Tag: UK Reaper

Cabinet Minister says UK flying surveillance missions over Gaza

Chris Cole

*Important Update (4 December):  Despite stating on camera to two different news programmes that drones had been deployed, the Ministry of Defence has now told journalists that the Minister was incorrect – the UK has not deployed drones but has deployed other surveillance aircraft.   We have amended this blog post.

Late on Saturday 2 December, the Minister of Defence (MoD) issued a short online statement saying that the UK “will conduct surveillance flights over the eastern Mediterranean, including operating in air space over Israel and Gaza.”

On Sunday 3 December, Health Secretary Victoria Atkins, appearing as government spokesperson on Sky News, was asked about the flights and said “The Ministry of Defence has announced that it has sent some unmanned and unarmed, surveillance drones into the region to help look for hostages.”  Subsequently appearing on the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg show, Atkins repeated that “unarmed and unmanned drones” were being sent to the region to help look for hostages.

Reporting of the MoD’s original statement by BBC and others included a line which stated that aircraft undertaking the missions “will include Shadow R1s, which the Royal Air Force use for intelligence gathering” but this now appears to have been removed from the online statement. The MoD’s statement did not mention drones.

While the  MoD says that “only information relating to hostage rescue will be passed to the relevant authorities” it is likely that electronic, signal and video intelligence of Gaza gathered by the aircraft will end up in the hands of the Israeli Defence Force. If so, many would consider the UK a participant in this horrific conflict which has killed thousands of innocent civilians and seen repeated violations of international law.

While some news organisations reported this as the first UK deployment of aircraft in the conflict, in fact as far back as 13 October the Prime Minister announced that UK surveillance aircraft were to be deployed “to support Israel.”

Since the beginning of 2023, the MoD has increased the level of secrecy surrounding the use of drones, refusing to provide details of UK Reaper operations arguing that it needs “ambiguity” about such deployments.

This latest episode  – where a Cabinet  Minister states on camera that UK drones have been deployed yet the Ministry of Defence refuses to acknowledge the deployment – is another ridiculous example of the secrecy surrounding UK drones.  [Note –  MoD said after this was published that the Minister is incorrect and other aircraft – not drones  – are  being deployed].

Rumour and misinformation about these UK operations are now bound to be rife and could well turn out to be damaging.  While the government will argue that it is undertaking these operations to assist with hostage rescue, it is easy to see how UK aircraft undertaking surveillance operations over Gaza could get further drawn into ‘supporting Israel’ in this horrific conflict.

The reality is that rather than ambiguity and confusion, we need proper parliamentary and public oversight to ensure we do not get drawn further into this conflict.  Rather than deploying more UK military assets, we should be working flat out for a ceasefire.

MoD abruptly ends responding to FoI requests on UK drone operations

Chris Cole
MoD goes dark on Reaper operations

After more than a decade of responding to our requests for statistical information about the use of armed drones, the MoD abruptly refused our January 2023 request.  At first we thought it may be an administrative error but it soon became clear that it was a policy decision.

The MoD now argues that the information that it had previously released without any suggestion of harm for more than a decade will now be refused due to the data being related to bodies dealing with security matters (Section 23) and/or national security (Section 24).  Last week, the Information Commissioner finally responded to our appeal, upholding the MoD’s decision based on “confidential submissions” from the MoD.  The Information Commissioners Office wrote:

“Based on submissions provided to him by the MOD during the course of his investigation, the Commissioner is satisfied that the information sought by questions 1b) to 4 of the request either falls within the scope of the exemption provided by section 23(1) of FOIA or falls within the scope of the exemption provided by section 24(1) of FOIA, and that if the exemption engaged is section 24(1) then the public interest favours maintaining the exemption.

The Commissioner cannot elaborate on his rationale behind this finding without compromising the content of the withheld information itself or by revealing which of these two exemptions is actually engaged. The Commissioner appreciates that this is likely to prove frustrating to the complainant. However, the Commissioner would like to emphasise that he has carefully scrutinised the MOD’s submissions and that in doing so he has taken into account the complainant’s position that such information has been previously disclosed.

Transparency thwarted
Summary table of data from FoI requests. Click for full details

Our analysis of the statistical data on UK armed drone operations, gathered via these FoI requests, enabled some understanding of UK’s use of its armed drones over the past decade or more.  Asking a specific set of questions every quarter over several years gave us a dataset which enabled a degree of transparency.

For example when the MoD insisted that its armed drones were primarily used for intelligence gathering – strongly implying drones were rarely being used to launch strikes – the data showed that for periods of time between half and a third of UK air strikes were being carried out by drones.  The data also enabled greater understanding of what was happening on the ground, for example the extent of the switch of UK air and drone strikes to Syria from Iraq in certain periods of the war.  The FoI data also enabled us to discover when strikes had taken place that had not been disclosed by MoD press releases. The data also allowed us to see the number and type of weapons being used and therefore to calculate the cost of the munitions being used. Indeed one response also let slip that the UK drones were firing thermobaric weapons.  Read more →

UK deployed Reaper drone to Sudan

Chris Cole
Image of Port Sudan from UK Reaper video feed

The UK deployed an MQ-9 Reaper drone to Sudan as part of the military operation to support the evacuation of UK personnel the RAF has reported.

This is the first public acknowledgment of the deployment of UK Reaper drones outside of operations in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria.  Drone Wars UK has been fighting a long FoI battle with the Ministry of Defence (MoD) about a possible further unacknowledged deployment. The drone provided intelligence gathering and surveillance cover for UK military operations during the evacuation, but it is not known if it was armed during the operation.

In a brief 3 May 2023 press release, the Royal Air Force (RAF) stated

“The RAF’s Reaper, an uncrewed aircraft that is designed for Intelligence, Surveillance, Target Acquisition and Reconnaissance (ISTAR) missions has been supporting by providing up to date imagery of the port, airfield and ground environment. This includes highlighting unsafe and potentially dangerous areas to troops on the ground. It has also allowed for identification of buildings which would be suitable for temporary shelter, medical facilities, or locations to process passengers.

The Reaper was operated by XIII Squadron based at RAF Waddington. The Squadron Executive Officer said: “For XIII Squadron to operate the RAF Reaper over two separate continents on two different missions, having eyes on the ground in Africa and the Middle East simultaneously shows the flexibility of the aircraft and our people, a remarkable effort from all the Squadron”.”

The MoD reported that the military operation to safely evacuate UK personnel from Sudan had concluded on 3 May with the last flight departing from Port Sudan airport.  It reported that almost 2,500 personnel, including  1,200 non-UK nationals from 20 different countries had left via flight from  Wadi Saeedna airfield and Port Sudan airfield.  The UK Reaper drone had been tasked in particular with monitoring the UK’s processing station at Cora Hotel, Port Sudan where HMS Lancaster was based, as well as the two airfields from where evacuation flights too place.  Read more →

PR Trumps Transparency Part II: Government response to Select Committee report on drones

Chris Cole

responseThe Government Response to the Defence Select Committee Report on ‘Remotely Piloted Air Systems’ (drones to the rest of us) was published on 29 July. As we wrote when the Committee’s report was originally published in March, there is a gaping hole in the document where actual details of UK drone operation in Afghanistan – and an analysis of their impact on the ground – should be. Without this crucial information it is, in our opinion, impossible to undertake any proper assessment of “the current and future use” of drones, as the Committee claims it has done.

Despite this obvious omission from its investigation – or perhaps because of it – the Defence Select Committee was able to be enthusiastic about the use of drones, calling them “a key military capability for the future.”  The report did however make some observations and recommendations, to which the Government has now responded. Read more →