Category: Archive

More drone strikes looming

Chris Cole

Last Thursday President Obama, flanked by an array of senior military officers, stood in front of the media at the Pentagon to announce a new US military plan.  The new defence plan is aimed at shaping the US military, as Obama put it, “in light of the changing geopolitical environment and our changing fiscal circumstances”.  While numerous columns have been written about the plan,  it has been summed up neatly by more than one commentator as a future of ‘drones, special ops and cyber warware’.

The US has launched two major wars over the past decade, spending billions of dollars on putting thousands of boots on the ground.  In these more strained financial times however a less  expensive (financially at least) way of waging future wars is needed and armed unmanned drones are seen as the way forward. By cutting the number of troops and ground equipment, and using ‘remote warfare’ – launching weapons from drones thousands of miles away  the US will be able to continue to maintain its military presence but at cut price.  Or so the theory goes.   The devil, as always, is in the detail but don’t be surprised when the US military budget is released next month to see  – amidst all the headlines of military cuts –  an increase in funding for drones.

Meanwhile the ‘pause’ in US drone strikes in Pakistan since mid-November continues but maybe not for much longer.

US drone strikes have been suspended since the US killed 24 Pakistani soldiers in an airstrike, causing outrage amongst the Pakistani public and a crisis in relations between the US and Pakistani governments.

However a propaganda campaign is now underway to get the drone strikes reinstated.  US officials have been briefing the main US press that the pause is harmful and allowing militants to re-group and  operate freely while in Pakistan the ground is being prepared for the reinstatement of US strikes with ‘sources’ telling the Pakistan media that ‘fresh terms of engagements’ are being agreed between the governments that will see a resumption of the strikes.  Bizarrely a petition has also been started on change.org calling on the US (and UK!) government to restart the drone strikes but so far only 27 people have signed up.

So it seems that both in the short-term and long-term more drone strikes are coming.   An unhappy New Year indeed.

The 2012 Drone Wars Briefing

Chris Cole
Click image to download PDF

Today we are publishing the first, of what we hope will be an annual briefing.

The Drone Wars Briefing explores some of the key issues arising from the growing use of armed unmanned drones in a detailed, yet, accessible way.  Examining current UK and US military drone operations, as well as looking at future developments and legal issues, the fully-referenced briefing will be of use to both those new to the issue as well as those with a long-term interest.

Each of the briefings five key sections starts with a short background summary before reviewing what has happened over the past year.  In addition, the 36-page document looks at the growing autonomy of drones; Israel and drones and the push towards allowing drones to fly within UK civil airspace.  The briefing concludes with a short essay arguing that at the very least there must be proper public accountability for the use of armed drones and an informed public debate on their future development and use.

As the introduction to the briefing notes, 2012 will be a significant year for the development of drones in the UK. A go-ahead for the new UK-French drone is expected early in the New Year, the British Watchkeeper drone will finally be deployed sometime in the Spring, RAF pilots will begin piloting armed Reaper drones over Afghanistan from the UK for the first time during the summer, and it is likely that drones will fly over London during the Olympics. For all these reasons and more, we believe the Drone Wars Briefing is a timely and vital publication.

  • We are making the Briefing available free of charge to download (simply click image) but would very much appreciate a donation towards our work.
  • To order up to 5 copies through the post (sorry, UK only) please send a cheque (payable to ‘Drone Wars UK’) for £3.00 per copy plus £1.00 postage and packing per copy to:  Drone Wars UK, 20 Wilkins Road, Oxford, OX4 2HX
  • To order more than 5 copies please email us.

Extent of unmanned drone use within UK civil airspace revealed

Chris Cole
Aerovironment Wasp III - one of drones being flown in UK civil airspace

Analysis of information received in response to a series of Freedom of Information requests to the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) has revealed that around fifty to sixty companies and public bodies per year are being granted “blanket permission” to fly unmanned drones within UK civil airspace.   With very few exceptions each flight must remain under 400 feet and within 500 metres of the operator.

While names of companies and institutions who have been granted permission to fly drones has not been revealed, the type of work being undertaken includes aerial photography and filming,  surveying of buildings and land, emergency services work, and surveillance in support of law enforcement, data collection, evidence gathering and security.

