MQ-1 Predator, armed with AGM-114 Hellfire missiles

Since the

September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercia ...

, the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

has carried out

drone strike Drone warfare is a form of aerial warfare using unmanned combat aerial vehicles (UCAV) or weaponized commercial unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV). The United States, United Kingdom, Israel, China, South Korea, Iran, Italy, France, India, Pakista ...

s in

Pakistan Pakistan ( ur, ), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan ( ur, , label=none), is a country in South Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, fifth-most populous country, with a population of almost 24 ...

Yemen Yemen (; ar, ٱلْيَمَن, al-Yaman), officially the Republic of Yemen,, ) is a country in Western Asia. It is situated on the southern end of the Arabian Peninsula, and borders Saudi Arabia to the Saudi Arabia–Yemen border, north and ...

Somalia Somalia, , Osmanya script: 𐒈𐒝𐒑𐒛𐒐𐒘𐒕𐒖; ar, الصومال, aṣ-Ṣūmāl officially the Federal Republic of SomaliaThe ''Federal Republic of Somalia'' is the country's name per Article 1 of thProvisional Constituti ...

Afghanistan Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,; prs, امارت اسلامی افغانستان is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. Referred to as the Heart of Asia, it is bordere ...

Iraq Iraq,; ku, عێراق, translit=Êraq officially the Republic of Iraq, '; ku, کۆماری عێراق, translit=Komarî Êraq is a country in Western Asia. It is bordered by Turkey to Iraq–Turkey border, the north, Iran to Iran–Iraq ...

and

Libya Libya (; ar, ليبيا, Lībiyā), officially the State of Libya ( ar, دولة ليبيا, Dawlat Lībiyā), is a country in the Maghreb region in North Africa. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to Egypt–Libya bo ...

.Cora Currier
Everything We Know So Far About Drone Strikes
Pro Publica (February 5, 2013).Obama’s covert drone war in numbers: ten times more strikes than Bush
Bureau of Investigative Journalism (January 17, 2017). Drone strikes are part of a

targeted killing Targeted killing is a form of murder or assassination carried out by governments outside a judicial procedure or a battlefield. Since the late 20th century, the legal status of targeted killing has become a subject of contention within and betw ...

campaign against militants. Determining precise counts of the total number killed, as well as the number of non-combatant civilians killed, is impossible; and tracking of strikes and estimates of casualties are compiled by a number of organizations, such as the ''

Long War Journal ''FDD's Long War Journal'' (LWJ) is an American news website, also described as a blog, which reports on the War on terror. The site is operated by Public Multimedia Incorporated (PMI), a non-profit media organization established in 2007. PMI is ...

'' (Pakistan and Yemen), the

New America Foundation New America, formerly the New America Foundation, is a think tank in the United States founded in 1999. It focuses on a range of public policy issues, including national security studies, technology, asset building, health, gender, energy, educa ...

(Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, and Libya), and the London-based

Total numbers

Independent estimates

Taken together, independent estimates from the non-governmental organizations New America and the

Bureau of Investigative Journalism The Bureau of Investigative Journalism (typically abbreviated to TBIJ or "the Bureau") is a nonprofit news organisation based in London. It was founded in 2010 to pursue "public interest" investigations. Trump Cancels Drone Strike Casualty Report: Does It Matter?
''War on the Rocks'' (April 2, 2019). Civilian casualties as a percentage of overall deaths were highest in Yemen and lowest in Somalia. The New America figures report that: * The first known U.S. drone strike in Pakistan was June 19, 2004, and the most recent U.S. drone strike as of the report's publication was in Pakistan on July 4, 2018. Over those 14 years, there were 413 reported strikes in Pakistan (with the peak being in 2010), which killed a total of between 2,366 and 3,702 people; of the total deaths, between 245 and 303 were civilians. * The first known U.S. drone strike in Yemen was November 3, 2002 (killing al-Qaeda operative

Qaed Salim Sinan al-Harethi Qaed Salim Sinan al-Harethi a.k.a. Abu Ali al-Harithi ( ar, أبو علي الحارثي ) (died November 3, 2002) was an al-Qaeda operative and a citizen of Yemen who is suspected of having been involved in the October 2000 USS Cole bombing, an ...

