Category: UK Drones – Data

UK Drone Strikes: Peeking Behind the Curtain

Chris Cole

We are publishing from today a list of known UK drone strikes in Afghanistan.
The list will be regularly updated when information becomes available.
The UK Drone Strike List is available here

In summary:

  • Some details of 80 (40%) of UK drone strikes have been revealed, information about another 150 UK drone strikes remains secret;
  • In February 2012 a British Reaper drone tracked a “high value insurgent” over a period of eight hours before launching a drone strike
  • Two other reports in the list detail strikes that may possibly be targeted killings
  • UK drone strikes are regularly aborted at the last-minute due to the possibility of causing civilian casualties

The growing use of armed drones has raised a number of legal, ethical, political and moral questions. Most of  these questions however, are very difficult  to address without access to the  appropriate information  revealing how armed drones are actually being used.  While there is some public information about US drone strikes in Pakistan, there is very little information available about US and UK drone strikes in Afghanistan.

Drone Wars UK has repeatedly asked the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) to release details of the circumstances of UK drone strikes.  Unfortunately all such requests are currently being refused.

Since June 2008 the Royal Air Force (RAF) has published a weekly report of its activities in Afghanistan.  The reports, called Operational Updates, although far from comprehensive, subjected no doubt to censorship, and apparently primarily produced to portray the RAF in a positive light, nevertheless give occasional brief details of  UK drones strikes.

While some mention of Reaper drones was made in the weekly reports in 2008 and 2009, it was not until January 2010 that a Reaper drone strike is first mentioned:

” During the week [a Reaper] fired a Hellfire missile which killed 12 insurgents who were massing to attack a target.”    

Since that first piece of information almost one hundred British drone strikes have been mentioned in the weekly reports.

Today we are publishing a list of UK drone strike compiled from the RAF operational reports.  We will regularly update the list, both from the RAF reports and hopefully from other sources when they become available.

A Partial Picture Only

We know from a Freedom of Information (FoI) request that there have been 248 British drone strikes to date (29 Feb 2012).  This means that the strikes recorded in the weekly Operational Updates represent only 40% of the total number of British drone strikes.  Details of the other 60% remain secret and unreported.  In addition the reports have obviously been self-selected by the RAF and none of the reports have been independently verified.  Tellingly a British strike that took place on 25th March 2011 in which at least four civilians were killed was not mentioned in the weekly reports and all reports of Reaper activity ceased for eight weeks after.

What is revealed

Of the 80 drone strikes that the RAF have given some details about in the weekly reports, about half (39) targeted “attacking insurgents”, “insurgents firing on friendly forces”,  or insurgents “preparing” or “massing” to attack. 17 strikes targeted insurgents who were “active”, “armed” or “committing hostile acts”.  It is not clear in all cases what this actually means.

Another 13 of the reported drone strikes were targeted against those said to be individuals or teams emplacing IEDs, with 6 strikes targeting weapons caches or explosive production facilities.

Two of the strikes were targeted at a “high value insurgent” and a “known insurgent”, while a third was detailed as “a significant operation”.  These could potentially be targeted killings.

Finally the updates twice report that missiles were diverted away from their targets after being launched from as civilians had approached the target area.  The weekly reports detail on a number of occasions the fact that strikes were terminated at the last possible moment because of danger to civilians.

Fatalities

Apart from the very first reported drone strike in 2010, no fatalities had been given.  However from June 2011 there appears to have been a change in policy as 17 of the 46 drone strike reported in that period included casualty figures. Of the 18 strikes reported that give such details there were a total of 52 reported people killed.

Missing Details

While it is helpful to have this ‘peek behind the curtain’, it is far too little information to make any proper judgement about the growing use of drones.  Apart from anything else, there is no detail at all about the other 60% (150 drone strikes) that have taken place.

In order to begin to answer the questions that have been raised by the growing use of armed unmanned drones, it is vital that more information is released about the circumstances of these strikes.  There cannot be proper public accountability for what is being done with this new type of weapon system until a proper, public, informed debate takes place.  Such a debate cannot happen without the release of further information.

British Drone Strikes in Afghanistan in 2010: What we know and what we need to know

Chris Cole

Over the past few weeks I have been trying to extract details about British drone strikes in Afghanistan from the RAF’s weekly operations reports.  It goes without saying that a complete or reliable analysis is not possible from this material alone as it is very limited, subject to censorship and is primarily produced to show UK forces in a positive light.  Nevertheless it is possible to gleam some information from the reports which may be more useful in the future when combined with other sources.

UK Drone Strikes reported in RAF Operations Reports 2010

In the reports some details of 44 individual British drone strikes in Afghanistan are given.  It is certain that there were more UK drone strikes in 2010 than are mentioned in these reports.  I would estimate, from other figures supplied by the MoD, that the true number of British drone strikes in Afghanistan in 2010 is actually in the region of 55 to 65.

While specific details or background circumstances of the drone strikes are omitted from the reports, the targets of 44 British drone strikes mentioned in the RAF reports are broken down in the table below.

Where details are given, the majority of the strikes were carried out using a single weapon.  16 times a single Hellfire missile was used and 5 times a single Paveway 500lb guided bomb was dropped.  On two occasions two hellfire missiles were used, however for 21 of the reported strikes no details of the weapons used were given.

Breakdown of Drone Strikes reported in 2010 RAF Operations Reports

Only on one occasion are casualties specifically mentioned.  A report from January 2010 states that a UK Reaper “fired a Hellfire missile which killed 12 insurgents who were massing to attack a target.”  Three times during the period covered  it was reported that the possible injury to civilians meant a drone strike was aborted at the last moment  or that a missile was deliberately diverted after it had been fired in order to miss its target.

Questions, Questions

Questions around the current use of drones in Afghanistan fall under several headings.  Does the ‘risk free’ nature of remote warfare mean that attacks are undertaken more frequently?  Does the supposed accuracy of drone sensors and cameras mean that ‘riskier’ strikes are undertaken?  Are British drones being used to undertake targeted killings in contravention of humanitarian and international law?

Analysis of the limited information provided by the RAF reports for 2010 fail to answer these questions.  Indeed it raises further questions.  For example what are the ‘hostile acts’ (if they are not attacks on friendly forces which are detailed under a separate heading) that led to eight of the drone strikes? Two drone strikes were launched at insurgents planning an attack.  How were these plans discovered and could the plotters have been arrested?  Three separate drone strikes were launched at identified ‘active insurgents’.  Were these  targeted killings by British forces or were
the insurgents engaged in armed attacks at the time of the drone strikes?

While some of the targets attacked by drone strikes appear to be no different from those undertaken by manned aircraft, the devil, as they say is in the detail.  And there is a lot of detail missing.