Naming The Dead: Shining a light on the US drone war

 

 

Written by Jack Serle
Edited by Rob Minto

THE BUREAU OF INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM2

CONTENTS 
Foreword

3

Introduction

7

A brief history of drones

8

Why names?

14

How we did it

15

What we found

19

The US response

24

Increased precision?

28

Official numbers

31

The project’s impact

33

Reflections

36

About the ​Bureau

38

About the author

39

Images

39

References

40

CASE STUDIES 
Raquel Burgos Garcia: a female ‘unknown’

12

The Fata document

18

Bibi Mamana: a grandmother and midwife

22

Double-tap strikes: a controversial tactic

25

Mullah Akhtar Mansour: an unusual strike

27

The Bin Laden Papers

30

Pakistan: the data

32

The Mystery of Khost

35

Published 16 April, 2018

 

 

 3

FOREWORD 
The phenomenal assassination tool that is the attack drone was born of frustration – the
inability of the US to kill Osama bin Laden.
The CIA and its Afghan militia allies were pretty sure they knew where he was, training
would-be suicide bombers in his Afghan hideout. Whenever they did get a read on his
location, albeit briefly, it was thanks to the CIA’s small fleet of surveillance Predator drones.
They could fly high and for more than 12 hours on end, constantly filming the scene below
them and sending the footage back to the US.
But the CIA could never pin down his location long enough for bombers or cruise missiles to
be called in to do anything about it. The solution? Add anti-tank missiles to the remotely
piloted drones.
By arming its drones, the US could get a fix on a target, show the video feed to lawyers in real
time so they could assess if it was lawful, and wait to take the shot when there were no
bystanders around to get hurt. The Predator drones and their more advanced successors the
Reapers have been used hundreds of times for such ‘targeted killing’, in particular in
Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia.

There has been next to no official
transparency about the US drone war
The Bureau of Investigative Journalism​ has been tracking these strikes for more than seven
years, monitoring and recording the date, time and location; and importantly, those killed.
We have been doing this because there has been next to no official transparency about the
US drone war. Individual strikes are usually reported in the newspapers and on social media
but for the majority of drone strikes, there has been no official word on the attack.
The armed drone has the undoubted potential for being one of the most discriminating
weapons ever devised. Yet the ​Bureau’​ s work shows that it doesn’t always work out this way.

 4

Among the more controversial tactics adopted by the CIA was the signature strike. This is
when drones are used to kill people based on their ​behaviour​, not identity. Intelligence
gathered over many days or weeks provides a pattern-of-life-analysis which is used to
determine someone’s guilt or likelihood of being a terrorist. These strikes have been used to
kill a handful of people or even large crowds.
There are multiple examples of a type of signature strike, so-called “double-taps”, where CIA
drones carry out a strike and wait for people to come and pick through the wreckage before
striking again. These attacks have killed plenty of Taliban fighters but they have also killed
scores of civilians, according to field investigations by the ​Bureau​.
The Obama administration
did through the course of
his presidency bring in
rules to govern the use of
armed drones. This
included putting the
military in charge of the
lethal end of drone
operations and limiting the
CIA to providing
intelligence. But the CIA's
role has reportedly
expanded under the
Trump administration,
with implications for transparency.​1

The CIA has provided ​some​ information to the media, briefing reporters on successful

strikes. It has also hidden behind anonymity to attack the ​Bureau​ and our findings, or issued
the standard response: “feel free to say the CIA declined to comment.”
The US military in contrast has become more forthcoming with information about its use of
armed drones. Before 2013 both US Central Command (Centcom) and US Africa Command,
which are responsible for US strikes in Yemen and Somalia respectively, would have little if

 5

anything to say publicly about their strikes. Now they give details in press releases, when
security and diplomatic interests allow, they say. For the rest they will only confirm they
happened if someone asks them directly.
While a step forward, the amount of information they are willing to give remains limited. At
most they will confirm the date, the general location of the strike, a standard rationale for
taking the strike, and occasionally a casualty estimate.
As often as not the US and the ​Bureau​ numbers don’t tally.

It can be hard to understand how
the US comes to its own estimates
In March 2017, I sat at the back of a Senate hearing room watching General Joseph Votel, the
man in charge of Centcom, testify before the Senate Armed Services Committee.​2​ He said
with evident sincerity that he was apologising for the killing of between four and 12 civilians
in a botched special operations raid and drone attack in Yemen in January 2017.
Seven months later it turned out he got the numbers wrong. An investigation by NBC News
revealed internal US estimates showed at least 16 civilians died.​3​ Centcom told me Votel
spoke “with the best information he had at the time”. Yet both figures are lower than the 25
civilian deaths uncovered by researchers working with the ​Bureau​ who visited the scene of
the strike.​4​ Despite advances in transparency, it can be hard to understand how the US
comes to its own estimates.
In the summer of 2016 the Obama White House released its own figures of those killed in
counter-terrorism strikes in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia and Libya - operations that were
outside the declared battlefields of Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria - between 2009 and 2015.​5
This was a big step forward for transparency advocates. Unfortunately, the White House
published total figures for strikes and casualties for all six years in the three countries, rather
than broken down by year or country. This made it impossible to examine where the US
records differed from the ​Bureau​’s data.

 6

The figures were supposed to be published every May thereafter. Then in late January 2017,
with Donald Trump just days away from moving into the White House, the Obama
administration put out its estimate for the 2016 figures.
Clearly, any effort towards greater transparency is only as strong as the will of the current
administration. Current guidance, although not an official instruction, is that the Pentagon
doesn’t want to release information that would give the enemy an advantage. This means
that it is much harder to find out details such as the date and location of strikes.​6

With the Trump administration clamping down on transparency around US air wars in
Afghanistan and Yemen, it seems highly unlikely it will turn the data release into an annual
event. This only serves to underline the importance of the ​Bureau​’s work.
The use of drones in counter-terrorism operations has no end in sight. So far thousands have
been killed, both terrorists and civilians. Continuing to investigate how the US and its allies
pursue the never-ending war on terror has never been more vital.

 7

INTRODUCTION 
Fahim Qureshi, 16, was spending his Friday afternoon at home with family and friends. They
had gathered to welcome an uncle home from the United Arab Emirates where he had been
working as a taxi driver. The men were sitting and reclining in the guest room, sipping tea.
More than 7,000 miles away a US Air Force officer depressed a trigger. The Hellfire smashed
into Qureshi’s family home, shattering the building and killing at least seven people.
Shrapnel tore out Fahim’s left eye and punctured his stomach.

“You could tell from his body language
that Obama was not a happy man”
It was the first drone strike of the fledgling Obama administration and it could not have gone
worse. The CIA was after a high value al Qaeda target. But it picked the wrong house, killing
several civilians including a child.
The next day President Barack Obama strode into the White House situation room to be
briefed on the botched strike. “You could tell from his body language that he was not a happy
man,” one participant later told a reporter.​7​ Despite the error, this would be the start of a
dramatic increase in the use of armed drones by the US military and intelligence services.
Obama would go on to use the remotely piloted aircraft to shatter al Qaeda in Pakistan and
target the Afghan insurgency in its mountain hideouts across the border from Afghanistan.
Thousands would die, but for the civilians who were inevitably among them, like Fahim
Qureshi, the reason they got caught up in the US drone war remained a mystery. “What did I
do for which I was punished so badly? What did my family do? Why did it happen to me?”
Qureshi would later say to ​The Guardian​.8​

 8

A BRIEF HISTORY OF DRONES 
The first drone strike hit Afghanistan in October 2001, narrowly missing Taliban leader
Mullah Mohammed Omar.​9​ Though a failure, it was the first appearance of a weapon system
that would become the ​leitmotif​ for the US war on terror.
America’s remotely piloted drones were first conceived as surveillance planes. The old
Predator drone’s prime asset was its ability to loiter over an area for upwards of 12 hours at a
time, transmitting video to anywhere in the world with a satellite connection.
The CIA and US Air Force secretly
collaborated at the turn of the
millennium to arm the Predator by
strapping an anti-tank missile to
its wing. They were trying to find a
weapon to assassinate Osama bin
Laden who for years was in his
desert fastness in central
Afghanistan evading the CIA and
its local allies.​10

The combination of the drone’s
flying time, ability to transmit
video to the desks of generals halfway around the world, and a Hellfire missile was a game
changing development. By 2007 drones had been used in at least five countries, not only to
kill suspected insurgents but also to gather intelligence. Largely they had been focused on the
war zones of Afghanistan and Iraq. In the summer of 2008, that changed.
Al Qaeda and its allies had escaped the US and its allies in Afghanistan and fled across the
border into Pakistan’s tribal areas, an inhospitable mountainous area that runs along much
of the Afghan-Pakistan boundary. From there, US intelligence believed the terrorists were
plotting attacks on America.​11

