{"id":75887,"date":"2016-07-04T12:00:40","date_gmt":"2016-07-04T11:00:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=75887"},"modified":"2016-07-02T15:02:39","modified_gmt":"2016-07-02T14:02:39","slug":"drone-warfare-obama-drone-casualty-numbers-a-fraction-of-those-recorded-by-the-bureau","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2016\/07\/drone-warfare-obama-drone-casualty-numbers-a-fraction-of-those-recorded-by-the-bureau\/","title":{"rendered":"Drone Warfare – Obama Drone Casualty Numbers a Fraction of Those Recorded by the Bureau"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Funeral<\/a>

Funeral of Akram Shah and at least four other civilians in June 2011 (THIS KHAN\/AFP\/Getty Images)<\/p><\/div>\n

1 Jul 2016 – <\/em>The US government today claimed it has killed between 64 and 116 \u201cnon-combatants\u201d in 473 counter-terrorism strikes in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia and Libya between January 2009 and the end of 2015.<\/p>\n

This is a fraction of the 380 to 801 civilian casualty range recorded by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism from reports by local and international journalists, NGO investigators, leaked government documents, court papers and the result of field investigations.<\/p>\n

While the number of civilian casualties recorded by the Bureau is six times higher than the US Government\u2019s figure,\u00a0the assessments of the minimum total number of people killed were strikingly similar. The White House put this figure at 2,436, whilst the Bureau has recorded 2,753.<\/p>\n

Since\u00a0becoming president in 2009, Barack Obama has significantly extended the use of drones in the\u00a0War on Terror. Operating outside declared battlefields, such as Afghanistan and Iraq, this air war has been largely fought in Pakistan and Yemen.<\/p>\n

The White House\u2019s\u00a0announcement today is long-awaited. It comes three years after the White House first said it planned to publish casualty figures, and four months after President Obama\u2019s chief counter-terrorism adviser, Lisa Monaco, said the data would be released<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

The figures released do not include civilians killed in drones strikes\u00a0that happened under George W Bush, who instigated the use of counter-terrorism strikes outside declared war zones and in 58 strikes killed\u00a0174\u00a0reported civilians.<\/p>\n

\"Graphic<\/a>

Graphic by Dean Vipond<\/p><\/div>\n

Today\u2019s announcement is intended to shed light on the US\u2019s controversial targeted killing programme,\u00a0in which it has used drones to run\u00a0an arms-length war against al Qaeda and Islamic State.<\/p>\n

The US Government also committed to continued transparency saying it will provide an annual summary of information about the number of strikes against terrorist targets outside areas of active hostilities as well as the range of combatants and non-combatants killed.<\/p>\n

But the US has not released a year-by-year breakdown of strikes nor provided any detail on particularly controversial strikes which immediately sparked criticism from civil liberty groups.<\/p>\n

Jamel Jaffer, Deputy Legal Director of\u00a0the\u00a0American Civil Liberties Union\u00a0said: \u201cWhile any disclosure of information about the government\u2019s targeted-killing policies is welcome, the government should be releasing information about every strike\u2014the date of the strike, the location, the numbers of casualties, and the civilian or combatant status of those casualties. Perhaps this kind of information should be released after a short delay, rather than immediately, but it should be released. The public has a right to know who the government is killing\u2014and if the government doesn\u2019t know who it\u2019s killing, the public should know that.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

The gap between US figures and other estimates, including the Bureau\u2019s data, also raised concerns.<\/p>\n

I saw the first two missiles coming through the air. They were following each other with fire at the back. <\/em><\/strong>\u2013 Nabeela, 8<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Jennifer Gibson, staff attorney at Reprieve said: \u201cFor three years now, President Obama has been promising to shed light on the CIA\u2019s covert drone programme. Today, he had a golden opportunity to do just that. Instead, he chose to do the opposite. He published numbers that are hundreds lower than even the lowest estimates by independent organisations. The only thing those numbers tell us is that this Administration simply doesn\u2019t know who it has killed. Back in 2011, it claimed to have killed \u201conly 60\u201d civilians. Does it really expect us to believe that it has killed only 4 more civilians since then, despite taking hundreds more strikes?<\/p>\n

