SHAFAQNA

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) – At least five people have been killed in two strikes carried out by US assassination drones near the Yemeni capital Sana’a.

According to a Yemeni security official, the attack took place in a mountainous area south of the capital on Wednesday, The Associated Press reported.

Four of the victims were killed in the first strike as they were riding a vehicle in the desert area of Oussab al-Ali, about 140 kilometers (90 miles) south of Sana’a, said an official, who was speaking on condition of anonymity.

The fifth victim, who was identified as Hamed Radman, was killed after a drone bombed his house.

A witness, living in a nearby village, said he saw smoke rising from the house after two explosions. He added that US terror drones had been flying above his village in the past three days and that they were still in the sky.

The United States has launched numerous drone attacks in Yemen that have killed many innocent civilians over the past few years.

Washington claims that its airstrikes target militants, but local sources say civilians have been the main victims of the non-UN-sanctioned airstrikes.

The US has come under fire for increasing its drone attacks in the Arab country.

Yemenis have held many demonstrations to condemn the United States’ violations of their national sovereignty. -www.shafaqna.com/English

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) – People have staged a demonstration in Washington to protest against the United Sates’ use of assassination drones.

The protesters gathered outside the White House as they were chanting slogans and holding signs against Washington’s use of drones.

Saturday’s protest is part of a series of public protests, dubbed April Days of Action, which the organizers say will spread nationwide and target the infrastructure -- the military bases, universities and companies -- that supports the US government's overseas drone program.

The activists want President Barack Obama to abandon his assassination drone program.

US officials refuse to publicly discuss any details of the covert program and the death toll from drone strikes remains a mystery.

According to the London-based Bureau of Investigative Journalism, in Pakistan alone 366 strikes have killed up to 3,581 people, with 884 being innocent civilians.

Washington uses assassination drones in several countries, claiming that they target “terrorists.” According to witnesses, however, the attacks have mostly led to massive civilian casualties.-www.shafaqna.com/English

Source: Press TV

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) –Several dozen demonstrators led by CodePink activists were in downtown San Diego on Saturday to protest the use by the U.S. of unmanned drones to conduct surveillance and air strikes.

On a patch of public property adjacent to the carrier Midway museum, demonstrators read the names of teenage civilians purportedly killed in Yemen and Pakistan by drone air strikes.

Among the protest signs were those reading "Made locally, Killing globally" and "Drones Kill Children."

"San Diego is ground-zero for the production of these lethal weapons that are killing innocent people and making the U.S. hated around the world," said CodePink co-founder Medea Benjamin, author of "Drone Warfare: Killing by Remote Control."

The San Diego region has more than 7,100 people employed in the production of unmanned aerial systems, including at General Atomics and Northrop Grumman.

On Friday, protesters, with a miniature drone as a prop, demonstrated in front of the La Jolla home of Neal Blue, chief executive of General Atomics.

In advance of that demonstration, General Atomics issued a statement noting that it "manufactures remotely piloted aircraft systems, which protect our troops and support national security.

"GA is honored that it can contribute in this way while at the same time recognizing the right to demonstrate."

General Atomics produces the Predator and Reaper drones that can be armed with missiles.-www.shafaqna.com/English

Source: latimes

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) – An airstrike carried out by US assassination drones has killed four people in Pakistan’s North Waziristan tribal area, which borders Afghanistan, security officials say.

US drones fired two missiles on a house in Dattakhel town, 35 kilometres (21 miles) west of Miranshah, the main city in North Waziristan, in the early hours of Friday morning, killing four people and injuring several others, the Pakistani television network Dawn News reported.

Between 2,536 and 3,577 people have been killed in Pakistan by the CIA-operated drones in Pakistan since 2004, including between 411 and nearly 884 civilians, the London-based Bureau of Investigative Journalism said in a report in January.

Washington claims its drone strikes target militants, although casualty figures show that Pakistani civilians are often the victims of the non-UN-sanctioned attacks.

The slaughter of Pakistani civilians, including women and children, in US drone strikes has strained relations between Islamabad and Washington, and Pakistani officials have complained to the US administration.

In September 2012, a report by the Stanford Law School and the New York University School of Law gave an alarming account of the effect that assassination drone strikes have on ordinary people in Pakistan’s tribal areas.