), and the most recent U.S. drone strike in Yemen as of the report's publication was May 17, 2020. Over those 18 years, there were 374 reported strikes in Yemen (with the peak being in 2012), which killed a total of between 1,378 and 1,775 people; of the total deaths, between 115 and 149 were civilians. * In Libya, from the end of the 2011 UN-approved military intervention through March 31, 2020, there were 4,500 air, drone, and artillery strikes in Libya, carried out by many warring Libyan factions and their foreign supporters including the American, Russian, United Arab Emirates, Turkish, and Egyptian governments. The U.S. carried out 550 strikes (from all methods, not just drones), almost all of them in

Operation Odyssey Lightning The Battle of Sirte started in the spring of 2016, in the Sirte District in Libya, between the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and the loyalist forces of the Government of National Accord (GNA) backed by the United States. ISIL forc ...

in 2016. The U.S. strikes killed between 238 and 298 people, of whom between 227 and 277 were combatants, and between 11 and 21 were civilians. * In Somalia, there were a total of 263 U.S. counter-terrorism airstrikes, drone strikes, and ground raids from 2003 to 2021. Of the 263, the majority (202) occurred under the Trump administration. Collectively, between 1,479 and 1,886 people have been killed in the U.S. strikes in Somalia: between 1,389 and 1,696 militants, between 34 and 121 civilians, and between 56 and 69 unknowns. The

Office of the Director of National Intelligence

The

Office of the Director of National Intelligence The director of national intelligence (DNI) is a senior, cabinet-level United States government official, required by the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 to serve as executive head of the United States Intelligence Comm ...

reported that: * Between January 20, 2009, and December 31, 2015: 473 U.S. strikes "against terrorist targets outside areas of active hostilities" (i.e., outside Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria) with between 2,372 and 2,581 combatant deaths and between 64 and 116 non-combatant deaths, ''i.e.'', a civilian casualty rate of 2.63–4.30%. * For the calendar year 2016: 53 U.S. strikes "against terrorist targets outside areas of active hostilities" (i.e., outside Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria) with 431-441 combatant deaths and 1 non-combatant death; ''i.e.'', a civilian casualty rate of 0.2%. Both the 2009-2015 and the 2016 DNI reports state: "Non-combatants are individuals who may not be made the object of attack under applicable international law. The term 'non-combatant' does not include an individual who is part of a belligerent party to an armed conflict, an individual who is taking a direct part in hostilities, or an individual who is targetable in the exercise of U.S. national self-defense. Males of military age may be non-combatants; it is not the case that all military-aged males in the vicinity of a target are deemed to be combatants." As the DNI reports acknowledge, the government's reported numbers of civilian casualties are far lower than estimates from non-governmental organizations. Scholar Nicholas Grossman, who studies drone strikes, wrote that the official figures "systematically underestimated civilian casualties" and notes that independent estimates suggest a substantially higher rate of civilian casualties, which is likely attributable to the government methodology for classifying an individual as a "combatant." DNI explains this discrepancy as the result of three causes: (1) the U.S. government "uses post-strike methodologies that have been refined and honed over the years and that use information that is generally unavailable to non-governmental organizations," such as sensitive intelligence reliably indicating "that certain individuals are combatants" although but are being counted as non-combatants by nongovernmental organizations; (2) that the U.S. government uses "post-strike reviews involve the collection and analysis of multiple sources of intelligence before, during, and after a strike, including video observations, human sources and assets, signals intelligence,

geospatial intelligence In the United States, geospatial intelligence (GEOINT) is intelligence about the human activity on earth derived from the exploitation and analysis of imagery, signals, or signatures with geospatial information. GEOINT describes, assesses, and vis ...

, accounts from local officials on the ground, and open source reporting" and that this often unique set of information "can provide insights that are likely unavailable to non-governmental organizations" and "frequently enables U.S. Government analysts to confirm, among other things, the number of individuals killed as well as their combatant status"; and (3) some terrorist groups and other actors deliberately promote

misinformation Misinformation is incorrect or misleading information. It differs from disinformation, which is ''deliberately'' deceptive. Rumors are information not attributed to any particular source, and so are unreliable and often unverified, but can turn ou ...

"in local media reports on which some non-governmental estimates rely."

Sources of evidence

Assessing civilian versus militant casualties is difficult. The New America count relies on multiple sources, such as reporting from international and local journalists, corroborating evidence from social media, reports from

non-governmental organization A non-governmental organization (NGO) or non-governmental organisation (see spelling differences) is an organization that generally is formed independent from government. They are typically nonprofit entities, and many of them are active in h ...

(NGOs), and official reports from the U.S. military. The Bureau of Investigative Journalism count also draws from a variety of sources. Some scholars and human rights activists, such as Sarah Knuckey and

Radhya Al-Mutawakel Radhya Al-Mutawakel (born 12 April 1967) is a human rights defender and the Yemeni co-founder and chairperson of Mwatana Organisation For Human Rights, an independent organisation working to defend and protect human rights in Yemen. Al-Mutawakel a ...