\u201cThe most glaring absence from this announcement are the names and faces of those civilians that have been killed.\u00a0 Today\u2019s announcement tells us nothing about 14 year old Faheem Qureshi, who was severely injured in Obama\u2019s first drone strike. Reports suggest Obama knew he had killed civilians that day.\u201d<\/p>\n

The US government said in a statement: \u201cFirst, although there are inherent limitations on determining the precise number of combatant and non-combatant deaths, particularly when operating in non-permissive environments, the US Government uses post-strike methodologies that have been refined and honed over years and that use information that is generally unavailable to non-government\u00a0organsations.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bibi Mamana<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Picture<\/a>

Picture credit: BBC<\/p><\/div>\n

Bibi Mamana was a grandmother and midwife living in the the tribal region of North Waziristan on Pakistan\u2019s border with Afghanistan.<\/em><\/p>\n

On October 24 2012, she was preparing for the Muslim festival of Eid. She used to say that the joy of Eid was the excitement it brought to children. Her eight-year-old granddaughter Nabeela was reported to be\u00a0in a field with her as she gathered vegetables when a\u00a0drone killed Mamana.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cI saw the first two missiles coming through the air,\u201d Nabeela later told The Times. \u201cThey were following each other with fire at the back. When they hit the ground, there was a loud noise. After that I don\u2019t remember anything.\u201d Nabeela was injured by flying shrapnel.<\/em><\/p>\n

At the sound of the explosion, Mamana\u2019s 18-year-old grandson Kaleem ran from the house to help. But a few minutes later the drones struck again, he told the BBC. He was knocked unconscious. His leg was badly broken and damaged by shrapnel, and needed surgery.<\/em><\/p>\n

Atiq, one of Mamana\u2019s sons, was in the mosque as Manama gathered vegetables. On hearing the blast and seeing the plume of smoke he rushed to the scene. When he arrived he could not see any sign of his mother.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cI started calling out for her but there was no reply,\u201d Atiq told the Times. \u201cThen I saw her shoes. We found her mutilated body a short time afterwards. It had been thrown quite a long distance away by the blast and it was in pieces. We collected many different parts from the field and put a turban over her body.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Atiq\u2019s brother Rafiq told Al Jazeera English<\/a> he received a letter after the strike from a Pakistani official that\u00a0said the attack was a US drone strike and that Mamana was innocent. But nothing more came of it, he said. The following year Rafiq, a teacher, travelled to the US to speak to Congress about the strike.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cMy job is to educate,\u201d he said in an emotional testimony. \u201cBut how do I teach something like this? How do I explain what I myself do not understand?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Evaluating the numbers<\/strong><\/p>\n

The administration has called its drone programme a precise, effective form of warfare that targets terrorists and rarely hits civilians.<\/p>\n

With the release of the figures today President Obama said, \u201cAll armed conflict invites tragedy.\u00a0 But by narrowly targeting our action against those who want to kill us and not the people they hide among, we are choosing the course of action least likely to result in the loss of innocent life.\u201d<\/p>\n

In June 2011 Obama\u2019s then counter terrorism chief, now CIA director, John Brennan made a similar statement. He also declared drones strikes were \u201cexceptionally precise and surgical\u201d\u00a0and had not killed a single civilian since August 2010.\u00a0A Bureau investigation in July 2011 demonstrated this claim was untrue<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Most of the Bureau\u2019s data sources are media reports by local and international news outlets, including Reuters, Associated Press and The New York Times.<\/p>\n

The US Government suggests it has a much clearer view of post-strike situations than such reporting, suggesting this is the reason why there is such a gap between the numbers that have been recorded by the Bureau, and similar organisations, and those released today.<\/p>\n

But the Bureau has also gathered essential information from its own field investigations.<\/p>\n

The tribal areas have long been considered a difficult if not impossible area for journalists to access. However, occasionally reporters have been able to gain access to the site of the strikes to interview survivors, witnesses and relatives of people killed in drone strikes.<\/p>\n

The Bureau\u2019s Naming the Dead project has named\u00a0213 civilians killed in Pakistan by drones in\u00a0Obama\u2019s presidency\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The Bureau conducted a field investigation through the end of 2011 into 2012<\/a>,\u00a0in partnership with The Sunday Times. Through extensive interviews with local villagers, the Bureau found 12 strikes killed 57 civilians.<\/p>\n