 9

The US had occasionally targeted the terrorists in Pakistan with 16 strikes between June
2004 and May 2008. But with al Qaeda threatening the US homeland once again, President
George Bush authorised a significant increase in the frequency of drone attacks with 33
strikes in the second half of 2008.​12

Drones appeared to offer a way
to wage war with a minimum cost
to US troops and innocent lives
That was nothing compared with how president Barack Obama embraced the drone
programme, ordering more drone strikes in Pakistan in his first year in office than in the
entire Bush presidency.​13
Obama upped the drone programme because he saw it as a chance to find absolute precision
in the use of force. Drones appeared to offer a way to wage war with a minimum cost to US
troops and innocent lives.​14
With these weapons, Obama’s team believed the US could be “exceptionally precise and
surgical in terms of addressing the terrorist threat” – a far cry from the ruinous US invasions
of Afghanistan and Iraq.​15
This was reflected in off-the-record assertions from anonymous US officials. In August 2011
one official told the ​New York Times​ the CIA’s drone programme had killed 2,000 militants
and 50 civilians since 2001. As the ​New York Times​ noted, this was “a stunningly low
collateral death rate”.​16

Such claims were contradicted by news reports from Pakistan. These reports, however, were
anecdotal. There was no official information on where and how drones were being used, and
who was being killed. While the US increased the strike tempo in Pakistan and spread its air
war to Yemen, details remained hard to come by.
This was in large part because the drone programme in Pakistan was under the control of the
CIA, even though the drones are piloted and the weapons fired by US Air Force personnel.

 10

This meant that the strikes were (and still are) carried out under CIA secrecy rules. Officials
can brief on CIA success off the record and publicly make unverifiable assertions about the
surgical precision of the strikes without having to release any specific details.
Meanwhile, the ​Bureau of Investigative Journalism​ recognised that there were important
stories about what the US government was doing with its drones that needed to be told.

“In a functioning democracy, citizens
are entitled to reliable information
on what is being done in their name”
In order to do this, we began systematically tracking US drone strikes. Initially only in
Pakistan, this ultimately grew into a wide-ranging project tracking drones strikes and
casualties across four countries, investigating how the targeted killing programme was being
carried out.
In 2013, the ​Bureau​ began proactively searching for the names of people killed in CIA drone
attacks in Pakistan. The ​Naming the Dead​ project began as a means to enhance our

understanding of who had been killed by US drone attacks, to uncover all we could about the
dead, starting with their names; to better hold to account those carrying out the attacks and
to test the claims made about their precision. Terrorist, insurgent or civilian – every name
mattered.
This project grew out of our Covert Drone War project, an effort to track US strikes and
casualties in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia. As former ​Bureau​ editor Christopher Hird wrote:
“The investigation was firmly based on the proposition that, in a functioning democracy,
citizens are entitled to reliable information on what is being done in their name, so they can
make informed decisions about issues of public policy.”​17
The US is not the only country to have used armed drones. The UK, Israel, Pakistan, Nigeria,
Iran and Iraq have all also launched strikes from drones. Several other countries possess the
capability, most of them having acquired it from China. The ​Bureau​ has focused on US drone
operations because it was the first country to use armed drones and, so far, is the most
prolific.

 11

We have also focused on the US because of the combination of two factors. First, since
September 2001 it has been American policy that the US is at war with al Qaeda and its allies
wherever they may be in the world. Second, the US drone programme in large part has been
the preserve of the CIA, which is a civilian organisation. Taken together, this has meant the
US has carried out hundreds of air strikes in countries outside internationally recognised
conflict zones like Afghanistan and Iraq, with very little transparency or oversight.

 12

Raquel Burgos García: a female ‘unknown’ 
Gender
Age
Nationality

Female
31
Spanish

Place of origin

Madrid

Reported status

Unknown

 
Raquel  Burgos  García  was  born  in  Madrid.  She 
married  Amer  Azizi,  a  senior  al  Qaeda  operative, 
and  fled  to  Pakistan  with  him  and  their  three 
children.​i  She  is  believed  to  have  died  in  a  drone 
strike in December 2005.  
 
García  was  an  only  child  and  a  happy  20-year-old, 
her  father  later  told  reporters.  She  lived  in  Madrid’s 
Barrio  de  la  Concepción  and  was  a  journalism 
student  when  she  met  Amer  Azizi,  a  Moroccan-born 
Islamist.​ii  Then  27,  he  had  arrived  in  Spain  after 
training  in  explosives  and  fighting  in  Bosnia. He was 
allegedly  looking  for  a  Spanish  wife  as  a  route  to  a 
Spanish passport. 
 
In  1996  after  meeting  Aziz,  García  began  to change, 
according  to  her  father.​iii  She  always  wore  black, 
always  wore  a  burqa,  and  became  increasingly 
isolated,  seeing  less  of  her  friends  and  family.​iv  In  May  1998  she  changed  her name to Anani 
(‘cloud’  in  Arabic).  That  year  she  married  Azizi  in  the  M-30  Mosque  in  Madrid.  Her  father 
reportedly did not attend the ceremony as he did not approve of the match. 
 
The  couple  lived  at  Calle  Isla  de  Saipan  in  an  austere  apartment  in  a  two-storey  building, 
according  to  ​El  Mundo​.v​   A  neighbour  told  the  paper  García  was  “a  slave”;  Azizi  would  beat 
her, even when she was six months pregnant. They had three children together.  
 
From 2001 onwards the details of García’s life become vague and confusing. In February 2001 
García  renewed  her  passport.  Six  months  later,  she  applied  for  a  new passport. According to 
the  Spanish  police  who  were  monitoring  Azizi  on  terrorism  grounds,  she  called  her  father 
shortly  after  September  11  and  told  him  she  was  moving  to  Morocco.  “Here  things  are  not 
good for Muslims,” she told her father. This was the last time they would ever speak.​vi  
 
Azizi  came  under  increased  suspicion  after  the  September  11  attacks,  as  he  had  helped 
organise  a  meeting  of  key  members  of  the  terror  plot.  On  October  11  2001,  Azizi  bought 

 13

himself  a  plane  ticket  to  Tehran,  Iran.​vii  He  reportedly  used  go-betweens  named  Mustafa 
Maymouni  and  Malek  to  set  his  wife  and  children  up  in  Morocco,  sending  them  €15,000.  A 
month  later  police  raided  their  home  but  found  them  gone.  Her  Moroccan  registration  card 
gave her address in the Mandarouna neighbourhood of Casablanca.​viii 
 
In  the  summer  of  2002,  she  left  Morocco  to  meet  Azizi.  At  this  point  reports  of  the 
whereabouts  of  García  and  her  children  stop,  until  her  passport  and  Moroccan  identity card 
were found in a Taliban base in Shelwasti, South Waziristan, Pakistan, in late October 2009.  
 
It  is  possible  she  met  up  with her husband in Iran after leaving Morocco: her passport had an 
Iranian  visa  and  passport  control  stamps.  It  also  had  an  unused  Indian  visa  and  no Pakistani 
visa  or  stamps  in  it,  ​Time  reported.​ix  A  Pakistani  army  spokesman  told  ​El  Pais  they  did  not 
know when she entered the country, or how long she had been there.​x 
 
Her  documents  were  found  along  with  the  passport  of  Said  Bahaji,  a  German.  Bahaji  was  a 
suspect  in  the  September  11  attack,  and  a  friend  of  lead  hijacker  Muhammad  Atta.​xi  There 
was  speculation  after  her  death  that  she  had  become  a  low-level  al  Qaeda  operative  in 
Afghanistan,  or  that  she  had  become  an  al  Qaeda  courier.​xii,  xiii  For  this  reason  she  is  not 
classed  as  a  civilian,  but instead as ‘unknown’ – the only woman so far in the ​Bureau​’s drones 
data to be classed as such. 
 
It is not clear what happened to her children. 
 
