Afghanistan – Page 4 – Drone Wars UK

Afghan civilians killed in UK drone strike

06/07/2011Chris Cole

The tragic news that Afghan civilians have been killed in a British drone strike comes, unfortunately, as little surprise. I have been investigating the use of armed drones for the past three years and despite the mantra-like use of phrases such as “extreme precision” and “surgical strike” by US and UK military spokespeople, equally monotonous are the regular reports of civilian casualties.

The death of these unnamed Afghans was revealed by an anonymous correspondent from the UK’s Permanent Joint Headquarters (PJHQ) at RAF Northwood in reply to my information request in January 2011. Answers to three other questions I had asked – about the 124 insurgents the David Cameron said had been killed by British Reaper drones – were refused as ‘PJHQ J9 POLOPS’ did “not consider that it would be in the public interest to release this information at this time”.

I spent two days last week meeting with human rights lawyers and activists at a conference organised by the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights, examining amongst other issues, the growth of targeted killing by US and British drones. Speaker after speaker reiterated the serious legal questions raised in relation to human rights law and international humanitarian law by the use of armed drones, not least the need for proper accountability and oversight. As Philip Alston the former UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial killing, wrote in the Guardian last year in respect of drone attacks “Accountability is an independent requirement of international law. When complete secrecy prevails, it is negated.”

The secrecy surrounding drone strikes is matched perhaps only by the silence of our politicians. While there are clear and serious legal, ethical and moral concerns – some raised even by the MoD themselves – the number of armed drones in UK’s arsenal is due to double within the next two years and the rush towards greater autonomy for drones proceeds apace. All with little or no parliamentary or public debate.

The secrecy and lack of accountability surrounding the growing use of British armed drones is a matter of great concern. It should not have taken such prolonged investigation by researchers and journalists to uncover the deaths of civilians in a British drones strike. There needs to be a full and proper public debate on all the issues raised by the increasing use of armed unmanned drones by British forces. We once again call for an end to the use of armed drones by British forces.

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

31/05/2011Chris 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.

2010dronestrikesraf — 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.

2010dronestrikesraf2 — 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.

Drones everywhere

22/04/2011Chris Cole

: Obama: Sending Drones to Bomb Libya

It’s been a busy week! On Monday the Guardian highlighted the MoD’s new document on the need for serious discussion on the ethics and legality of using drones (see post below), a story which was taken up by the Daily Mail, The Telegraph and many others.

On Wednesday evening James Cameron tweeted that this was the week – in his Terminator movies – that autonomous armed machines rose up against humanity. This sparked a lot of interest in autonomous weapon systems, including an article on drones on the BBC website.

And then on Thursday night Barack Obama approved the use of armed Predator drone in Libya. In between media interviews I’ve been watching this blog’s stats go through the roof!

Meanwhile drone strikes continue in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The MoD confirmed last week that UK drone have now conducted 167 armed drone strikes in Afghanistan. US strikes continue intermittently in Pakistan with the latest strike killing 25 people, including according to some reports five children. This strike comes almost a month after a strike on March 17^th killed 44 people including many civilians. Relations between the US and Pakistan have reached crisis point over the drone strikes with many Pakistanis calling for the air force to shoot the drones down. Coincidently, Col Grant Webb, Commander of the US Joint UAS Centre of Excellence announced that Operation Blue Knight, this year, a regular drone training exercise, will this year feature F15’s and F16s trying to shoot down drones.

dronestrike_grph — UK Drone Strikes in Afghanistan

However, a story that has passed almost unnoticed in the mass of recent drones stories is the killing of two US servicemen by a US drone in Afghanistan in the first week of April. A key argument of those who support drone strikes is that they do not make mistakes as the drone’s incredibly accurate cameras can show the target in great detail allowing strikes to be made with pin-point accuracy. US spokespeople, when denying civilians have been killed, use this argument time and again. The killing of two US soldiers by a US drone in a so-called ‘friendly fire’ incident shows that drones are far from infallible.

Talking of fallibility, another Reaper drone has crashed – this time on a training mission in New Mexico. Time to update the drone crash database.

I’ll be back…..

In space (and Afghanistan) no one can hear you scream

14/03/2011Chris Cole

Further evidence of the rise of research into unmanned military systems in British universities comes with the news that engineers from Newcastle University are part of a team working on a giant solar powered surveillance drone for the US military.

The Solar Eagle drone which is being built by US arms giant Boeing and funded by the Pentagon’s research agency, DARPA , is being designed to fly at an altitude of 18km for five years nonstop. Engineers from Newcastle University’s Centre for Advanced Electrical Drives have worked previously with UK arms giant QinetiQ on the Zephyr drone (see report here) and this work will presumably form the basis of work on this new drone.