The Associated Press also sent reporters into the Fata, reporting its findings in February 2012. It found 56 civilians and 138 militants were killed in 10 strikes<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Access to affected areas is a\u00a0challenge in Yemen too. But in December 2009 a deputation of Yemeni parliamentarians sent to the scene of a\u00a0strike discovered the burnt remnants of a camp, which had been set up by several families from one of Yemen\u2019s poorest tribes.<\/p>\n

A subsequent investigation by journalist Jeremy Scahill revealed<\/a> a deception that hid US responsibility for the deaths of 41 civilians at the camp \u2013\u00a0half of them children, five of them pregnant women.<\/p>\n

The reality on the ground flew in the face of the US governments understanding of events. A leaked US diplomatic record of a meeting in\u00a0Sana\u2019a, the capital of Yemen,\u00a0between General David\u00a0Petraeus and the Yemeni president revealed the US government was ignorant of\u00a0the civilian death toll.<\/p>\n

Salem Ahmed bin Ali Jaber<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Picture<\/a>

Picture credit: Private<\/p><\/div>\n

Salem Ahmed bin Ali Jaber, a 40-year-old father of seven, was exactly the kind of man the US needed in Yemen. A widely respected cleric in rural Yemen, he delivered sermons in his village mosque denouncing al-Qaida.<\/em><\/p>\n

He gave just such a speech in August 2012 and earned the attention of the terrorist group. Three anonymous fighters arrived in his village two days later, after dark, calling for Jaber to come out and talk.<\/em><\/p>\n

He went to meet them, taking his policeman cousin, Walid Abdullah bin Ali Jaber, with him for protection. The five men stood arguing in the night air when Hellfire missiles tore into them.<\/em><\/p>\n

A \u201chuge explosion\u201d rocked the village, a witness said. Jaber\u2019s father, Ahmad bin Salim Salih bin Ali Jaber, 77, arrived on the scene to find people \u201cwrapping up body parts of people from the ground, from here and there, putting them in grave clothes like lamb.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

All the dead were al Qaeda fighters, unnamed Yemeni officials claimed. However Jaber\u2019s family refused to allow him to be smeared as a terrorist.<\/em><\/p>\n

For three years they fought in courts in America and Germany for recognition that he\u00a0was an innocent civilian. In November 2013 they visited Washington and even managed to arrange a meeting in the White House to plead their case. In 2014 the family said it was offered a bag containing\u00a0$100,000 by a Yemen national security official. The official said it was a US strike and it had been a mistake.<\/em><\/p>\n

By late 2015 the family offered to drop their lawsuits against the US government if the administration would apologise. The Department of Justice refused. In February 2016 the court dismissed the family\u2019s suit but they have not stopped fighting: in April they announced they would appeal.<\/em><\/p>\n

Falling numbers of civilian casualties<\/strong><\/p>\n

The White House stressed that it was concerned to\u00a0protect civilians and that best practices were in place to help reduce the likelihood of civilian casualties.<\/p>\n

The Bureau\u2019s data does show a significant decline in the reports of\u00a0civilian casualties in recent years.<\/p>\n

I would read these accounts, \u201912 insurgents killed.\u2019 \u201915!\u2019 You don\u2019t know that. You don\u2019t know that. They could be insurgents, they could be cooks. <\/em><\/strong>\u2013 Richard Armitage, former deputy Secretary of State<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

In Pakistan, where the largest number of strikes have occurred, there have been only three reported civilian casualties since the end of 2012. Two of these casualties \u2013\u00a0Warren Weinstein and Giovanni Lo Porto \u2013\u00a0were Western hostages held by al Qaeda. The US, unaware they were targeting the American and Italian\u2019s captors, flattened the house they were being held in.<\/p>\n

The accidental killing of a US citizen spurred Obama to apologise for the strike \u2013 the first and only\u00a0time he had\u00a0publicly discussed a specific CIA drone strike in Pakistan. With the apology of a \u201ccondolence payment to both the families,\u201d National Security Council spokesman Ned Price told the Bureau. However, they have yet to receive any compensation\u00a0from the US government for their loss.<\/p>\n

Families who have lost relatives in Pakistan \u00a0have not reported been compensated for their loss. In Yemen, money has been given to families for their loss but it is not clear whether it\u00a0actually comes from the US. The money\u00a0is disbursed by Yemeni government intermediaries, nominally from the Yemeni government\u2019s coffers.<\/p>\n