Image: AP Photo/Nicholas Asfouri  
 
References 
i​
'Amer Azizi', Naming the Dead, www.thebureauinvestigates.com/namingthedead/people/nd12/?lang=en 
ii​
Mucha, Martín 'The Girl Of Madrid That Finished In Al Qaeda', El Mundo, 8 November 2009, 
http://www.elmundo.es/suplementos/cronica/2009/734/1257634803.html 
iii​
Ibid. 
iv​
Irujo, José María, 'The 'jihad' of Raquel', El Pais, 8 November 2009, 
elpais.com/diario/2009/11/08/domingo/1257655959_850215.html 
v​
Mucha, Martín 'The Girl Of Madrid That Finished In Al Qaeda', El Mundo, 8 November 2009, 
www.elmundo.es/suplementos/cronica/2009/734/1257634803.html 
vi​
Ibid. 
vii​
Ibid. 
viii​
Roggio, Bill, 'Al Qaeda passports in Pakistan', The Long War Journal, 4 November 2009, 
www.longwarjournal.org/photos/2009/11/al_qaeda_passports_in_pakistan.php 
ix​
Waraich, Omar, 'Passports of Jihadis Found by Pakistani Army', Time, 30 October 2009, 
content.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1933412,00.html 
x​
Irujo, José María, 'The 'jihad' of Raquel', El Pais, 8 November 2009, 
elpais.com/diario/2009/11/08/domingo/1257655959_850215.html 
xi​
Reinares, Fernando, 'The Evidence of Al-Qa`ida’s Role in the 2004 Madrid Attack', Combating Terrorism Center, 
March 2012, www.ctc.usma.edu/posts/the-evidence-of-al-qaidas-role-in-the-2004-madrid-attack 
xii​
Waraich, Omar, 'Passports of Jihadis Found by Pakistani Army', Time, 30 October 2009, 
content.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1933412,00.html 
xiii​
Waraich, Omar, 'Pakistan strikes deep into al-Qa'ida territory', Independent, 30 October 2009, 
www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/pakistan-strikes-deep-into-alqaida-territory-1811727.html 

 

 14

WHY NAMES? 
​As the charity ​Every Casualty​ notes, the discipline of recording casualties is about restoring

“humanity to those who have died and the loved ones who survive them”.​18​ Within this is the

understanding that every casualty matters and should be recorded, not just civilians. It helps
societies to understand the costs of war.
The ​Bureau​’s ​Naming the Dead​ project concerned itself with conflicts that have resulted in
the deaths of some men who have committed truly awful crimes. But their names had to be
taken down, alongside the civilians who also perished. The effort to discover whether a
casualty was criminal or innocent also turned up people with more ambiguous status: neither
civilians, nor card-carrying al Qaeda fighters.

Uncovering the identity and details of casualties in each country has enabled the ​Bureau​ to
test claims made by various US agencies and departments, and push back against their
obfuscation. Last year in Yemen we identified nine children aged under 13 killed in a US raid,
countering White House assertions it was a “successful operation by all standards”.
Sometimes the confusion of combat means getting to the bottom of exactly who is
responsible for the blasts that killed civilians is not possible. Still, the names of the dead are
recorded, and their deaths are marked by more than just a bare statistic.

 15

HOW WE DID IT 
In the absence of any kind of official transparency, we were compelled to hunt through open
sources of information. We ​began collecting as many news reports and NGO investigations
that could be found to build databases of strikes. Aggregating this open source material
meant we could draw out casualty estimates for each attack. We expanded our efforts to
include Yemen and Somalia. In 2015, we added Afghanistan.
(Until the end of 2014, the US was operating in Afghanistan in concert with its allies in the
Nato-led International Security Assistance Force. The ​Bureau​ began tracking the US strikes
from January 2015 onwards,
when Nato’s involvement
came to an end.)
Typically, we would find a
report of a drone strike. A
report of one strike would
mention another attack. With
one strike leading to another,
we went back in time while
tracking strikes happening in
real time to build as
comprehensive a dataset as
we could. We married this
with our own investigations in
Pakistan, conducting four field investigations in the country, and carrying out interviews
with survivors and relatives of victims.
By 2013 the ​Bureau​’s Covert Drone War team had collected about 500 names from our
investigations into the US drone war, and our aggregation of strike reports. We launched the
Naming the Dead​ project and created a stand-alone database and website for the names,
which were translated into Urdu and Pashto.

 16

The project faced stiff challenges. The areas of countries where the strikes hit are hard to
access, either because they are in a warzone or the local authorities limit access to foreigners.
This meant we relied a lot on media reports that were often sourced to unnamed Pakistani
civil and intelligence officials. The ​Bureau​’s work came in for criticism. Researchers raised
the risk that several journalists would unwittingly all be citing the same sources of
information but would appear in our aggregates as multiple reports.​19
On top of this, there was a risk the sources themselves were compromised. There is a risk
they were actually spreading al Qaeda propaganda, or local intelligence officials providing
false information to discredit the drone campaign. On the other hand, others have claimed
the CIA is the source of a lot of information about the strikes – an attempt to paint the drone
programme in a more positive light.
The remoteness of some of the areas where the US has been carrying out strikes may also
mean that casualties are going unrecorded.​20

There are strong indications the ​Bureau​’s
work is not so far from the truth
The ​Bureau​’s casualty data remain estimates and our records of names of those killed are
imperfect. We take great care to be as robust in our methodology as possible. There have
been occasions where we have had to amend our casualty counts and remove names from
our dataset when new evidence has come to light.
Ultimately, data published by the ​Bureau​ and other tracking organisations are the best
publicly available estimate in the absence of official transparency. As a study by ​Colombia
Law School​ put it: “The tracking organizations’ estimates substitute for hard facts and
information that ought to be provided by the US government.”​21

There are strong indications the ​Bureau​’s work is not so far from the truth. While difficult,
field research in some of the most inhospitable and dangerous places is possible. The ​Bureau
among others have been able to carry out investigations which have provided invaluable
primary research on top of the aggregated news reports and other open source material.

 17

Our figures have also been borne out by internal records compiled by al Qaeda and the
Pakistan government. A cache of private messages from Osama bin Laden and a chief acolyte
that was recovered during the lethal raid on his compound in 2011 corroborates many details
in the ​Bureau​’s log of strikes and casualties in Pakistan (see page 30).
These were private messages, part of the al Qaeda leader’s personal archive and not meant
for public consumption. They lament the loss of al Qaeda leaders and fighters to drone
strikes and suggest ways to counter the aerial threat.
Critics of the ​Bureau​’s work say aggregating data from open sources like news articles is not
a reliable method. But Bin Laden’s unexpurgated documents corroborated several details
captured from open sources in our database.
In 2014 the ​Bureau​ published internal Pakistani government documents it had obtained that
reinforced and augmented our Pakistan data - the Fata document (see case study on page
18).
In one case there was a record of the names of all the people killed in one strike. The log of
names did not discriminate between who was civilian and who was not. Instead the official
who compiled it was much more interested in whether the dead were locals, only listing their
names and merely providing a count of foreigners killed as an addendum.
This provided a tantalising glimpse of what material existed inside the archives of the
different branches of the Pakistani state. On the face of it this was not an unusual strike. The
death toll was not particularly high, and there were no significant militant figures among the
dead or the survivors. Clearly Pakistani officialdom was keeping a record of the names of the
people the US was killing, and their background.

 18

The Fata document 
The  Fata  document  is  the  internal  records  of  the  bureaucracy  that  runs  Pakistan’s  Federally 
Administered  Tribal Areas (Fata). The Fata Secretariat has authority over the tribal agencies – 
each  agency  has  a  political  agent  responsible  for  it.  Each  day  the  local  political  agent,  the 
ranking  officer  in  the  field,  submits  a  daily  situation  report  listing  violent  incidents  in  their 
area that day. This document is compiled from those reports.​i 
 

 

WHAT DOES IT SHOW?
 
●
●
●

Details  about  exactly  when  and  where  strikes  took  place,  often  including  the  names 
of homeowners 
Estimates  of  how  many  people have been killed in each strike, as well as whether the 
dead are ‘local’ or ‘non-local’ 
The document stopped recording civilian casualties after 2008 

 
Image: The Bureau of Investigative Journalism 

 
Reference 
i​
'Get the data: Pakistani government’s secret report on drone strikes', The Bureau of Investigative Journalism, 29 
January 2014, 
www.thebureauinvestigates.com/stories/2014-01-29/get-the-data-pakistani-governments-secret-report-on-dronestrikes 
 

 19

WHAT WE FOUND 
The ​Bureau​’s records show US drone strikes in Pakistan have killed between 424 and 969
civilians, out of between 2,515 and 4,026 people in total.​22​ Civilian casualties fell from the
2009 peak and by the end of the Obama administration drones killed on average two
civilians in every three strikes. Under President Bush, more than three civilians died per
strike.
The US has consistently said
its strikes have been
scrupulously targeted at
militants and terrorists.
While many members of the
various insurgent and
terrorist groups aligned
against the US have been
killed, the ​Bureau​ has also
found a considerable
number of civilian
casualties.
The frequency of civilian
casualties declined from its 2009 peak in Pakistan but one strike on the 17 March 2011 was a
reminder that the CIA’s drone campaign could still kill indiscriminately. At least 26 people,
most of them civilians, were killed when the US targeted a tribal council meeting in North
Waziristan. It was one of the few times the CIA would admit when a strike was a signature
strike, through an anonymous official.
Signature strikes are one of the more controversial aspects of the US drone wars. They target
individuals or groups based on their behaviour, not their identity. The idea is that analysts
can determine whether or not someone is a member of an armed group based on an analysis
of their pattern of life, a picture of their habits developed over hours of aerial surveillance
and intercepted phone messages. Ultimately, however, it means the US can kill people
without knowing exactly who they are.

