
A suspected drone strike in Yemen mistakenly killed 15 civilians Thursday, officials say. It is not known, at this time, which country executed the drone strike. reuters
Rising anger over deadly drone attacks spurred a Pakistani political party Wednesday to reveal the secret identity of what it said was the top U.S. spy in the country. It demanded he be tried for murder, another blow to already jagged relations between the two nations. A pair of U.S. missile strikes in recent weeks…
The chief of the Pakistani Taliban was killed by a U.S. drone strike on Friday, security sources and a senior Taliban commander said, in a major blow to the country’s most feared militant group. Hakimullah Mehsud was one of Pakistan’s most wanted men with a $5 million U.S. bounty on his head. He led an…
A former U.S. air force drone operator has described how he is haunted by his time as a “remote killer” functioning in “zombie mode” in missions over Afghanistan and Iraq that claimed more than 1,600 lives. Brandon Bryant, a retired airman who operated remote-controlled Predator aircraft from U.S. bases in Nevada and New Mexico, offers…
Top Pakistani officials, despite publicly denouncing the CIA’s drone campaign, have for years secretly endorsed the program and routinely received classified briefings on strikes and casualty counts, according to top-secret CIA documents and Pakistani diplomatic memos obtained by The Washington Post. The files describe dozens of drone attacks in Pakistan’s tribal region and include maps…
Drones Killing Innocent Pakistanis, U.N. Official Says Special Rapporteur Ben Emmerson just returned from the region, where he listened to residents talk about terrifying encounters with one of America’s weapons in the war on terror. “Adult males carrying out ordinary daily tasks were frequently the victims of such strikes,” the statement from the U.N. office…
Brennan defends drone strikes, even on Americans CIA Director-designate John Brennan strongly defended anti-terror attacks by unmanned drones Thursday under close questioning at a protest-disrupted confirmation hearing. On a second controversial topic, he said that after reading a classified intelligence report on harsh interrogation techniques, he does not know if waterboarding has yielded useful information.…
An internal Justice Department memo says it is legal for the government to kill U.S. citizens abroad if it believes they are senior al-Qaida leaders continually engaged in operations aimed at killing Americans. The document, reported Monday by NBC News, provides a legal rationale behind the Obama administration’s use of drone strikes against al-Qaida suspects.…