Tariq Khan<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Picture<\/a>

Picture credit: Neil Williams\/Reprieve<\/p><\/div>\n

Tariq Khan was a 16-year-old from North Waziristan who attended a high-profile anti-drone rally in Islamabad in October 2011. Only days later, he and his cousin were killed in a drone strike.<\/em><\/p>\n

Tariq\u00a0was the youngest of seven children. He was described by relatives as a quiet teenager who was good with computers. His uncle Noor Kalam said<\/a>: \u201cHe was just a normal boy who loved football.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

On 27 October, Tariq\u00a0made the eight-hour drive<\/a> to Islamabad for a meeting convened by Waziri elders to discuss how to end civilian deaths in drone strikes. The Pakistani politician Imran Khan, his former wife Jemima, members of the legal campaign group Reprieve and several western journalists also attended the meeting.<\/em><\/p>\n

Neil Williams from Reprieve<\/a> said Tariq seemed very introverted at the meeting. He asked the boy if he had ever seen a drone. Tariq\u00a0replied he saw 10 or 15 every day<\/a>. He said they prevented him from sleeping. \u201cHe looked absolutely terrified,\u201d Williams said.<\/em><\/p>\n

After a four-hour debate, the audience joined around 2,000<\/a> people at a protest rally outside the Pakistani parliament. After the rally, the tribesmen made the long journey home. The day after he got back, Tariq\u00a0and his cousin<\/a> Wahid went to pick up his newly married aunt, according a Bureau reporter who met Tariq\u00a0at the Islamabad meeting. When they were 200 yards from the house<\/a> two missiles slammed into their car. The blast killed Tariq and Wahid instantly.<\/em><\/p>\n

Some reports suggested Wahid was 12 years old.<\/em><\/p>\n

An anonymous US official<\/a> acknowledged the CIA had launched the strike but denied they were children. The occupants of that car were militants, he said.<\/em><\/p>\n

Unnamed<\/strong><\/p>\n

Most of the dead from CIA strikes in Pakistan are unnamed Pakistanis and Afghans, according to Naming the Dead \u2013 a research project by the Bureau<\/a>. Over three years the Bureau has painstakingly gathered names of the dead from US drone strikes in Pakistan. The project has recorded\u00a0just 732 names of people killed since 2004. The project has named\u00a0213 civilians killed under Obama.<\/p>\n

The fact that so many people are unnamed adds to the confusion about who has been killed.<\/p>\n

A controversial US tactic, signature strikes, demonstrates how identities of the dead, and their status as a combatant or non-combatant, eludes the US. These strikes target people based on so-called pattern of life analysis, built from surveillance and intelligence but not the actual identity of a person.<\/p>\n

And the CIA\u2019s own records leaked to the news agency McClatchy show the US is sometimes not only ignorant of the identities of people it has killed, but also of the armed groups they belong to. They are merely listed as \u201cother militants\u201d and \u201cforeign fighters\u201d in the leaked records.<\/p>\n

Former Deputy US Secretary of State, Richard Armitage outlined his unease with such internal reporting in an interview with Chris Woods for his book Sudden Justice<\/a>. \u201cMr Obama was popping up with these drones left, right and down the middle, and I would read these accounts, \u201912 insurgents killed.\u2019 \u201915!\u2019 You don\u2019t know that. You don\u2019t know that. They could be insurgents, they could be cooks.\u201d<\/p>\n

_______________________________________<\/p>\n

Related stories:<\/em><\/p>\n

Covert US strikes in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia \u2013 our methodology<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Official estimates show civilians more likely to be killed by CIA drones than by US Air Force actions. The reality is likely far worse<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 thebureauinvestigates.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

1 Jul 2016 – The US government today claimed it has killed between 64 and 116 \u201cnon-combatants\u201d in 473 counter-terrorism strikes in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia and Libya between January 2009 and the end of 2015. This is a fraction of the 380 to 801 civilian casualty range recorded by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism from reports by local and international journalists, NGO investigators, leaked government documents, court papers and the result of field investigations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-75887","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-militarism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75887","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=75887"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75887\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75887"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75887"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75887"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}