Targeted Killing – Page 4

Dannatt defends drones but ignores the real issues

16/11/2015Chris Cole

General the Lord Dannatt defends use of armed drones — General the Lord Dannatt’s essay defends use of armed drones

Amidst its reporting of the horrific terrorist attacks in Paris, The Telegraph published an essay on Saturday by Lord Dannatt, the former head of the British army. In ‘Drone attacks are a vital part of modern warfare’ Dannatt addresses those who feel, as he put it, “a nagging sense of unease” about the drone targeted killing of Mohammed Emwazi aka ‘Jihadi John’.

The essay, using the drone strike on Emwazi as an example, attempts to justify in a broad way the use of armed drones in general as well as their use for targeted killing beyond the battlefield. Read more →

Stop British Drone Targeted Killing

28/09/2015Chris Cole

Reposted from Drone Campaign Network

The Drone Campaign Network is appalled by the British government using its armed drones to undertake the targeted killing of British citizen Reyaad Khan in Syria. Many legal scholars and international law experts are arguing that this targeted killing goes beyond what the US is doing in Pakistan and elsewhere and that the scant legal argument put forward so far by the UK government raises many questions. See some of the arguments here: Read more →

Drone proliferation in light of increased targeted killing

25/09/2015Chris Cole

The news that the UK has followed the US and Israel in using armed drones to launch a targeted killing outside of UN sanctioned armed conflict should make the international community even more concerned about the growing proliferation of armed drones.

All three countries known to have used armed drones have now gone beyond the generally accepted provisions of international law in this area, although perhaps unsurprisingly the countries themselves refute this. Read more →

British drones and targeted killing: UK follows the lead of the US and Israel

08/09/2015Chris Cole

David Cameron announcing drone targeted killing of Reyaard Khan

Yesterday’s statement from Prime Minister David Cameron that a British drone had targeted and killed a 21 year-old British citizen, Reyaad Khan, outside a situation of armed conflict after he had been put on what amounts to a kill list months earlier is shocking. Time and again in response to questions about the UK’s drone programme British ministers, defence officials and military officers have distanced themselves from the type of targeted killing undertaken by US drones outside a situation of formal conflict. ‘It’s something we wouldn’t do’ has been the mantra. Read more →

Briton killed by targeted British drone strike

07/09/2015Chris Cole

In a shocking statement made in the House of Commons this afternoon Prime Minster David Cameron announced that for the first time a British citizen, Reyaad Khan, has been targeted for assassination by a British drone. A second Briton, Ruhul Amin and a third unknown man were also killed in the strike. Cameron told the House:

Today I can inform the House that in an act of self-defence and after meticulous planning Reyaad Khan was killed in a precision air strike carried out on 21st August by an RAF remotely piloted aircraft while he was travelling in a vehicle in the area of Raqqah in Syria.

In addition to Reyaad Khan who was the target of the strike, two ISIL associates were also killed, one of whom – Ruhul Amin, has been identified as a UK national. They were ISIL fighters and I can confirm there were no civilian casualties.

Flawed questions undermine new UK drone poll data

26/03/2013Chris Cole

Today the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) and the University of Surrey’s Centre for International Intervention (cii) have published Hitting the Target? How New Capabilities are Shaping International Intervention. The report examines the technological, ethical and legal issues of unmanned warfare; a detailed assessment of targeted killing as a strategy as well as issues of media and public perceptions of the use of armed drones. I shall write more on this report after I have had the chance to read it properly. Read more →