02.05.12

Drones investigation increasingly a key resource

The Bureau’s drone research picked up by press and accademics

The Bureau’s on-going investigation into the US’s covert war on terror is increasingly becoming the media’s go-to resource as the Huffington Post cites data gathered on US strikes in Yemen.

As the extent to which the American military and CIA are embroiled in secret foreign wars becomes clear the data gathered by the Bureau is being used by journalists and academics alike.

Laura Finley writes in the Huffington Post:

A study by the UK Bureau of Investigative Journalism (TBIJ) showed that the U.S. has launched 44 drone strikes in Yemen with three-quarters of those occurring during the uprising (since May 2011). Between 275 and 290 people have been killed, with at least one-quarter of them being civilians.

Included in Finley’s article is the shocking cruise missile strike of December 17 2009. A US missile hit a compound in Yemen killing 42, all civilians. The Bureau published the names of those killed earlier this year.

The dead included a one-year-old child and several pregnant women. The missile was carrying cluster bomblets each containing an incendiary device which caused considerable destruction. Despite Wikileaks documents revealing the Yemeni government took the blame, to date the US has not investigated the strike.

You can read the Huffington Post article in full here

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