“The number of ‘high-level’ targets killed as a percentage of total casualties is extremely low -- estimated at just 2%,” the report noted.-www.shafaqna.com/English

Source: Press TV

The increase in drone killings are taking a greater role as the Americans preparing to withdraw combat forces in less than two years.

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) – The United Nations mission in Afghanistan said in a report that 506 weapons were released by drones in 2012, compared with 294 the previous year. The increase in drone killings are taking a greater role as the Americans preparing to withdraw combat forces in less than two years. Drones have become a major source of disagreements between the US and countries like Pakistan and Afghanistan, where covert drone killings have drawn condemnation and allegations of sovereignty infringements as family members and other civilians are killed.

The sharp increase in the number of weapons fired from drones raises the possibility of dependency on such attacks to fight al-Qaida and other insurgents as combat missions are due to end by the end of 2014. The UN mission in Afghanistan (Unama) said 506 weapons were released by drones in 2012, compared with 294 the previous year. Five incidents resulted in casualties with 16 civilians killed and three wounded, up from just one incident in 2011. Georgette Gagnon, the head of human rights for Unama, said it was the first year the UN had tried to document civilian casualties from drones. Some sources believe that the numbers of drone killings are much higher than reported by the Unama as the CIA’s covert drone killings are not reported.

The US air force central command also recorded an increase, giving the numbers of weapons released by drones as 243 in 2009, 277 in 2010, 294 in 2011 and 494 in 2012. Peter Singer of the Washington-based Brookings Institution said that the drone program in Afghanistan is run by the Pentagon, and therefore is more transparent than the CIA drone counter-terrorism program in Pakistan! Singer, who has written extensively about drones, said the number of operations in Afghanistan is increasing, but most are performed in support of troops on the ground. "This is just another sign of how drones are becoming the new normal," he said.

The UN figures were released as part of its annual report on civilian casualties in Afghanistan. Overall, the full-year toll of civilian deaths in 2012 was 2754. The Afghan population also faced a sharp increase in assassinations and other insurgent attacks targeting government supporters. Conflict-related violence struck more women and girls last year as well, with 301 killed and 563 wounded a 20% increase from 2011, the report said. The UN said most civilian casualties from drone strikes appeared to be the result of weapons aimed directly at them, with some may have been targeting errors. It cited the example of four boys killed in October in Logar province when a drone struck after a clash between pro-government forces and insurgents a few kilometers away from the area.

Unama called for a review of tactical and operational policy on targeting to ensure compliance with international humanitarian law "with the expansion of the use of unmanned combat aerial vehicles" in Afghanistan. Unama said civilian casualties rose 13 percent to 4431 in the second half of the year, including more from roadside bombs in public areas, compared with the same period in 2011. That included 1599 people killed and 2832 wounded from July 1 to December 31, a jump from 1556 and 2832 respectively in the same period the previous year. The UN report once again showed clearly that the main casualties of the US and NATO war are not the terrorists but the Afghan civilians with no protection from international agencies.

www.shafaqna.com/english

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) – A US senator says assassination drone strikes have killed around 4,700 people, including civilians, a number that exceeds some independent estimates of the toll.

"We've killed 4,700," said Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, a staunch supporter of drone use, AFP reported on Wednesday.

"Sometimes you hit innocent people, and I hate that, but we're at war, and we've taken out some very senior members of al-Qaeda," Graham added.

Graham defended President Barack Obama's use of drones to carry out assassinations overseas, saying "It's a weapon that needs to be used."

"It's a tactical weapon. A drone is an unmanned aerial vehicle that is now armed," the senator noted.

US officials refuse to publicly discuss any details of the covert program and the death toll from drone strikes remains a mystery.

A report by the Washington-based New America Foundation has said that there have been 350 US drone strikes since 2004, most of them during President Obama's terms in office. The foundation has put the death toll between 1,963 and 3,293, with 261 to 305 civilians killed.

According to the London-based Bureau of Investigative Journalism, between 2,627 and 3,457 people have been killed by US drones in Pakistan since 2004, including between 475 and nearly 900 civilians.

Graham, however, did not make it clear weather the figure was the US government's own estimate of casualties from drone strikes.

The use of assassination drones overseas under the administration of Obama has caused a national debate.

