A US military Reaper drone at Kandahar, Afghanistan
CIA drones are reportedly reviving the use of highly-controversial tactics that target rescuers and funeral-goers.
On Monday US drones attacked rescuers in Waziristan in western Pakistan minutes after an initial strike, killing 16 people in total according to the BBC. On May 28, drones were also reported to have returned to the attack in Khassokhel near Mir Ali.
And on Sunday, a CIA drone strike targeted people gathered for funeral prayers of militant victims killed in an earlier attack. The intended Taliban targets appear to have survived, although up to ten people died. A mosque was also struck last week – possibly accidentally – killing at least three civilian worshippers.
The tactics may not be confined to Pakistan. In the Yemeni city of Jaar on May 15, a possible return US drone strike killed between 8 and 26 civilians, according to a USA Today report.
The deliberate targeting of rescuers and mourners by CIA drones was first exposed by the Bureau in February 2012, in a major joint investigation with the Sunday Times. On more than a dozen occasions between 2009 and June 2011, the CIA attacked rescuers as they tried to retrieve the dead and injured. Although Taliban members were killed on almost every occasion, so too were civilians – many of whom the Bureau’s field investigators were able to name. The investigation also reported that on at least three occasions the CIA had struck funeral-goers.
The UN Special Rapporteur called for an investigation into the Bureau’s findings at the time, with some international lawyers questioning the legality of the tactics.
Deteriorating relations
The last reported attack on rescuers in Pakistan was on July 12 2011. Their cessation coincided with the departure of CIA Director Leon Panetta.
The revival of the tactics – at a time of outspoken public attacks on the US drones campaign by the Pakistan government - appears to indicate a further deterioration of relations between the two countries.
The US had recently eased off on its drone strikes in Pakistan, as the two countries negotiated the possible resumption of NATO supply deliveries to Afghanistan via Pakistan territory.
However, the absence of a deal – and public US anger at a Pakistan court’s imprisonment of Shakil Afridi, a doctor who aided the CIA’s killing of Osama bin Laden – has seen a shift in strategy.
The Bureau’s data shows that since May 23 the US has launched eight CIA drone strikes in Pakistan, which have killed at least 48 people. Civilians have been reported killed in a number of those strikes.
The last occasion on which US strikes were at such an intensity was in June 2011, shortly after the death of bin Laden. At that time the CIA strikes were still thought to be with the tacit approval of Islamabad.
The Islamabad-based think tank the Conflict Monitoring Center has accused the United States of ‘a bid to punish Pakistan for its conviction of Dr. Afridi as well as its reluctance to reopen NATO supply routes.’
The CIA declined to comment on reports that rescuers and funeral-goers were again being targeted.
UPDATE JUNE 6
The drone strike of June 4 was later revealed to have killed senior al Qaeda figure Abu Yahya al-Libi.
On June 5 British Channel 4 News noted that its own sources had also reported US drones returning to the attack in the al-Libi strike, stating that
Reports from Pakistan suggest the strike on al-Libi might have been just such a double attack, with the al Qaeda leader said by one source to have been amongst those killed in the second bombing run.’
Channel 4′s report on the al-Libi strike
In contrast and in confusion, US officials claimed either that only al-Libi himself, or al-Libi and four others had died in the attack, rather than the 16 fatalities reported by Pakistani officials.
CBS News and the Los Angeles Times also reported that al-Libi had been targeted just prior to June 4, and may have been injured. The May 28 attack in which al-Libi was reportedly injured also marked the earlier occasion in which a double US strike – possibly against rescuers – was reported.
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June 4th, 2012 at 10:26 pm (#)
What is the purpose of drone strikes? Surely they do more to increase the ranks of those who have picked up arms to fight the west! Do the think that if ppl are scared of drone strikes they’ll they’ll be no more suicide attacks. The war o. terror is being fought with terror! looks to me like terror is going to win!
June 5th, 2012 at 9:12 am (#)
I listened to this article as covered on Radio 4, Today program.
The US’s “Drone Doctrine” is one that will proliferation to other countries
unchecked between the lines of international law.
Advanced in drone technology will see drones become smaller, less detectable
and more autonomous in delivering lethal weapons payloads and nonleathal payloads
in the case of crowd control.
The latter is becoming increasingly sort after by western law enforcement agencies.
A policy of “police from the sky” by unseen, unknown law enforcers has greater civil liberty implications than CCTV technology. Smaller and smaller drones will be capable of
sustainded periods of on station unseen surveillance of an individual. This will become
the cheaper option for law enforcement and would most likely be carried out by private
companies who will make use of “trickle down” experience of former military and covert agency
drone operatives, The legal complexities posed by private police law enforcement in these scenarios
is untested.
June 9th, 2012 at 11:26 am (#)
Thank you for your report – also very very much disturbing concerning International Law.
Who is going to stop ?
Who is going to put to International Courts those criminals (seems that CIA is very much independent ??!! which would lead to other questions of a country having such “organiations”) murdering people in foreign countries.
Seems that the International Courts are only working for “some poor defensless countries”. But not for the reality of broken International Laws, murder on purpose and the “masking title of Terrorists” in order to show the world that only one state can do what its want, breaking laws when its want.
More and more broken laws, more and more environmental “dusts”.
Thank you for bringing this into the public.
monalisa
June 29th, 2012 at 9:05 pm (#)
The USA are the biggest terrorist in the world. If the Russians were doing this the US Gov. would be all over this condemning them and calling them monsters! well guess who the real monsters are.