 20

Proponents claimed that signature strikes were a reliable way of targeting terrorists because
they would be based on hours of intelligence gathered by the high-quality cameras carried by
the drones as they orbited over a site for days on end.
Yet given this impressive technical capacity, the death of Bibi Mamana is all the more
bewildering. She was a grandmother in her sixties. On October 24th 2012 she was out
picking vegetables with some of her grandchildren when at least one Hellfire missile hit the
ground near the family home. She was killed, and several of her grandchildren were badly
wounded (see case study on page 23).

In April 2015, President Obama made
an unprecedented announcement.​ ​He
said a CIA strike in Pakistan had killed
civilians, for which he was sorry
Amnesty International investigated the strike extensively.​23​ Their investigators uncovered
letters from the Political Agent, the Islamabad-appointed administrator responsible for all
North Waziristan, to her surviving relatives saying their investigation concluded a drone
strike killed Bibi Mamana. Her family travelled to Washington DC to petition Congress for an
explanation for why she was killed, to no avail.
It was another three years until a family received some kind of explanation and public
apology from the US government for one of its strikes outside Iraq, Syria or Afghanistan.
In April 2015, President Obama made an unprecedented announcement.​24​ He said a CIA
strike in Pakistan had killed civilians, for which he was sorry. The strike in question hit on 20
January that year. It had targeted an al Qaeda house in the mountains of North Waziristan.
The drones had the building under near-constant surveillance, the US government said, and
carried out the strike when five al Qaeda terrorists were in the house.
However unknown to the CIA, two hostages were also in the building, the Italian Giovanni
Lo Porto and the American Warren Weinstein.

 21

US analysts were first aware they had made a mistake soon after the strike when more than
five bodies were carried out of the wreckage. It took the US four months sifting signals
intercepts and leaning on human intelligence sources to figure out who else had died.
Both the Weinstein and Lo Porto families received briefings from apologetic US officials in
which they were given summaries of how the operation that killed their loved ones was
planned and carried out.​25, 26
The Weinstein and Lo Porto case, and the other examples of civilian deaths in Pakistan, show
the fallibility of the system that was put in place. And they mean we must continue to
scrutinise carefully the claims that there are no civilians being killed in the strikes.

 22

Bibi Mamana: a grandmother and midwife 
Gender
Age
Nationality
Occupation
Reported status

Female
65-67
Pakistani
Midwife
Reported civilian

 
Little  is  known  of Bibi Mamana’s life except 
that  she  was  in  her  60s, a grandmother, the 
wife  of  the  retired  headmaster  of  the 
Government  High  School in Miranshah, and 
a  midwife  who  “delivered  hundreds  of 
babies”  in  her  community.​i  However  the 
events  immediately  around  her  death  in 
October 2012 have been well documented. 
 
For  days  before  the  strike  there  had  been 
the  constant  hum  of  drones  overhead,  it 
was  reported.  Mamana  and  several  of  her 
grandchildren  were  outside  the  family 
home.  She was gathering wood and tending 
to livestock when a drone struck.​ii 
 
It  is  not clear how many missiles were fired. 
Mamana’s  eight-year-old  granddaughter 
Nabeela  (aka  Mabeela  Rehman)  was  20m  away  from  where  they  hit.  She  told  the  ​Times​:  “I 
saw  the  first  two  missiles  coming  through  the  air…  They  were  following  each  other  with  fire 
at  the  back.  When  they  hit  the  ground,  there  was  a  loud  noise.  After  that  I  don’t  remember 
anything.” Nabeela was injured by flying shrapnel. 
 
At  the  sound  of  the  explosion,  Mamana’s  grandson  Kaleem  (aka  Kaleemur  or  Kaleemullah), 
18,  ran  from  the  house  to  help  his  grandmother.  But  five  to  seven  minutes  later  the  drones 
struck  again,  he  told  the  ​BBC​.  He  was  knocked  unconscious.  His  leg  was  badly  broken  and 
damaged by shrapnel, and needed surgery. 
 
The  missiles  physically  hit  Mamana,  Amnesty  researcher  Mustafa  Qadri  said.​iii “She’s literally 
hit flush and is blown to smithereens.” 
 
Atiq,  38,  Nabeela’s  father  and  Mamana’s  son,  was  in  or  was  leaving  a  mosque  at  the  time of 
the  attack.  On  hearing  the  blast  and  seeing  the  plume  of  smoke  he  rushed  to  the  scene. 
When  he  arrived  he  could  not  see  any  sign  of  his  mother,  he  told  The  Times.  He  said:  “My 

 23

relatives  arrived  and  urged  me  not  to  go  too  close. I started calling out for her but there was 
no  reply.  Then  I  saw  her  shoes.  We  found  her  mutilated  body  a  short  time  afterwards. It had 
been  thrown  quite  a  long  distance away by the blast and it was in pieces. We collected many 
different parts from the field and put a turban over her body.” 
 
Atiq’s  brother  Rafiq  was  also  away  from  the  house  when  the  missiles  hit.  He  arrived  as 
Mamana’s  grave  was  being  dug.  Her  body  was  already  in  a  coffin.  He  told  the  ​BBC​:  “I  threw 
myself  over  her  coffin  but  the  box  was  closed.  The  family  told  me  not  to  open  it  as  she  had 
been hit by a missile and her body was in pieces.” 
 
Family  members  hit  in  the  same  blast  made  the  eight-hour  bus  journey  to  Peshawar  for 
medical  treatment.  While  there,  Atiq  showed  the ​Times his mother’s identity card. The family 
then  travelled  on  to  Islamabad  for  specialist  help.  There  Rafiq  showed  the  ​BBC  Mamana’s 
passport,  pictures  of  her  grave,  the  spot  where  they  say  the  missile  hit  and  fragments  of the 
missile. 
 
Rafiq  said  his  mother  was  “the  string  that  holds  the  pearls  together”  to  their  village,  ​ABC 
reported.​iv  He  told  ​Al  Jazeera  English  he  received  a  letter  after  the  strike  from  a  Pakistani 
official which said the attack was a US drone strike and Bibi was innocent.​vii But nothing more 
came of it, he said. 
 
Image: BBC screengrab 

 
References 
i​
Ur Rehman, Rafiq, 'Please tell me, Mr President, why a US drone assassinated my mother', The Guardian, 25 
October 2013, www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/oct/25/president-us-assassinated-mother 
ii​
'Pakistan: Reported US strikes 2012', The Bureau of Investigative Journalism, 
www.thebureauinvestigates.com/2012/01/11/obama-2012-strikes/ 
iii​
Devereaux, Ryan, 'Family of grandmother killed in US drone strike arrive for Congress visit', The Guardian, 27 
October 2013, www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/27/drones-attack-pakistan-family-rehman-congress 
iv​
Brown, Rachael, 'Defence won't reveal if Australia's Pine Gap was involved in fatal US drone attacks in Pakistan', 
ABC News, 1 November 2013, 
www.abc.net.au/news/2013-11-01/australia-wont-reveal-if-pine-gap-used-in-drone-attacks/5064460 
 
 

 
 

 24

THE US RESPONSE 
The ​Bureau​’s drones project and ​Naming the Dead​ have on several occasions shown that
claims by the US that it was almost exclusively killing terrorists are false. In response, US
officials derided our research as either unsubstantiated or propaganda​.
The official secrecy and lack of transparency allowed
outlandish claims to be made. Most notable was the claim in
June 2011 by John Brennan (left), that the US had not killed
a civilian in 10 months of counter-terrorism operations.
Brennan was then one of Obama’s top counter-terrorism
advisers who would go on to become CIA director during
Obama’s second term. (Later in 2011 Brennan qualified his
statement, saying that the US had no “credible evidence of
collateral deaths”.)​27
His claim was demonstrably untrue. The ​Bureau​ found
several media reports of civilian casualties from a series of
CIA attacks in Pakistan over that period. These incidents
were used to guide a field investigation. Researchers
interviewed relatives, survivors and neighbours of the strikes to discover who had been killed
and whether they were terrorists or civilians.
The ​Bureau​ published its findings in July 2011. The next month unnamed US officials

doubled-down on their claims, telling the ​New York Times​ the CIA’s drones had killed 600
people since May 2010 and none of them were civilians. An official derided the ​Bureau​’s
research, saying our findings were “completely unsubstantiated” and “ludicrous”.​28

Anonymous US officials again attacked the ​Bureau​’s work in 2012, after we published our
second major field investigation demonstrating the CIA was carrying out so-called
“double-taps”. We found that drones were striking a building, then loitering above it while
people from the surrounding area rushed to the scene. The drone would then strike again,
killing rescuers as they picked through the rubble. These attacks undoubtedly killed
members of armed militant groups - however they also killed many civilians.

