Since 2004 the CIA has launched more than 300 drone strikes in Pakistan. The Agency’s targeted drone campaign in the country’s north-western Federal Administered Tribal Region is one of three clandestine theatres in the US covert war on terror, alongside Somalia and Yemen.
The drone campaign is officially secret despite leaks from US officials revealing details of the programme. The White House and CIA claim the drone strikes are precise and that kill few attacks result in civilian death. But the Bureau’s databases, compiled from media reports of the strikes, show that between 482 and 832 civilians have died in the attacks.
The disparity between the official line and the Bureau’s data could be down to the controversial and narrow definition of civilian favoured by the CIA and president Obama, as reported in the New York Times.
The Bureau’s comprehensive data is mapped here showing the spread of strikes across the region around Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan. The map uses Google Fusion Tables to incorporate our database into an interactive visualisation. It’s a useful way of zooming into specific areas but please be aware that our locations are only accurate to a village or town because there is a lack of precise information about the location of strike targets.
Click on an icon on the map to view more information about that strike. It will bring up a series of facts about the strike, as well as a Bureau ID that you can use to search for the same strike in our other applications.
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August 13th, 2011 at 12:05 pm (#)
AH… the Interactive map is working now, and the timeline…I imagine the other gizmo is as well.