy of recruiting only those between age 15 and 22 are allowed. Whoever is 23 years is not recruited. This is the danger they pose. This is their logic, restless youth.

CONVERSATION BETWEEN ALLEGED DRONE SPY AND HIS YOUNG SON BARQ
Small Child, son speaking
I am Barq Hifdullah Muhammad Dureib. My father gave me the chips to plant on "Adnan Al Qadhy. He gave me on Eid eve. After I reached this checkpoint, they trained me how to activate them. Then I went to Sanhaan (Sheikh Adan's residence), The told me to activate it on Wednesday or Thursday
Father speaking… "who told you?
Small child (his son)… The office Khalid, Khalid and Jawwaas, those three.
Father… who among them trained you first?
Son…. Officer Khalid, your friend. Then I went, they told me to activate it on Wesnesday or Thursday. So on Wednesday when he entered the bathroom. I climbed on the table and put a chip in his pocket. The second one placed it under the cupboards and then I waited.
Then I returned to the house and removed the second chip. Then I went on my own.
(END OF CONVERSATION BETWEEN FATHER AND SON)

After these open confessions and the acknowledgement of the American agent for his crimes against Muslims. The Sharia'ah Committee of the Mujahideen in the Arabian Peninsular affirmed the following :-
First conducting convicting Hifdullah Muhammad Al Kuleibi of working as an agent for the enemies of Allah, America and their agents in the Sana'a regime
Second convicting the agent of full responsibility for the killing of Sheikh Adnan Al-Qadhy and Sheikh Abu Ridhwan (may Allah accept them) by exploiting the innocence of his young son Barq and deceiving him to plant two electronic chips on Sheikh Adnan Al- Qadhy which guided the American planes to identify his location and kill him with directed missiles
Third wanted for justice Major General Abdallah Haamud A-Jabry, Major Khalid Gleis, Majo Khalis Al-Awbali, and Adjurant Jawwaas.
This is the Sunnah of Allah in His Creation, however much falsehood prevails, Allah the Exalted, flings the truth against it, so it destroys it.
O people of zeal and enthusiasm in the Arabian Peninsula, the stronghold of Islam and its Spring. Here are yourselves and blood being licked by the cross worshippers and their agents. Stand and protect your land and honours before you regret!
Men Singing
Anticipate glad tidings as every filmed spy is killed after he has been filmed.
Every filmed spy is killed after he's been filmed!
(End of video)
FURTHER SUGGESTED READING:-
Notes by Noon, Why US Drones Should Stop in Yemen And Elsewhere http://notesbynoon.blogspot.co.uk/2012/0...yemen.html
BBC, CIA Operating Drone Base Out of Saudi Arabia, US Media Reveal http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-21350437

Carol Anne Grayson is an independent writer/researcher on global health/human rights and is Executive Producer of the Oscar nominated, Incident in New Baghdad. She is a Registered Mental Nurse with a Masters in Gender Culture and Development. Carol was awarded the ESRC, Michael Young Prize for Research 2009, and the COTT Action = Life' Human Rights Award' for "upholding truth and justice".

[Peter Lemkin]

And we give lip service to condemning nations that use children soldiers! The USA and its allies have no moral compass any more - it is all about Empire, power, money and a love of Thanatos.

[Jan Klimkowski]

And we give lip service to condemning nations that use children soldiers! The USA and its allies have no moral compass any more - it is all about Empire, power, money and a love of Thanatos.

Remember the frothing outrage about the Lord's Resistance Army?

[Magda Hassan]

And we give lip service to condemning nations that use children soldiers! The USA and its allies have no moral compass any more - it is all about Empire, power, money and a love of Thanatos.

Remember the frothing outrage about the Lord's Resistance Army?

Maybe they can make another Kony video for the drones? That will make it all right.

Oh, lookee here:

[Jan Klimkowski]

Maybe they can make another Kony video for the drones? That will make it all right.

Oh, lookee here:

Yup.

:coffee:

[Peter Lemkin]

Audit: FBI Has Used Drones Inside U.S. Since 2006

A federal audit has revealed the FBI has been operating drones inside the United States since 2006 at a cost of more than $3 million. In total, the Justice Department has spent nearly $5 million on drones, according to the report, which was issued by the agency's inspector general. That includes funds to several local police departments which auditors said the department has failed to track. The report urged officials to develop new guidelines to protect privacy saying drones raise "unique concerns about privacy." Drones currently operate under the same rules as manned surveillance planes.

[Magda Hassan]

And they're not even very useful as far as their stated aims go. US Army War College metastudy: drone strikes have little impact either way on Afghan insurgency (their main target)

The Effectiveness of Drone Strikes in Counterinsurgency and Counterterrorism Campaigns

Authored by Dr. James Igoe Walsh.

• Added September 26, 2013
  
• Type: Monograph
  
• 80 Pages
  
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Brief Synopsis

View the Executive Summary

The United States increasingly relies on unmanned aerial vehicles to target insurgent and terrorist groups around the world. This monograph analyzes the available research and evidence that assesses the political and military consequences of drone strikes. It is not clear if drone strikes have degraded their targets, or that they kill enough civilians to create sizable public backlashes against the United States. Drones are a politically and militarily attractive way to counter insurgents and terrorists, but, paradoxically, this may lead to their use in situations where they are less likely to be effective and where they are difficult to predict consequences.

[Carsten Wiethoff]

From http://www.democracynow.org/2013/10/25/a...ent_ex_air

Former U.S. Air Force pilot Brandon Bryant served as a sensor operator for the Predator program from 2007 to 2011, manning the camera on the unmanned aerial vehicles that carried out attacks overseas. After he left the active duty in the Air Force, he was presented with a certificate that credited his squadron for 1,626 kills. In total, Bryant says he was involved in seven missions in which his Predator fired a missile at a human target, and about 13 people died in those strikes

How many active squadrons are there?
Compare with the number of drone strikes in Pakistan and Yemen:
http://www.longwarjournal.org/pakistan-strikes.php
and
http://www.longwarjournal.org/multimedia...strike.php

Added together there are about 300 drone strikes from 2007 to 2011. If these numbers are all correct, it would mean that on average more than 5 people are killed per strike. Brandon Bryant estimates 13 killed in 7 strikes, that means an average of about 2.
So I would guess that the real number of drone strikes is much higher than the numbers given by longwarjournal.org, and/or the number of civilian casualties per drone strike is much higher than Bryant's estimate.