Articles by Chris Woods

We found 6 results.


Covert Drone War: Bureau investigation finds fresh evidence of CIA drone strikes on rescuers
Chris Woods – The Bureau of Investigative Journalism, 5 Aug 2013

A field investigation by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism in Pakistan confirm that the CIA last year briefly revived the controversial tactic of deliberately targeting rescuers at the scene of a previous drone strike. The tactic has previously been labelled a possible war crime by two UN investigators.

→ read full article

Six-Month Update: US Covert Actions in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia
Jack Serle and Chris Woods – The Bureau of Investigative Journalism, 8 Jul 2013

• Bureau data suggests the CIA is killing fewer people in each strike in Pakistan.
• Lack of official transparency means it remains unclear who is carrying out strikes in Yemen.
• No reports of US operations in Somalia but al Shabaab continues to launch attacks.

→ read full article

Obama Terror Drones: CIA Tactics in Pakistan Include Targeting Rescuers and Funerals
Chris Woods and Christina Lamb – The Bureau of Investigative Journalism, 18 Feb 2013

The CIA’s drone campaign in Pakistan has killed dozens of civilians who had gone to help rescue victims or were attending funerals, an investigation by the Bureau for the Sunday Times has revealed. The findings are published just days after President Obama claimed that the drone campaign in Pakistan was a ‘targeted, focused effort’ that ‘has not caused a huge number of civilian casualties.’

→ read full article

Emerging From the Shadows: US Covert Drone Strikes in 2012
Chris Woods, Jack Serle and Alice K. Ross – The Bureau of Investigative Journalism, 7 Jan 2013

In one of the biggest news stories of the year, in May [2012] the New York Times revealed that President Obama was personally deciding whether to kill some individuals. He ‘counts all military-age males in a strike zone as combatants, according to several administration officials, unless there is explicit intelligence posthumously proving them innocent.’ As the Bureau noted at the time, ‘The revelation helps explain the wide variation between credible reports of civilian deaths in Pakistan by the Bureau and others, and the CIA’s claims that it had killed no ‘non-combatants.’

→ read full article

Revealed: US and Britain Launched 1,200 Drone Strikes in Recent Wars
Chris Woods and Alice K Ross – The Bureau of Investigative Journalism, 10 Dec 2012

Covert Drone War – Recent conflicts in Afghanistan, Libya and Iraq have seen almost 1,200 drone strikes over the past five years, according to new data released to the Bureau [4 Dec 2012]. The information, much of it classified until now, shows that US Air Force drones carried out most of the 1,168 attacks. However British crews are also responsible for a significant portion of the strikes in Afghanistan.

→ read full article

Unmanned Technology Takes Off for the Weapons Industry
Chris Woods, Emma Slater – The Independent, 5 Dec 2011

High-ranking military officers and their aides mingled with salesmen and potential customers at the 11th annual drones conference. Some had paid as much as £3,000 to attend Unmanned Aircraft Systems 2011, a two-day event that opened on 16 November in a plush hotel in Kensington, west London.

→ read full article