Former US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has also called for the formation of a third group to check on the president’s ability to conduct drone strikes.

"I think this idea of being able to execute, in effect, an American citizen, no matter how awful, having some third party -- informing the Congress or the intelligence committees or something like that...some check on the ability of the president to do this has merit, as we look to the longer term future," Gates said.

On February 14, Obama promised to be more forthcoming with the American public on his administration's campaign of drone strikes.

"What I think is absolutely true is it's not sufficient for citizens to just take my word for it that we're doing the right thing," Obama said in an online video question-and-answer session sponsored by Google.

He vowed to work with Congress to craft a "mechanism" to be more open about how the drone war is conducted.

Washington uses assassination drones in several countries, claiming that they target “terrorists.” According to witnesses, however, the attacks have mostly led to massive civilian casualties.-www.shfaqna.com/English

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) – The US Senate Committee on Intelligence has grilled John Brennan, nominee for the director of the Central Intelligence Agency.

Thursday's confirmation hearings in Washington began with questioning about the controversial policies of drone strikes and harsh interrogation techniques, including waterboarding, which was made popular during the tenure of George W Bush, former US president.

"I did not take steps to stop the CIA's use of those techniques. I was not in the chain of command of that programme," Brennan told the hearing.

"I had expressed my personal objections and views to some agency colleagues" about waterboarding, a form of simulated drowning, nudity and other techniques, he said to the Senate Committee.

His questioning was briefly stalled as protesters yelled objections to US drone strikes and harsh interrogation methods, prompting the committee chairman to clear the room.

Brennan, who had served in the US intelligence agency under Bush, is currently a counterterrorism adviser to Barack Obama, US president.

"I did not try to stop it, because it was something that was being done in a different part of the agency under the authority of others, and it was something that was directed by the administration at the time," he said.

Access to classified memo

Democrats repeatedly questioned Brennan about Washington's use of armed, unmanned aircraft known as drones.

They pressed their demand that the White House provide them with more of the legal documents underpinning its position that Obama can order lethal strikes overseas on US citizens suspected of terrorist activity.

Brennan said there is a "misimpression by the American people" who believe drone strikes are aimed at suspects in past attacks.

Instead, he said, the United States "only take such actions as a last resort to save lives'' when there is no other alternative in what officials believe is an imminent threat.

On Wednesday Obama directed the Justice Department to give congressional intelligence committees access to a classified memo on the topic.

Senator Dianne Feinstein, Intelligence Committee chairwoman, complained to Brennan that the committee's staff had been banned from seeing the administration's classified legal opinion.

Brennan, 57, said the limited access was necessary because of the "exceptional" nature of the issue.

Jay Carney, White Hose spokesman, said the White House does not plan to send the Justice memos to lawmakers

beyond those on the House and Senate intelligence committees.

Despite the intense questioning, Al Jazeera's Kimberly Halkett, reporting from Washington said, "it does appear that very shortly John Brennan will be confirmed".

Brennan has been central in overseeing drone policy in Obama's administration.

Obama had wanted to pick Brennan for CIA director shortly after his 2008 election, but his chances were derailed mainly by liberal critics over the interrogation techniques used on some terrorism suspects in the wake of the September 11, 2001, attacks.-www.shfaqna.com/English

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) – The US Central Intelligence Agency has been operating a secret airbase for unmanned drones in Saudi Arabia for the past two years.The facility was established to hunt for members of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, which is based in Yemen. A drone flown from there was used in September 2011 to kill Anwar al-Awlaki, a US-born cleric who was alleged to be AQAP's external operations chief. US media have known of its existence since then, but have not reported it. Senior government officials had said they were concerned that disclosure would undermine operations against AQAP, as well as potentially damage counter-terrorism collaboration with Saudi Arabia.

The US military pulled out virtually all of its troops from Saudi Arabia in 2003, having stationed between 5,000 and 10,000 troops in the Gulf kingdom after the 1991 Gulf war. Only personnel from the United States Military Training Mission (USMTM) officially remain.

The Washington Post reported that President Barack Obama's counter-terrorism adviser, John Brennan, a former CIA station chief in Saudi Arabia, played a key role in negotiations with the government in Riyadh over building the drone base.