The Civil Aviation Authority grants three types of ‘permissions’ to fly unmanned aircraft : a) permission for a one-off flight,  b) permission for a series of flights in a limited time frame, or c) blanket permission which must be renewed on an annual basis.

The CAA has told Drone Wars UK that out of the 100 applications submitted between January 2010 and September 2011, 98 blanket permissions were issued.  With one exception all the applications were for drones weighing less than 20kg.  While in the time frame many of the 98 applications will have been renewals a conservative estimate is that around fifty to sixty companies and public bodies are regularly flying unmanned drones in  UK civil airspace.

Chris Cole of Drone Wars UK said:  “I expected to find that the CAA would have mostly granted one-off permissions to fly drones in UK airspace, with perhaps a handful of blanket permissions granted each year. However around ten times the number of blanket permissions are being granted. Once this blanket permission has been granted, who monitors what these companies are doing with their drones?”

Some work being undertaken by these drones seems fairly innocuous, including application for tasks such as “surveys for geography, environment and archaeological survey”  and “data gathering for insurance, building surveys, health and safety etc.“  The majority of applications however, contain little real information about the work being undertaken with  “stills & video photography from the air” and “aerial photography & video” being common.  Occasionally other types of work are mentioned such as: “evidence gathering, surveillance and search” and “surveillance in support of UK law enforcement.”

While the CAA are responsible for ensuring that these unmanned flights within UK civil airspace are flown  safely, who is ensuring that the public’s privacy and civil liberties are protected?

Fault Lines: The Robot Wars

Chris Cole

An excellent 25 minute overview of the growing use of drones and robots in warfare from the Fault Lines series on Al Jazeera (broadcast on 27/12/11)

The programme examines how the use of unmanned systems has developed over the past decade, looks at the legality of their use as well as ethical issues.   Containing interviews with Pete Singer, Philip Alston and Ron Arkin, this is really the best thing on drones we have seen in a  long time.    Highly recommended.

For more details see Fault Lines website

The French drone ‘crisis’

Chris Cole
Nicolas Sarkozy, Dassault and.... the Union Jack!

Prime Minister David Cameron will meet French President Nicolas Sarkozy today in Paris for bilateral talks.  While the agenda will no doubt be dominated by the Euro crisis, they may well have a quick word about drones too.

Last November  the UK and France signed a defence and security cooperation treaty which included a commitment to work together on nuclear issues and armed drones.  The two countries have agreed to build a new armed drone and BAE Systems and Dassault have joined together to offer the proposed Telemos drone to fulfil this ‘need’.   An announcement on the deal was expended earlier this year and then postponed for 12-18 months.

While today’s meeting was originally supposed to be a full-scale summit between the countries including Defence Ministers and  with, according to the Guardian, representatives of BAE Systems and Dassault Aviation also present – it was suddenly announced on Monday that the summit has been postponed until next year with just Cameron and Sarkozy to meet instead.

While the Euro is of course the crisis of the hour, the issue of drones has become a hot political topic in France recently.  While the proposed British-French drone won’t be ready till around 2018, the French military want to buy some ‘off-the-shelf’ drones as a stop-gap measure.    The military have chosen to buy the Israeli  Heron-TP drone (IAI have teamed with Dassault to offer the drone) but a French Senate report released last week is highly critical of the decision and is urging the military to accept the bid from General Atomics (teamed with EADS) for the Reaper drone instead. The military’s choice was also the more expense one with the Heron drone bid coming in at €320 million as opposed to the ‘cheaper’ Reaper drone bid of €209 million.

Head of Dassault, French industrialist Serge Dassault (who sits in the French Senate as a member of President Nicolas Sarkozy’s ruling conservative party) was outraged that the Senate should interfere in arms procurement in this way saying it would cost jobs and stifle France’s arms industry.

“We proposed the Israeli drone to meet an obvious gap in drones today… If we buy an American one, well then everything is screwed up and we’ll spend more money, drive up unemployment and reduce exports – if that’s what you want, I don’t understand,” the 86-year-old head of said. “

Worse was to come for Serge as the French Senate this week actually cut the military budget available for the interim drones by  €100million seemingly forcing the military now to buy the American Reaper drone  instead.