 25

Double-tap strikes: a controversial tactic 
DOUBLE-TAP:​ After the initial strike, drones wait while people from the
surrounding area rush to the scene. The drone then strikes again, killing rescuers
and other potential targets.
“Reference should be made to 
a study earlier this year by the 
Bureau of Investigative 
Journalism... If civilian 
‘rescuers’ are indeed being 
intentionally targeted, there is 
no doubt about the law: those 
strikes are a war crime.” 
 

Christof Heyns (left), the UN 
special rapporteur, Geneva, 
2012 i ​

 

Image: UN/Jean-Marc Ferré

“While broader than the issues in 
the purview of this Council, 
questions about the U.S. legal 
and policy framework for use of 
force against al-Qaeda and 
associated forces have been 
addressed by senior U.S. officials 
in a number of recent public 
statements.“ 
 
Response from the Permanent 
Mission of the United States of 
America in Geneva ii​  

DOUBLE-TAP STRIKES AS REPORTED BY @DRONESTREAM

References 
i​
Serle, Jack, 'UN expert labels CIA tactic exposed by Bureau "a war crime"', The Bureau of Investigative Journalism, 
21 June 2012,  
www.thebureauinvestigates.com/stories/2012-06-21/un-expert-labels-cia-tactic-exposed-by-bureau-a-war-crime 
ii​
'Statement on the Report of Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary, or Arbitrary Executions', Mission of 
the United States of America in Geneva, 19 June 2012,  
geneva.usmission.gov/2012/06/19/statement-on-the-report-of-special-rapporteur-on-extrajudicial-summary-or-ar
bitrary-executions/ 
 

 26

The ​Bureau​ also found the CIA deliberately killed a mid-ranking Taliban fighter in the hope
a senior figure would attend his funeral later that day, where the CIA struck again killing
scores of people, many of them civilians. The higher ranking Taliban target was missed,
although he was killed six weeks later.
In response, a senior US counter-terrorism official tried to smear the ​Bureau​’s work rather
than providing any evidence to contest the ​Bureau​’s findings. On 5 February 2012, the

official told the ​New York Times​: “One must wonder why an effort that has so carefully gone
after terrorists who plot to kill civilians has been subjected to so much misinformation. Let’s
be under no illusions - there are a number of elements who would like nothing more than to
malign these efforts and help Al Qaeda succeed.”​29

Drones vs leaders 
Proponents of the use of armed drones in Pakistan have pointed to the success the strikes
have had killing leading figures in the Afghan and Pakistan Taliban as well as al Qaeda. The
Naming the Dead​ database contains the names of at least 123 people described as a senior
member of one of the various terrorist groups based in Pakistan’s Federally Administered
Tribal Areas (Fata). The drones have also accounted for at least 11 men listed on the US
Rewards for Justice programme website, a State Department initiative offering cash bounties
for information on the whereabouts of global terrorists.
There are some notable examples of al Qaeda leaders killed over the years, including the
Libyan Atiyah Abd al Rahman, described as al Qaeda’s second-in-command under Ayman al
Zawahiri who took over after bin Laden’s death.​30
The CIA also succeeded in killing the Egyptian chemical weapons expert, Abu Khabab al
Masri, in a 2008 strike. The attack killed most of his team that was trying to create chemical
weapons for al Qaeda, though al Masri’s family also reportedly died in the strike.​31
The strikes have also killed leaders from the Pakistan Taliban, including Hakimullah Mehsud
who claimed responsibility for the December 2009 attack on Camp Chapman, a CIA base in
Afghanistan where seven CIA officers were killed in a suicide bombing. Mehsud was
responsible for oppressing the people of Fata with murderous brutality.​32

 27

Mullah Akhtar Mansour - an unusual strike 
21/05/2016
Hangu District, KPK
TBIJ strike ID: Ob373
KILLED:
Mullah Akhtar Mansour
Male, Afghan Taliban member, Afghan 

 
In  May  2016  US  drones  killed  Mullah  Akhtar  Mansour,  the  leader  of  the  Afghan  Taliban,  in 
eastern  Pakistan  according  to  President  Obama,  the  Afghan  government  and  a  Taliban 
leader.​i,  ii  It  was  an  unusual  strike  in  several  ways.  It  was  the  first in Balochistan and only the 
sixth  outside Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas. It was also the first known drone 
strike  in  Pakistan  to  be  conducted  by  the  US  military  and  not  the  CIA.  The  bodies  of  two 
people  were  recovered  from  the  wreckage.  A  passport,  thought  to  be  Mansour’s,  was  found 
showing he had returned from Iran that day. 
 

 
Images: AFP/Getty Images 

 
References 
i​
'ARG Palace confirms Mullah Mansoor targeted in US drone strike', Khaama Press, 22 May 2016, 
www.khaama.com/arg-palace-confirms-mullah-mansoor-targeted-in-us-drone-strike-01024 
Ii ​
Boone, Jon and Rasmussen, Sune Engel, 'US drone strike in Pakistan kills Taliban leader Mullah Mansoor', The 
Guardian, 22 May 2016, 
www.theguardian.com/world/2016/may/21/us-airstrike-taliban-leader-mullah-akhtar-mansoor 

 

 

 

 28

INCREASED PRECISION? 
Civilian casualties from drone strikes in Pakistan dropped significantly after 2009. The
precise reasons for this remain unclear, but appear to have stemmed from both internal and
external influences on the CIA’s drone programme.
The drones themselves became more sophisticated over the years, and the US increased the
size of its drone fleet giving it greater capacity to monitor targets and gather intelligence.
Intelligence collection in
the Fata also improved
over the course of the
drone war.​33​ The precise
details are unknown but
significant resources were
put into monitoring the
area, including mapping
every street in some towns
and giving each building a
unique code.​34​ The US
also actively sought to
reduce the yield of the warheads in the missiles and bombs it uses with its drones to reduce
the chance of bystanders being caught by shrapnel.​35
The civilian casualty reduction may also reflect lessons painstakingly learned in Afghanistan.
A 2013 paper published by a US military thinktank in 2013 noted that “the technical
elements [of drones] alone do not necessarily translate to surgical precision and the
minimization of civilian casualties. Other factors also influence the likelihood of civilian
casualties.” The authors suggested that much of the reduction in civilian casualties was
developed on the ground in Afghanistan, as a response to internal and external attention.​36
The US generals in charge of the Nato mission emphasised the need to reduce civilian harm,
which helped focus their subordinates on tackling the problem. Meanwhile, Nato was under
considerable external pressure from journalists, NGOs, the UN and the Afghan government

 29

to reduce civilian casualties, which focussed the Nato command on trying to achieve this
goal.​37

Throughout the Obama administration (if not before) the CIA came under external pressure
from the media and NGOs to reduce civilian casualties in Pakistan, and internal pressure
from inside government - in large part from the White House.​38
In the twilight of his administration President Obama admitted there were few rules and
little by way of codified structures to control the use of armed drones.
“The decision-making was not ad hoc, but it was embedded in decisions that are made all the
time about a commander leading a military operation, or an intelligence team trying to take
out a terrorist. And there wasn’t enough of an overarching structure,” he told an audience in
Chicago in April 2016.​39

“There's no doubt that civilians were
killed that shouldn't have been”
“There's no doubt that civilians were killed that shouldn't have been. I think that over the last
several years, we have worked very hard to avoid and prevent those kinds of tragedies from
taking place,” he added. That effort took the form of the Presidential Policy Guidance (PPGs),
a set of policy rules governing how kill or capture missions were meant to go.​40
The PPGs were signed in the summer of 2013, but the key tenets captured in the document
had been floated previously.​41​ The rules themselves may well have come into force in the
years before they were officially signed, as a “senior US official” told the Washington Post in
December 2011: “Everybody knows we’re using drones… On the other hand, we’re doing it on
a pretty systematic and standardized basis. Why don’t we just say what those standards
are?”​42

 

 

 30

The Bin Laden Papers 
An  extraordinary  cache  of  private  messages  between  Osama  bin  Laden  and  his  general 
manager  found  during  the  raid  on  the al Qaeda leader’s home in 2011 corroborated many of 
the details in ​Bureau​ reports of drone strikes in Pakistan.​i 
 

 
 
The  documents  show  that,  because  of  the  strikes,  al  Qaeda  members  were  forced  to 
concentrate  on  defensive security and survival. Al Qaeda counter-measures – some proposed 
and some acted upon – included stopping operations so as to reduce the need for movement; 
trying  to  hack  into  the  drones  (without  success);  relocating  senior  members  away  from 
Pakistan and reducing media appearances so as to make the organisation less conspicuous. 
 