Senators are expected to ask Mr Brennan about drone strikes, the memo and the killing of Awlaki when he faces a confirmation hearing on his nomination to become the new CIA director on Thursday.

'High-value targets'

The location of the secret drone base was not revealed in the US reports.

However, construction was ordered after a December 2009 cruise missile strike in Yemen,according to the New York Times.

It was the first strike ordered by the Obama administration, and ended in disaster, with dozens of civilians, including women and children, killed.

US officials told the newspaper that the first time the CIA used the secret facility was to kill Awlaki.

Since then, the CIA has been "given the mission of hunting and killing 'high-value targets' in Yemen" - the leaders of AQAP who government lawyers had determined posed a direct threat to the US - the officials added.

The publication of the New York Times report ends an "informal arrangement" among several news organisations not to disclose the location of the base.

News organisations were complying with a request from Obama administration officials, who said it might undermine operations and collaboration with Saudi Arabia, the Washington Post reported.

Two other Americans, including Awlaki's 16-year-old son, have also been killed in US strikes in Yemen, which can reportedly be launched without the permission of the country's government.

Kristian Coates-Ulrichsen, an expert on Gulf politics at the London School of Economics, told the BBC that Saudi anxieties about the growing threat of AQAP would have been behind the government's decision to allow the US to fly drones from inside the kingdom.

"The Saudis see AQAP as a very real threat to their domestic security," he said. "They are worried about attacks on their energy infrastructure and on the royal family, so it fit their strategy to allow the drone attacks."

The existence of the base was likely a "sensitive issue" for both Washington and Riyadh, Mr Coates-Ulrichsen added.

A source close to the Saudi Interior Minister, Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, declined to comment when contacted by the BBC.

Saudi Arabia is home to some of Islam's holiest sites and the deployment of US forces there was seen as a historic betrayal by many Islamists, notably the late leader of al-Qaeda, Osama Bin Laden.

It was one of the main reasons given by the Saudi-born militant to justify violence against the US and its allies.

Leaked memo

The revelation of the drone base came shortly after the leaking of a US justice department memo detailing the Obama administration's case for killing any American abroad who is accused of being a "senior, operational leader" of al-Qaeda or its allies.

Lethal force is lawful if they are deemed to pose an "imminent threat" and their capture is not feasible, the memo says.

The threat does not have to be based on intelligence about a specific attack, since such actions are being "continually" planned by al-Qaeda, it adds.

NBC News said it was given to members of the US Senate intelligence and judiciary committees as a summary of a classified memo on the targeted killings of US citizens prepared by the justice department.

The latter memo was written before the drone strike that killed Awlaki.

Under President Obama, the US has expanded its use of drones to kill hundreds of al-Qaeda suspects in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Yemen. It says it is acting in self-defence in accordance with international law.

Critics argue the drone strikes amount to execution without trial and cause many civilian casualties.

Source : BBC

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Michael Boyle, who was on Obama's counter-terrorism group in the run-up to his election in 2008, said the US administration's growing reliance on drone technology was having "adverse strategic effects that have not been properly weighed against the tactical gains associated with killing terrorists". Civilian casualties were likely to be far higher than had been acknowledged, he said.

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) – One of President Obama's former security advisers, Michael Boyle said, US reliance on drones undermines rule of law, is ineffective and has strategic drawbacks. The United States' use of drones is counter-productive, less effective than the White House claims, and is "encouraging a new arms race that will empower current and future rivals and lay the foundations for an international system that is increasingly violent", he said.

Michael Boyle, who was on Obama's counter-terrorism group in the run-up to his election in 2008, said the US administration's growing reliance on drone technology was having "adverse strategic effects that have not been properly weighed against the tactical gains associated with killing terrorists". Civilian casualties were likely to be far higher than had been acknowledged, he said.

In an article for the Chatham House journal International Affairs, Boyle said there was an urgent need for greater transparency because most Americans remained "unaware of the scale of the drone programme and the destruction it has caused in their name". Use of drones has increased dramatically during Obama's time, with the White House authorising attacks in at least four countries; Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia. It is estimated that the CIA and the US military have undertaken more than 300 drone strikes and killed at least 2500 people.