Complicating European drone matters even more, German Defence Minister Stéphane Beelemans argued this week that EADS should be included in the proposed Anglo-French drone project, Telemos.  EADS have their own separate future drone proposal, Talarion, but it seems unlikely at this stage to go anywhere.  As Defence News reported this week : “EADS seeks a place at the top table in the Telemos project alongside BAE and Dassault, but Dassault will only consider a junior subcontractor role for the pan-European company, retaining leadership firmly in the hands of the Anglo-French team.”

With all this going on, if drones do come up at today’s Cameron-Sarkozy meeting, officials may wish their masters had stuck to the simple task of solving the Euro crisis.

As drones continue to kill, drone protests go global

Chris Cole
Tariq Aziz attending the drone meeting in Islamabad. Photo: Reprieve

We reported two weeks ago on the killing of 16 year-old Yemeni teenager Abdul-Rahman, the son of Anwar al-Alwaki  who was himself the victim of a drone strike a few weeks previously.  However Abdul-Rahamn was not the only 16 year-old killed in a drone strike this month.

A few thousand miles away 16 year-old Tariq Khan and his 12 year-old cousin Waheed were killed in a drone strike in North Waziristan on October 31.  A few days before being killed, Tariq had attended a meeting on the drones organised by British human rights group, Reprieve with the aim of encouraging local people to document the strikes taking place in their area.  Lawyer and campaigner, Clive Stafford Smith talks about the Jirga and meeting Tariq in his piece for the New York Times piece: 

Tariq was a good kid, and courageous. My warm hand recently touched his in friendship; yet, within three days, his would be cold in death, the rigor mortis inflicted by my government.  And Tariq’s extended family, so recently hoping to be our allies for peace, has now been ripped apart by an American missile — most likely making any effort we make at reconciliation futile.

Two thousand miles west and Israeli drones fly constantly over Gaza with the latest strike killing seven members of Islamic Jihad.  The Israeli newspaper Haaretz published an eye-opening interview this week with a ‘Lt Col Ido’ (his surname was withheld for security reasons) who teaches ethics to Israeli drone operators.   The Lt Col says “When people are killed by mistake, we are tormented, and that’s how it should be… I’ve met some people who had a very hard time with it. Some coped, and others wanted to leave. I told them, ‘This is dirty work. Who would you like to have do it? We would all like to be professors.'”

The whole article, looking at how Israel uses drones for “everything from gathering intelligence in what the air force calls the “third circle” – namely, the Iranian sector and its satellites – to assisting fire-fighters in the Mount Carmel forest fire and guarding worshipers at Joseph’s Tomb in Nablus” is well worth reading.  Israel is also about to deploy the giant Eitan drone for use in Gaza and Lebanon as Ynet news reports.

Fifteen hundred miles south of Israel is the Ethiopian city of Arba Minch from where, according to a recent  report in the Washington Post,  the USAF are flying Reaper drones over Somalia.  While the US say the drones based in Ethiopia are for surveillance purposes only (the Ethiopian government are refusing to admit the drones are even in Ethiopia) US drones are undertaking strikes against al-Shabab in Somalia.

Meanwhile it has been confirmed this week that US drones in Iraq are to be move to the Incirlik Air Base in Turkey from where they will be used to ‘monitor’ Kurdish separatists in Iraq and presumably Turkey.

But it is not only the drones that are circling the globe.  Resistance to the drones is growing and going global too.  We have repeatedly reported on the anger in Pakistan against US drone strikes and the many protests taking place there, the latest of which saw some 2,000 people protests outside the Parliament building in Islamabad.

For the first time (as far as we know) anti-drone protests have also taken place in Yemen, with some extremely brave people coming together in Sana’a to protest the strikes there (see video below)

In the US, protestors have recently gone on trial  following a civil  disobedience action at the main entrance of Hancock Air National Guard Base on  April 22, 2011, where 38 people were arrested at a die-in protesting the  drones.  The verdict will be handed down on 1st December (see http://www.upstatedroneaction.org/  for lots more info.

And  in London tomorrow (16 November) protestors will gather outside a hotel in  central London where the drone industry will gather for two days to discuss, plan and, as there publicity states discuss ‘how to stop the public hysteria surrounding UAV operations in  the 21st Century?’   As human rights lawyer Jules Carey put it on twitter: There should be more hysteria about UAVs not less!   At our protest we shall remember Abdul-Rahman, Tariq, Waheed and all the other victims of drone  strikes young and old.  Why not join us?