An altitude of 18km however, is nothing for the USAF’s unmanned space plane which took off for another secret mission last week (5th March). While NASA normally builds and tests US space vehicles, the USAF is running the show for their unmanned space drone. The USAF’s X-37B, called the Orbital Test Vehicle will stay in orbit for up to 270 days, according to Air Force officials. Little is known about the purpose or budget for the unmanned space drone but speculation is rife on the blogosphere.

Meanwhile, drone strikes have returned with a vengeance in Pakistan after the recent ‘pause’ attributed to the arrest of Raymond Davis. In the past week reported strikes took place on Tues 8th, Fri 11th and Sunday 13th

No doubt US and British military drone strikes continue as well in Afghanistan although these remain unreported. The silence from the mainstream media on this is becoming deafening.

UK to buy nano drones as researchers look for drone ‘Holy Grail’

03/03/2011Chris Cole

The UK MoD has issued a pre ‘invitation to tender’ notice to the military industry for a new ‘nano’ drone to be used in Afghanistan. The document, revealed by Flight Global and the Guardian calls for a drone of no more 7oz which is capable of flying for between 20 and 40 minutes at a range of 1km. The contract, estimated to be worth between £10 and £20m, states “The drones should be available “off the shelf”, powered by a rotary wing, weigh less than 1.7kg,and able to operate in “typical conditions found in Afghanistan and the UK”.

The news comes just days after US company AeroVironment publicly demonstrated its ‘Nano Hummingbird’ drone, which has a 6.5-inch wing span weighs less than an AA battery and can fly at speeds of up to 11 mph. (see video below)

The huge growth in the use of drones is attracting much research attention both within industry and universities. The BBC has recently reported a new post-graduate course in drone design at Southampton University (thanks CS) while Raytheon has recently filed patents in relation to drones being refueled autonomously by other drones in order to achieve “drones that stay airborne forever.” However the “Holy Grail” of drone research, as Raytheon puts it, is to enable unmanned drones to fly in same airspace as piloted and civil aircraft. To this end research continues into avoidance detection systems.

Am I being a Luddite to be concerned about so much research energy, talent and resources being focused on drones? The military and the military industry will always, of course, talk about the benefits to civil society of military research and how ‘spin-offs’ create civilian jobs. Witness the Pentagon’s recent promotion of the idea that their drones can prevent genocide and no doubt drones can be useful in all sorts of civil applications, not least relief and rescue work. Yet the focus of drone research remains on enabling unmanned systems to be increasingly lethal and to support military operations.

Those involved in research on drones and unmanned systems need to consider how their work could be used in practice. We highly recommend Scientists for Global Responsibility and in particular their recent report Behind Closed Doors.

US drone strikes resume in Pakistan

21/02/2011Chris Cole

The Washington Post reported today (Feb 21^st) that out of 118 CIA drone strikes in Pakistan only 13 ‘High Value Targets’ had been killed, of which only two were on the US’ Most Wanted list. According to the New American Foundation it is estimated that a total of 607 people were killed in US drones strikes in Pakistan in 2010. Interestingly the Post report also states that each drone strike in Pakistan costs the CIA £1m!

The press report comes as two separate drone strikes in Pakistan reportedly killed eleven people . These are the first drone strikes in Pakistan in almost a month, a gap which many attribute to the US attempts to free Raymond Davis, an alleged CIA spy accused of killing two men in Lahore in mid-January. For more about the Davis case see this report from the Guardian.

The ‘DC Exile’ blog has some interesting reflections on the legality of US drone strikes following last week’s Newsweek interview with the former CIA counsel , John Rizzo, who authorised drone strikes in Pakistan. They suggest that the revelation that once identified, a targeted individual may be subject to the use of force at any time thereafter calls into question one of the US stated legal justification for drone strikes:

“such continuous targetability calls into question the ability of the United States to rely on self-defense as one of its two legal justifications for its targeted killing program. Strikes against these continuously targetable individuals would then only be lawful within the context of an armed conflict. Any targeted killing outside of an armed conflict or valid self-defense would be an illegal, extrajudicial execution.”

It’s well worth reading the whole post.

Meanwhile Radio One’s ‘Newsbeat’ programme secured an interview with 15 year old Sadaullah Wazir who lost both his legs and an eye in US drone strike in North Waziristan (as well as members of his family). He is currently attempting to sue the CIA. You can see short video of the interview here.

In Afghanistan NATO have launched an investigation after the Governor of Konar province said 65 people including 22 women and more than 30 children were killed in a NATO operation. Most reports suggest the attacks were carried out by NATO helicopters but the Washington Post says a Predator drone was also involved.