A  previous  batch  of  bin  Laden  documents released to the Combating Terrorism Center in the 
US  military  academy  West  Point  revealed  that  drones  had  long  worried  Bin  Laden.  He 
instructed  his  followers  to  stop  using  cars  and  to  not  meet  on  roads.  He  also  warned 
supporters  that  the  Americans  had  methods  of  identifying  houses  that  were  frequented  by 
men at a higher rate than usual.​ii 
 
Images: The Bureau of Investigative Journalism 

 
Reference 
i​
'Motion in Limine to Admit Bin Laden Docs', United States Attorney Eastern District of New York, 
http://kronosadvisory.com/Abid.Naseer.Trial_Abbottabad.Documents_Exhibits.403.404.405.420thru433.pdf  
ii​
Bennett-Jones, Owen, ‘Secret Cache of Al Qaeda Messages to Osama Bin Laden Corroborates Bureau Drone 
Strike Reports in Pakistan’, The Bureau of Investigative Journalism, 24 March 2015,  
v1.thebureauinvestigates.com/namingthedead/secret-cache-of-al-qaeda-messages-to-osama-bin-laden-corrobor
ates-bureau-drone-strike-reports-in-pakistan/?lang=en 
 

 

 

 

 31

OFFICIAL NUMBERS 
It took another five years for the US to release hard numbers on how many people it thought
it had killed in its counter-terrorism strikes. In the summer of 2016 the Obama
administration released its estimate that between 64 and 116 civilians, and 2,372 and 2,581
combatants, had been killed in 472 operations.​43​ This only included strikes and raids
between 20 January 2009 and 31 December 2015.​44
The US would not give exact locations, just saying they were “outside areas of active
hostilities”. It was believed that this meant Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia and Libya, though the
White House would neither confirm nor deny this.
Over the same period, the ​Bureau​ tracked between 2,767 and 4,362 people killed, of whom
between 389 and 836 were reported to be civilians. This was in at least 512 counter-terrorism
strikes, with drones, jets, helicopters, cruise missiles and special forces, in Pakistan, Yemen
and Somalia.
The administration also refused to release numbers broken down by year, let alone by strike,
making any direct comparison with the ​Bureau​’s numbers impossible. But there is a clear
gulf between the two estimates. The US says its sources of information and post-strike
analyses are superior to those of non-governmental agencies like the ​Bureau​, whose
estimates may be tainted with terrorist propaganda.​45

The exact figures may never be known, but field investigations by media organisations and
NGOs have consistently turned up significant allegations of civilian harm that contradict the
assertions by the US military and intelligence services. In some instances, they have
demonstrated alarming deficiencies in methodologies and processes used by the US to
determine whether or not it had killed civilians.​46

 

 32

Pakistan: the data 
 

The  US  drone  war  in  Pakistan  began  slowly  with  only a handful of strikes each year until the 
second  half  of  2008,  when  President  George  Bush  authorised  a  dramatic  increase  in 
operational tempo. 

The  Obama  White  House  ramped  up  the  drone  campaign  in  2009  and  2010  but  the  civilian 
casualty  fell.  It  more  than  halved  from  around  two  civilians  killed  per  strike  in  2009,  on 
average,  to  less  than  one  per  strike  in  2010  when  the  strike  tempo  was  at  its  peak.  The 
decline  in  civilian  casualties  continued  over  the  following  years.  In  2012  the  CIA  carried  out 
about as many strikes as it did in 2009, but only killed a tenth of the number of civilians. 
 

 
Source for all charts: The Bureau of Investigative Journalism 

 

 33

THE PROJECT’S IMPACT 
Despite the CIA’s antipathy to the ​Bureau’​ s work, the data have been used widely: by
journalists and in NGO reports, by lawyers, academics, and researchers for the UN and
national governments. Focusing on names has humanised our reporting but also added
depth to our research. The names allow readers to appreciate the extent that we have gone in
our efforts to understand what happened in a strike.
Broadly speaking we achieved what we hoped to do: report extensively on the the drone war
to inform debate. That collective effort did push the Obama administration to be more
forthcoming with information. Additionally, it appears to have aided the effort to reduce
civilian harm from US counter-terrorism strikes.
The ​Bureau​’s work has also helped demonstrate the costs of the drone campaign to the
American people. It has had considerable reach, being cited by media across the ideological
spectrum. In the absence of official data, it has helped the American public to form its
opinions on what its government does in its name. According to polling by the ​Pew Research
Center​, it appears the US public is largely fine with how its government has acted, and the
costs those actions have incurred.​47

The Bureau’s work has also informed the debate about how the UK should use its small but
growing fleet of armed drones.
The British Ministry of Defence over the years has been at pains to point out that its drone
programme is different to that of America’s. That has largely been the case: the Royal Air
Force has been the only organisation to operate armed drones in the UK military or
government. And almost all strikes have been in countries where the UK is at war.
The exception was a strike in the summer of 2015 that killed two British citizens, Reyaad
Khan and Ruhul Amin, which hit before the UK had formally joined the armed conflict in
Syria. Civil liberties and human rights groups were concerned this would open the door to a
UK policy of targeted killings like that of the US. Britain has reserved the right to use lethal
force to counter any imminent threat to the UK. However, this has not brought about a
concerted killing programme like America’s.

 34

In September 2013, the UK defence minister for the first time gave out details of drone
strikes, data that revealed that UK drones were three times more likely to fire than US
drones.​48​ One month later, the EU, UK and other countries agreed to greater openness on
drone actions, responding to a UN investigation.​49
While our investigations into US drone strikes has had considerable reach and impact, there
is clearly room for improvement in the ​Bureau​’s methodology. The ​New York Times​’
investigation into civilian casualties for US strikes on Islamic State in Iraq is one recent
example that demonstrates the incontrovertible value of targeted and comprehensive field
research.​50​ The ​Bureau​’s field investigations are what give our work its rigour and have
enabled us to uncover as many names and glean as many details as we could.

 

 

 35

The Mystery of Khost 
On  June  5  2015,  a  US  aircraft  attack  hit  two  pickup  trucks  as  they  drove  on  a  rock-strewn 
track  near  the  border  with  Pakistan.  Photos  showed  the  vehicles  burnt  down  to  their 
mangled frames. No survivors were reported. Fourteen people were killed. 
 
There  was  no  consensus  on  who  these  14  people  were.  Both  the  UN  and  Nato  claimed  to 
know,  but  their  versions were startlingly different. Nato said all 14 were Taliban insurgents. A 
UN  source  told  the  ​Bureau  it  had  classified  all  of  them  as  civilians  –  a  view  echoed  by  the 
Afghan  government's  lead  investigator.  Which  of  these  organisations  is  correct  matters,  and 
not just to the relatives of the dead. 
 
The  ​Bureau​’s  four-month investigation traced the events of the day. We conducted telephone 
interviews  with  nomad  elders  and  Afghan  officials,  and  gathered  photos  of  the  wreckage, 
bodies  and  graves,  as  well  as  what were said to be the ID cards of the victims. We discovered 
three distinct narratives about what happened on June 5. 
 

Image: Gul Marjan Farooqzoi and Meer Zaman 

 
One  version  has  the  strike  attacking  a  Taliban  commander's  funeral.  Another  has  it  hitting 
innocent  villagers  aged  between  18 and 73 after digging a local man's grave. And in the third 
version, the strike hit insurgents who had attacked a border police checkpoint. 
 
Much  remains  murky  about  that  day,  but  one  thing  is  clear  –  at least two of these narratives 
must  be  wrong.  Whatever  the truth, what no-one disputes is that the US killed 14 people, and 
that it failed to persuade either the Afghan government or the UN they were militants. 
 