, criticize the U.S. Defense Department failing to "regularly interview" eyewitnesses as part of investigations into civilian casualties, arguing that this is "a critical flaw in their investigation methodology" and that the U.S. military could overcome obstacles such as a "lack of on-the-ground networks, security concerns and/or issues related to impartiality." In response, scholar Charles J. Dunlap argues that the Defense Department does incorporate witness accounts in its assessments, and that over-reliance on witness statements can be problematic since

eyewitness testimony Eyewitness testimony is the account a bystander or victim gives in the courtroom, describing what that person observed that occurred during the specific incident under investigation. Ideally this recollection of events is detailed; however, this is ...

and

memory Memory is the faculty of the mind by which data or information is encoded, stored, and retrieved when needed. It is the retention of information over time for the purpose of influencing future action. If past events could not be remembered, ...

are often unreliable. In February 2013, Senator

Dianne Feinstein Dianne Goldman Berman Feinstein ( ; born Dianne Emiel Goldman; June 22, 1933) is an American politician who serves as the senior United States senator from California, a seat she has held since 1992. A member of the Democratic Party, she was ...

, the chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said in a hearing, "But for the past several years, this committee has done significant oversight of the government's conduct of targeted strikes and the figures we have obtained from the executive branch, which we have done our utmost to verify, confirm that the number of civilian casualties that have resulted from such strikes has typically been in the single digits." Leaked CIA documents provided to ''

The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...

'' in 2013, showed that top Pakistani government officials "have for years secretly endorsed the IA’s droneprogram and routinely received classified briefings on strikes and casualty counts". The documents indicate that the CIA has "remarkable confidence" in the accuracy of the drone strikes, with the documents often showing no civilian casualties. ''The Washington Post'' said this was "at odds with research done by human rights organizations, including Amnesty International".

Approvals of drone strikes

During the Obama administration, proposed U.S. drone strikes in locations outside active war zones (i.e., in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia) required high-level approval. The Obama administration process for approving drone strikes in such locations featured centralized, high-level oversight, based on intelligence about individuals suspected of terrorism activity. Obama's approval was required for every strike in Yemen and Somalia, as well as "the more complex and risky strikes in Pakistan" (about one-third of the total as of 2012), and insisted on deciding whether to approve a strike unless the CIA had a "near certainty" that no civilian deaths would result. The process, formalized in a 2013 Presidential Policy Guidance document, was intended to reduce civilian casualties and blowback risks by requiring the targeted person to present a "continuing and imminent threat" to Americans. The process often required multiple interagency meetings to decide whether to go forward with a strike. However, some U.S. military and intelligence officials opposed the restrictive nature of the system, and some Republicans criticized it as too cautious. However, in the pre-strike review, Obama "embraced a disputed method for counting civilian casualties" that effectively counted "all military-age males in a strike zone as combatants, according to several administration officials, unless there is explicit intelligence posthumously proving them innocent." Counterterrorism officials defended this approach on the idea that people located in close proximity to known terrorists were likely combatants; some Obama administration officials were critical of this approach, who said that it led to implausibly low official counts of civilian deaths, with one administration official telling the ''New York Times'' that it amounted to "

guilt by association Guilt may refer to: *Guilt (emotion), an emotion that occurs when a person feels that they have violated a moral standard *Culpability, a legal term *Guilt (law), a legal term Music * ''Guilt'' (album), a 2009 album by Mims * "Guilt" (The Long Bl ...

." In October 2017, Trump abolished the Obama-era approval system in favor of a looser, decentralized approach, which gave the military and CIA officials the discretion to decide to launch drone strikes against targets without White House approval. This policy reduced accountability for drone strikes. After Joe Biden took office, he halted counterterrorism drone strikes without White House approval and initiated a broad review of U.S. policy on drone use.

Disclosure of figures by U.S. government

On July 1, 2016, President Barack Obama signed an

executive order In the United States, an executive order is a directive by the president of the United States that manages operations of the federal government. The legal or constitutional basis for executive orders has multiple sources. Article Two of th ...

requiring annual accounting of civilian and enemy casualties in U.S. drone strikes outside war zones ("Areas Outside of Active Hostilities"), and setting a deadline of May 1 each year for the release of such report.Charlie Savage
Trump Revokes Obama-Era Rule on Disclosing Civilian Casualties From U.S. Airstrikes Outside War Zones
''The New York Times'' (March 6, 2019). However, soon after taking office, President

Donald Trump Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who served as the 45th president of the United States from 2017 to 2021. Trump graduated from the Wharton School of the University of Pe ...