The US always claimed that the use of drones is lawful but the Pentagon's most senior lawyer Jeh Johnson, recently admitted that the US was heading for a "tipping point", beyond which it should no longer pursue terrorists by military means because the organisation that Congress authorised the military to pursue in 2001 had in effect been destroyed. In his study, Boyle said Obama pledged to end the "war on terror" and to restore respect for the rule of law in US counter-terrorism policies.

"Instead, he has been just as ruthless and indifferent to the rule of law as his predecessor. Whilst George Bush issued a call to arms to defend 'civilisation' against the threat of terrorism, Obama has waged war in the shadows, using drone strikes, special operations and sophisticated surveillance to fight a brutal covert war against al-Qaida and other Islamist networks." Boyle from La Salle University, Philadelphia, said the government claim that drones were an effective tool that minimised civilian casualties was "based on a highly selective and partial reading of the evidence".

He argues one of the reasons why the US has been "so successful in spinning the number of civilian casualties" is that it has reportedly adopted a controversial method for counting them; all military-age men in a strike zone are classed as militants unless clear evidence emerges to the contrary. "The result of the 'guilt by association' approach has been a gradual loosening of the standards by which the US selects targets for drone strikes," his study says.

"The consequences can be seen in the targeting of mosques or funeral processions that kill non-combatants and tear at the social fabric of the regions where they occur. No one really knows the number of deaths caused by drones in these distant, sometimes ungoverned, lands." Boyle questions the claim that drone strikes have been effective in killing so-called high-value targets, saying records suggested lower-ranked foot soldiers were the ones who had been hit in greatest numbers. And he also said the strikes had a debilitating effect on local populations and their governments.

"Despite the fact that drone strikes are often employed against local enemies of the governments in Pakistan and Yemen, they serve as powerful signals of the regimes' helplessness and subservience to the United States and undermine the claim that these governments can be credible competitors for the loyalties of the population," he writes.

"The vast increase in the number of deaths of low-ranking operatives has deepened political resistance to the US programme in Pakistan, Yemen and other countries." Last week, a judge in New York rejected an attempt by the New York Times to force the US government to disclose more information about its targeted killing of people that it believes have ties to terrorism, including American citizens.

www.shafaqna.com/english

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) – Saudi Arabia has joined the United States in prosecuting an undeclared aerial war against al-Qaeda in Yemen, The Times has learnt.The disclosure that US drone strikes in Yemen have been bolstered by Saudi fighter jets will raise fresh questions about the legality of America’s expanding programme of targeted killings.Covert airstrikes against Yemeni targets outnumbered those in Pakistan for the first time last year, as the White House discarded its “kill or capture” strategy and the region became a template for the systematic use of deadly force against terror suspects worldwide.

The Times has learnt that up to 228 people were killed last year by covert attacks in Yemen, including Saudi airstrikes. “Some of the so-called drone missions are actually Saudi Air Force missions,” a US intelligence official said.At least three suspected al-Qaeda militants were killed yesterday by the fifth drone strike in southern Yemen in ten days. The missile destroyed a car in an area southeast of the capital, Sanaa, where al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) has established the world’s most active terrorist network.

The clandestine aerial war in Yemen, overseen personally by President Obama, is viewed in Washington as a new model for US intervention abroad, as the unpopular war in Afghanistan is wound down.Legal issues arising from the arrest of enemy combatants intended for trial in the US, detention at Guantánamo Bay or local prosecution have become so onerous that the Pentagon has recast its orders. “There is no kill or capture any more. It’s kill or kill,” a US official said.

Although officially denied, the US has rapidly increased its use of drone strikes under Mr Obama.Abd-Rabbu Mansour al-Hadi, the Yemeni President, has co-operated with the US and officially claims responsibility for every drone strike against targets within his country’s borders. He has made no such public declaration on airstrikes launched against his citizens by a neighbouring air force.

An attempt by the American Civil Liberties Union to force the publication of secret White House memos on the legality of the drone strikes was thwarted by a court in New York this week.A federal judge upheld the White House’s right to secrecy but admitted that she had been caught in a “veritable Catch-22”.“I can find no way around the thicket of laws and precedents that effectively allow the executive branch of our Government to proclaim as perfectly lawful certain actions that seem on their face incompatible with our constitution and laws,” Judge Colleen McMahon said.

Source : The Times UK

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