Reference: 
Fielding-Smith, Abigail, Sargand, Payenda, and Serle, Jack, 'The Mystery of Khost', The Bureau of Investigative 
Journalism, 18 February 2016, labs.thebureauinvestigates.com/the-mystery-of-khost/ 

 

 36

REFLECTIONS 
Armed drones presented the US with the opportunity of taking war to places where its
enemies were hiding without having to deploy thousands of troops, and without having to
see flag-draped coffins return.
The Obama White House developed systems that brought senior officials and the president
into the kill chain in a fashion not seen before. The Obama administration brought in “Terror
Tuesdays”, regular weekly meetings of Obama and his senior national security team to
discuss who would be added to the US’s kill list.​51
Obama’s White House tried to
rein in the excesses of
counter-terrorism operations,
both with greater transparency
and clearer rules. In the final
year of his presidency, the US
carried out just three strikes in
Pakistan and killed one civilian.
By this point, al Qaeda had lost
much of its leadership and was
a shadow of the group that had
fled Afghanistan into the
mountains of the Fata in 2001.
In Yemen and Somalia, the
military was being more forthcoming about its strikes, acknowledging individual attacks and
latterly even proactively releasing details of operations through Central Command and Africa
Command respectively.
However, the preceding eight years had seen thousands killed, hundreds of them reported to
be civilians. The terrorist groups that were targeted by drones for more than a decade persist
and have now either dispersed around Pakistan, returned to Afghanistan to provinces
beyond Kabul, or into the Middle East and Africa. The air wars in Afghanistan, Yemen and
Somalia continue, and the death toll continues to rise.

 37

In an era of the Bashar al Assad regime and Islamic State routinely committing atrocities and
the US-led coalition and Russia carrying out thousands of airstrikes in Iraq and Syria, killing
many more, the costs and impacts of Obama drone war seem small.​52, 53
In the longer term, the US now states that “inter-state strategic competition, not terrorism, is
now the primary concern in US national security”, with China and Russia top of the list of
threats.​54​ Perhaps the days of large-scale campaigns of targeted killings against non-state
armed groups are numbered.
But the drone wars in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia are now being run by President Donald
Trump, who came to office promising to “bomb the shit” out of America’s enemies. After his
first year in the White House, he appears to be delivering on this promise.​55
The US is going to continue using drones, manned aircraft, cruise missiles, and special forces
teams to hunt out terrorists. As it does so, there will also be civilian deaths; an inevitable
consequence of the war on terror that has no end in sight.

 38

ABOUT THE BUREAU 
The​ ​Bureau of Investigative Journalism​ is an independent, not-for-profit organisation that
holds power to account. Founded in 2010 by David and Elaine Potter, we tackle big subjects
through deep reporting that uncovers the truth. We tell the stories that matter.
Our aim is to inform the public about the realities of power in today's world. We are
particularly concerned with the undermining of democratic processes and failures to accord
with fair, legal and transparent practices.
We inform the public through in-depth investigative journalism, with no corporate or
political agenda. Through fact-based, unbiased reporting, we expose systemic wrongs,
counter misinformation and spark change.
Our journalists dig deep, and will spend months getting to the truth if that’s what it takes.
Once our investigations are complete, we give them to mainstream media outlets around the
world, so they are seen by as many people as possible.
We focus on serious issues affecting our society and identify new areas of investigation
through research, data, whistleblowers and contacts.
Robust journalism is a crucial part of any democracy. Our stories educate citizens and help
them better understand their world, give a voice to the voiceless, and hold people and
organisations with power to account.
Our reports have prompted official inquiries in the UK, EU and US; influenced changes in
British policy on refugees, house-building and care homes; and resulted in greater
transparency about civilian casualties in America’s covert drone war - the subject of this
report.
The ​Bureau​’s work has appeared in every major British newspaper and broadcaster and
many international news outlets. We have produced more than 50 front-page investigations
and prominent television packages, and received more than 30 journalistic awards and
nominations.

 39

ABOUT THE AUTHOR 
Jack Serle is an independent journalist. Until
2018 he was a specialist reporter on the
Bureau’s covert drone war project.
He joined the Bureau in 2012 and was part of
the team that won the Martha Gellhorn Prize
for Journalism in 2013 for their investigations
into drones and the war on terror.

 
IMAGES
Cover image: ​An MQ-9 Reaper at Creech Air Force Base, US Air Force / Lance Cheung
Foreword: ​A crew chief from the 432nd Aircraft Maintenance Squadron taxis in an MQ-1
Predator, Alamy
A Brief History of Drones: ​An MQ-1 Predator unmanned aircraft, US Air Force / Leslie
Pratt
Why Names?:​ MQ-9 Reaper, Iraq, US Air Force / Erik Gudmundson
How we did it: ​MQ-9 Reaper, Iraq, US Air Force / Jason Epley
What we found: ​President Obama in the James S Brady Press Briefing Room of the White
House, April 2016, Obama White House / Flikr / Amanda Lucidon
The US response: ​John Brennan at dinner with President Obama, White House / Flikr /
Pete Souza
Increased precision? ​Predator Drone Strike, Kairos Interceptor, YouTube
Reflections: ​MQ-1 Predator being prepared for flight, Iraq, US Air Force / Jonathan Snyder

 40

REFERENCES 
1​

Lubold, Gordon and Harris, Shane, 'Trump Broadens CIA Powers, Allows Deadly Drone Strikes', The Wall Street
Journal, 13 March 2017, www.wsj.com/articles/trump-gave-cia-power-to-launch-drone-strikes-1489444374
2​
Babb, Carla, 'US General Admits Civilians Killed in Yemen Raid', Voice of America, 9 March 2017,
www.voanews.com/a/us-general-admits-civilians-killed-in-yemen-raid/3757447.html
3​
Mcfadden, Cynthia, Arkin, William M, and Uehlinger, Tim, 'How the Trump Team’s First Military Raid in
Yemen Went Wrong', NBC News, 2 October 2017,
www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/how-trump-team-s-first-military-raid-went-wrong-n806246
4​
Purkiss, Jessica and Serle, Jack, 'Yemen: Reported US covert actions 2017', The Bureau of Investigative
Journalism, 29 January 2017,
www.thebureauinvestigates.com/drone-war/data/yemen-reported-us-covert-actions-2017#strike-4397
5​
Purkiss, Jessica and Serle, Jack, 'Obama’s covert drone war in numbers: ten times more strikes than Bush', The
Bureau of Investigative Journalism, 17 January 2017,
www.thebureauinvestigates.com/stories/2017-01-17/obamas-covert-drone-war-in-numbers-ten-times-more-stri
kes-than-bush. See also
Serle, Jack, 'Obama drone casualty numbers a fraction of those recorded by the Bureau', The Bureau of
Investigative Journalism, 1 July 2016,
www.thebureauinvestigates.com/stories/2016-07-01/obama-drone-casualty-numbers-a-fraction-of-those-record
ed-by-the-bureau
6​
Purkiss, Jessica, and Fielding-Smith, Abigail, 'White House releases annual counterterrorism CIVCAS figures',
The Bureau of Investigative Journalism, 20 January 2017,
www.thebureauinvestigates.com/stories/2017-01-20/white-house-releases-annual-counterterrorism-civcasfigures; and also
Purkiss, Jessica, and Fielding-Smith, Abigail, 'Trump's Pentagon ups secrecy around US air wars', The Bureau of
Investigative Journalism, 14 March 2018,
www.thebureauinvestigates.com/stories/2018-03-14/trump-and-reduction-of-transparency
7​
Klaidman, Daniel, 'Drones: the Silent Killers', Newsweek, 28 May 2012,
www.newsweek.com/drones-silent-killers-64909
8​
Ackerman, Spencer, 'Victim of Obama's first drone strike: "I am the living example of what drones are"', The
Guardian, 23 January 2016, www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jan/23/drone-strike-victim-barack-obama
9​
Woods, Chris, ​Sudden Justice: America’s Secret Drone Wars​, Hurst Publishers, 2015; and Whittle, Richard,
Predator: The Secret Origins of the Drone Revolution​, Macmillan, 2014.
10​
Ibid.
11​
Woodward, Bob, ​Obama’s Wars​, Simon and Schuster, 2010
12​
Drone Warfare, Bureau of Investigative Journalism, www.thebureauinvestigates.com/projects/drone-war
13​
Ibid.
14​
Rogers, James, 'Drone Warfare: The Death of Precision', Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 12 May 2017,
thebulletin.org/drone-warfare-death-precision10766
15​
Obama Administration Counterterrorism Strategy, 29 June 2011,
www.c-span.org/video/?300266-1/obama-administration-counterterrorism-strategy&start=2932
16​
Shane, Scott, 'CIA Is Disputed On Civilian Toll In Drone Strikes', The New York Times, 11 August 2011,
www.nytimes.com/2011/08/12/world/asia/12drones.html
17​
Hird, Christopher, 'Investigative Journalism Works: The Mechanism of Impact', January 2018,
assets.documentcloud.org/documents/4357514/impactreportjan18janfinal.pdf
18​
'Standards for Casualty Recording', Every Casualty, 2016,
www.everycasualty.org/downloads/ec/pdf/StandardsforCasualtyRecording-Version1.0(2016).pdf (The Bureau
was involved in drawing up these standards.)