designated large areas in

and

to be "areas of active hostilities," thus exempting them from disclosure. The

Trump administration Donald Trump's tenure as the List of presidents of the United States, 45th president of the United States began with Inauguration of Donald Trump, his inauguration on January 20, 2017, and ended on January 20, 2021. Trump, a Republican Party ...

also ignored the 2017 and 2018 deadlines for an annual accounting, and on March 6, 2019, Trump issued an order revoking the requirement. However, since 2016, Congress has enacted legislation separately requiring the Defense Department to release "annual reports about bystander deaths from all of its operations" including strikes inside war zones (such as Afghanistan and Syria). For example, disclosure is required pursuant to Section 1057 of the

National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2018 The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2018 (; NDAA 2018Pub.L. 115–91 is a United States federal law which specifies the budget, expenditures and policies of the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) for Fiscal Year 2018. Analogou ...

. This legislation requiring disclosure of bystander deaths, however, covers only Defense Department drone strikes and does not extend to separate CIA drone strikes.

Afghanistan

After more than 30 UAV-based strikes hit civilian homes in Afghanistan in 2012, President

Hamid Karzai Hamid Karzai (; Pashto/ fa, حامد کرزی, , ; born 24 December 1957) is an Afghan statesman who served as the fourth president of Afghanistan from July 2002 to September 2014, including as the first elected president of the Islamic Repub ...

demanded that such attacks end, but the practice continues in areas of Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia. Former U.S. President

Jimmy Carter James Earl Carter Jr. (born October 1, 1924) is an American politician who served as the 39th president of the United States from 1977 to 1981. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, he previously served as th ...

has criticized such use of UAVs: "We don't know how many hundreds of innocent civilians have been killed in these attacks ... This would have been unthinkable in previous times." The U.S. launched an investigation following an August 2021 drone attack in Kabul that killed 7 children, their father who worked for a U.S. employer, and other family members. On September 17, the Department of Defense confirmed that the strike was a "tragic mistake" and killed 10 civilians.

Pakistan

In October 2013, the Pakistani government revealed that since 2008, civilian casualties made up 3 percent of deaths from drone strikes. Since 2008, it alleges there have been 317 drone strikes that killed 2,160 Islamic militants and 67 civilians. This is less than previous government and independent organization calculations of collateral damage from these attacks. S. Azmat Hassan, a former ambassador of Pakistan, said in July 2009 that American UAV attacks were turning Pakistani opinion against the United States and that 35 or 40 such attacks killed 8 or 9 top al-Qaeda operatives. A 2011 report from the Bureau of Investigative Journalism (BIJ) identified at least 385 civilians killed in seven years of CIA drone strikes in Pakistan's

Federally Administered Tribal Areas , conventional_long_name = Federally Administered Tribal Areas , nation = Pakistan , subdivision = Autonomous territory , image_flag = Flag of FATA.svg , image_coat = File:Coat of arms ...

, including "credible reports" of 168 child deaths. The BIJ found that the highest number of child deaths in drone strikes occurred during the presidency of George W. Bush, and that child fatalities had fallen after August 2010. Also in 2011, the BIJ found that there were "at least 1,117 people whose injuries were severe enough to merit a mention in press reports," and that these were "a mixture of militants and civilians, adults and children, though their names are rarely reported." A 2012 analysis of the U.S. drone campaign in Pakistan by

Peter Bergen Peter Bergen (born December 11, 1962) is an American journalist, author, and producer who serves as CNN's national security analyst and as New America's vice president. He produced the first television interview with Osama bin Laden in 1997, wh ...

of the

found that the "number of militants reported killed by drone strikes is 89% of the fatalities under Obama compared to 67% under Bush." Bergen wrote, "Since it began in 2004, the drone campaign has killed 49 militant leaders whose deaths have been confirmed by at least two credible news sources. While this represents a significant blow to the militant chain of command, these 49 deaths account for only 2% of all drone-related fatalities."

Yemen

An attack by the US in December 2013, in a wedding procession in Yemen, killed 12 men and wounded at least 15 other people, including the bride. US and Yemeni officials said the dead were members of the armed group

Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula ( ar-at, تنظيم القاعدة في جزيرة العرب, Tanẓīm al-Qā‘idah fī Jazīrat al-‘Arab, lit=Organization of the Base in the Arabian Peninsula or , ''Tanẓīm Qā‘idat al-Jihād fī Jaz ...

(AQAP), but witnesses and relatives told

Human Rights Watch Human Rights Watch (HRW) is an international non-governmental organization, headquartered in New York City, that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. The group pressures governments, policy makers, companies, and individual human r ...

the casualties were civilians. Witnesses and relatives told Human Rights Watch that no members of AQAP were in the procession and provided names and other information about those killed and wounded. They said the dead included the groom's adult son and the bride received superficial face wounds. The local governor and military commander called the casualties a "mistake" and gave money and assault rifles to the families of those killed and wounded – a traditional gesture of apology in Yemen. A few days after the incident, Yemeni MPs voted for a ban against the use of drones in Yemen, though it is unclear what effect this will have on drone usage. In January 2021, a group of 34 Yemenis submitted a petition against the United States government to the

Inter-American Commission on Human Rights The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (the IACHR or, in the three other official languages Spanish, French, and Portuguese CIDH, ''Comisión Interamericana de los Derechos Humanos'', ''Commission Interaméricaine des Droits de l'Homme'', ...

with the help of U.K-based human rights group Reprieve. The petition calls out the U.S. Special Operations raid and six drone strikes that took place in Yemen's Bayda province from 2013 to 2018 and resulted in civilian casualties for the Ameri family and the Taisy family. The petition also includes documents describing rural life and counterterrorism action in Bayda.

Criticism

There are several vocal critics of the use of UAVs to track and kill terrorists and militants. A major criticism of drone strikes is that they result in excessive collateral damage.

David Kilcullen David John Kilcullen FRGS (born 1967) is an Australian author, strategist, and counterinsurgency expert who is currently the non-executive chairman of Caerus Associates, a strategy and design consulting firm that he founded. He is a professor a ...

and

Andrew Exum Andrew Exum is an American scholar of the Middle East, a former U.S. Army officer. He was a part of General Stanley McChrystal's review of the American strategy in Afghanistan. Life After graduating from The McCallie School in Chattanooga, Tenne ...

wrote in the ''New York Times'' that drone strikes "have killed about 14 terrorist leaders". It has also killed an unknown number of militants. But, according to Pakistani sources, they have also killed some 700 civilians. It is difficult to reconcile figures of civilian casualties because the drone strikes are often in areas that are inaccessible to independent observers and the data includes reports by local officials and local media, neither of whom are reliable sources. Grégoire Chamayou's analysis, of one three-hour-long surveillance and attack operation on a convoy of three SUVs that killed civilians in Afghanistan in February 2010, shows a typical, if notorious, case. Throughout the operation, there is a sense of the drone controllers’ desperation to kill the people and destroy the vehicles — whatever the evidence of their clearly civilian nature. The transcript is full of statements like "that truck would make a beautiful target"; "Oh, sweet target!"; "the men appear to be moving tactically"; and "They’re going to do something nefarious". Critics also fear that by making killing seem clean and safe, so-called surgical UAV strikes will allow the United States to remain in a perpetual state of war. However, others maintain that drones "allow for a much closer review and much more selective targeting process than do other instruments of warfare" and are subject to Congressional oversight. Like any military technology, armed UAVs will kill people, combatants and innocents alike. Noted sociologist

Amitai Etzioni Amitai Etzioni (; Werner Falk; born 4 January 1929) is a German-born Israeli-American sociologist, best known for his work on socioeconomics and communitarianism. He founded the Communitarian Network, a non-profit, non-partisan organization ...

, writing in a 2013 ''Military Review'' article concluded "the main turning point concerns the question of whether we should go to war at all." In a 2013

Georgetown University Law Center The Georgetown University Law Center (Georgetown Law) is the law school of Georgetown University, a private research university in Washington, D.C. It was established in 1870 and is the largest law school in the United States by enrollment and ...

paper, law professor

Rosa Brooks Rosa Brooks ( Ehrenreich; born 1970) is an American law professor, journalist, author and commentator on foreign policy, U.S. politics and criminal justice. She is the Scott K. Ginsburg Professor of Law and Policy at Georgetown University Law C ...

argued that UAV strikes threaten the international rule of law because they are difficult to place in legal categories and they change the meaning of important legal concepts like "self-defense", "combatant", and "armed conflict", among others. Brooks asserted that the U.S.' legal justifications for UAV attacks are confusing because they switch from focusing on self-defense to armed conflict. The

international law International law (also known as public international law and the law of nations) is the set of rules, norms, and standards generally recognized as binding between states. It establishes normative guidelines and a common conceptual framework for ...

concept of imminence is also put into question as a result of U.S. justifications. Brooks notes the shift from an imminence standard requiring states to have "concrete knowledge of an actual impending attack" to the U.S. justifying UAV strikes with a "lack of knowledge of a future attack".

References

{{Reflist, 30em : American military aviation Drone strikes United States war crimes