 41

19​

'Counting Drone Strike Deaths', Columbia Law School Human Rights Clinic, October 2012,
web.law.columbia.edu/sites/default/files/microsites/human-rights-institute/files/COLUMBIACountingDronesFi
nal.pdf
20​
Ibid.
21​
Ibid.
22​
'Strikes in Pakistan', The Bureau of Investigative Journalism,
www.thebureauinvestigates.com/projects/drone-war/charts?show_casualties=1&show_injuries=1&show_strikes
=1&location=pakistan&from=2004-1-1&to=now
23​
'"Pakistan: Will I Be Next?" US Drone Strikes in Pakistan', Amnesty International, 22 October 2012,
www.amnesty.org/en/documents/asa33/013/2013/en/
24​
Baker, Peter, 'Obama Apologizes After Drone Kills American and Italian Held By Al Qaeda', The New York
Times, 23 April 2015,
www.nytimes.com/2015/04/24/world/asia/2-qaeda-hostages-were-accidentally-killed-in-us-raid-white-house-s
ays.html
25​
Bergner, Daniel, 'The Killing of Warren Weinstein', The New York Times Magazine, 11 February 2016,
www.nytimes.com/2016/02/14/magazine/the-killing-of-warren-weinstein.html
26​
Serle, Jack, 'Sorry for Killing Your Son, CIA Tells Drone Strike Victim’s Family During Unprecedented Meeting',
The Bureau of Investigative Journalism, 31 October 2016,
v1.thebureauinvestigates.com/namingthedead/sorry-for-killing-your-son-cia-tells-drone-strike-victims-family-d
uring-unprecedented-meeting/?lang=en
27​
Shane, Scott, 'CIA Is Disputed On Civilian Toll In Drone Strikes', The New York Times, 11 August 2011,
www.nytimes.com/2011/08/12/world/asia/12drones.html
28​
Shane, Scott, 'Contrasting Reports Of Drone Strikes', The New York Times, 11 August 2011,
www.nytimes.com/2011/08/12/world/asia/12droneside.html
29​
Woods, Chris and Lamb, Christina, 'CIA tactics in Pakistan include targeting rescuers and funerals', The Bureau
of Investigative Journalism, 4 February 2012,
www.thebureauinvestigates.com/stories/2012-02-04/cia-tactics-in-pakistan-include-targeting-rescuers-and-fun
erals
and
Shane, Scott, 'US Said to Target Rescuers at Drone Strike Sites', The New York Times, 5 February 2012,
www.nytimes.com/2012/02/06/world/asia/us-drone-strikes-are-said-to-target-rescuers.html
30​
Woods, Chris, 'Al Qaeda Number Two Killed in Drone Strike', The Bureau of Investigative Journalism, 30
August 2011, www.thebureauinvestigates.com/stories/2011-08-30/al-qaeda-number-two-killed-in-drone-strike
31​
'South Waziristan 28/07/2008', Naming the Dead,
v1.thebureauinvestigates.com/namingthedead/strikes/b17/?lang=en
32​
'Hakimullah Mehsud, Case study', Naming The Dead,
v1.thebureauinvestigates.com/namingthedead/people/6822/?lang=en
33​
Shane, Scott, 'CIA Is Disputed On Civilian Toll In Drone Strikes', The New York Times, 11 August 2011,
www.nytimes.com/2011/08/12/world/asia/12drones.html
34​
Ibid.
35​
Ibid.
36​
Lewis, Larry and Vavrichek, Diane, ​Rethinking The Drone War: National Security, Legitimacy, and Civilian
Casualties in US Counterterrorism Operations​, CNA / Marine Corps University Press, 2016,
fas.org/man/eprint/drone-war.pdf
37​
Background interview with former member of ISAF civilian casualty monitoring team, December 2017.
38​
Ibid.
39​
'Remarks by the President in a Conversation on the Supreme Court Nomination', 8 April 2016,
obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2016/04/08/remarks-president-conversation-supreme-court-n
omination
40​
'Procedures For Approving Direct Action Against Terrorist Targets Located Outside the United States and
Areas of Active Hostilities', Department of Justice, 22 May 2013,
www.justice.gov/oip/foia-library/procedures_for_approving_direct_action_against_terrorist_targets/download

 42

41​

Woods, Chris, 'Obama’s Five Rules For Covert Drone Strikes', The Bureau of Investigative Journalism, 6
September 2012,
www.thebureauinvestigates.com/stories/2012-09-06/obamas-five-rules-for-covert-drone-strikes
42​
DeYoung, Karen, 'Secrecy Defines Obama’s Drone War, The Washington Post, 19 December 2011,
www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/secrecy-defines-obamas-drone-war/2011/10/28/gIQAPKNR
5O_story.html?utm_term=.2319189824aa
43​
'Summary of Information Regarding US Counterterrorism Strikes Outside Areas of Active Hostilities', Office of
the Director of National Intelligence, 1 July 2016,
www.dni.gov/index.php/newsroom/reports-publications/reports-publications-2016/item/1607-summary-of-inf
ormation-regarding-u-s-counterterrorism-strikes-outside-areas-of-active-hostilities
44​
It was meant to become an annual data release. But, with Donald Trump about to take up residence in the
White House, the Obama administration managed to squeeze out the 2016 figures the day before Trump’s
inauguration on 19 January 2017. The Trump administration has restricted the information on strikes.
The 2017 figures are available here:
'Summary Of Information Regarding US Counterterrorism Strikes Outside Areas Of Active Hostilities', Office of
the Director of National Intelligence, 19 January 2017,
www.dni.gov/index.php/newsroom/reports-publications/item/1741-summary-of-information-regarding-u-s-cou
nterterrorism-strikes-outside-areas-of-active-hostilities
Details on the Trump administration’s restriction of information:
Purkiss, Jessica, and Fielding-Smith, Abigail, 'Trump's Pentagon ups secrecy around US air wars', The Bureau of
Investigative Journalism, 14 March 2018,
www.thebureauinvestigates.com/stories/2018-03-14/trump-and-reduction-of-transparency
45​
Ibid
46​
Khan, Azmat, and Gopal Anand, 'The Uncounted', The New York Times Magazine, 16 November 2016,
www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/11/16/magazine/uncounted-civilian-casualties-iraq-airstrikes.html
47​
'Public Continues to Back US Drone Attacks', Pew Research Center, 28 May 2015,
www.people-press.org/2015/05/28/public-continues-to-back-u-s-drone-attacks/
48​
Ross, Alice, 'UK drones three times more likely than US to fire in Afghanistan', The Bureau of Investigative
Journalism, 6 September 2013,
www.thebureauinvestigates.com/stories/2013-09-06/uk-drones-three-times-more-likely-than-us-to-fire-in-afgh
anistan
49​
Woods, Chris, 'Consensus grows among UN states for greater transparency on drone civilian deaths', The
Bureau of Investigative Journalism, 26 October 2013,
www.thebureauinvestigates.com/stories/2013-10-26/consensus-grows-among-un-states-for-greater-transparenc
y-on-drone-civilian-deaths
50​
Ibid
51​
Becker, Jo, and Shane, Scott, 'Secret ‘Kill List’ Proves a Test of Obama’s Principles and Will', The New York
Times, 29 May 2012, www.nytimes.com/2012/05/29/world/obamas-leadership-in-war-on-al-qaeda.html
52​
Airwars, airwars.org
53​
Poushter, Jacob and Manevich, Dorothy, 'Globally, People Point to ISIS and Climate Change as Leading
Security Threats', Pew Research Center, 1 August 2017,
www.pewglobal.org/2017/08/01/globally-people-point-to-isis-and-climate-change-as-leading-security-threats/
54​
'Summary of the 2018 National Defense Strategy of the United States of America: Sharpening the American
Military’s Competitive Edge', Department of Defense, January 2018,
www.defense.gov/Portals/1/Documents/pubs/2018-National-Defense-Strategy-Summary.pdf
55​
Ward, Alex, 'Trump has tripled the pace of US bombing in Afghanistan', Vox, 21 November 2017,
www.vox.com/world/2017/11/21/16684628/trump-afghanistan-bomb-troops