Waziristan February 20, 2004-September 5, 2006 Correlates of War Coded: Authorized by Congress Duration of Total War: February 20, 2004-September 5, 2006 (928 Days) United States Casualties: 0 Description: The bombings in Pakistan are a result of the war in Afghanistan. The United States pressured the Pakistani government of President Pervez Musharraf to intervene, and in February 2004 the two countries launched an offensive into the region. 1 The bombings ended when the Pakistani government signed an agreement with the Waziri tribes in 2006. Documents: Peter Bergen and Katherine Tiedmann, 2004-2007, The Year of the Drone, New America Foundation, February 24, 2010, http://www.newamerica.net/sites/newamerica.net/files/policydocs/bergentiedemann2.pdf. "US Beefs up Forces in Afghanistan," BBC News, March 26, 2004, accessed May 31, 2013, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/3570737.stm. "The 2008 Armed Conflicts Report Preview." Ploughshares Monitor (Summer 2008), accessed May 20, 2013, http://ploughshares.ca/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/acrsummer2008.pdf. 1 Meredith Reid Sarkees and Frank Wayman, Resort to War: 1816-2007 (Washington, DC: CQ Press, 2010), 477.
New America Foundation Counterterrorism Strategy Initiative Policy Paper The Year of the Drone An Analysis of U.S. Drone Strikes in Pakistan, 2004-2010 Peter Bergen and Katherine Tiedemann February 24, 2010 Our study shows that the 114 reported drone strikes in northwest Pakistan from 2004 to the present have killed between 830 and 1,210 individuals, of whom around 550 to 850 were described as militants in reliable press accounts, about two-thirds of the total on average. Thus, the true civilian fatality rate since 2004 according to our analysis is approximately 32 percent. The bomber, a Jordanian doctor linked to al Qaeda, detonated his explosives on December 30, 2009, at an American base in Khost in eastern Afghanistan, killing himself and seven CIA officers and contractors who were operating at the heart of the covert program overseeing U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan s volatile northwestern tribal regions. The suicide attack was a double cross: Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-balawi, the bomber, had earlier provided information to the CIA that was used in targeting some of those drone attacks. 1 Mustafa Abu al-yazid, the current number three in al Qaeda, praised the suicide attack, saying it was to avenge our good martyrs and listing several militant leaders felled by drone strikes. 2 The chief of the Pakistani Taliban, Hakimullah Mehsud, appeared alongside al-balawi in a prerecorded video released on January 9, 2010, saying the attack was revenge for the drone strike that killed Mehsud s ruthless predecessor, Baitullah Mehsud, in August 2009. 3 Pakistan s tribal areas, compared with 45 during the entire administration of George W. Bush. Besides Baitullah Mehsud, those killed by Predator drone missiles included Saleh al-somali, al Qaeda s external operations chief and the link between the militant group s central leadership and its affiliates abroad, in December, and a prominent leader of the Islamic Jihad of Uzbekistan, in September. 4 All told, as many as 10 militant leaders fell to the drones in 2009, in addition to hundreds of lower-level militants and civilians. 1 The killing of civilians in drone attacks is an important and politically charged issue in Pakistan. The strikes are quite unpopular among Pakistanis, who view them as violations of national sovereignty; according to a Gallup poll from August 2009, only 9 percent approved of such attacks. 5 Statistics compiled by Pakistani authorities in early January 1 Saad bin Laden, one of Osama bin Laden s sons; Ilyas Kashmiri, an al Qaeda leader The drone program had a busy year in 2009; under the Obama administration, there were 51 reported strikes in in Pakistan; and Tahir Yuldashev, head of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, were all reported killed by drone strikes at some point in 2009, only to surface later; we count their current status as unclear. Peter Bergen, CNN's national security analyst and author of The Osama bin Laden I Know, is the co-director of the Counterterrorism Strategy Initiative and a senior fellow at the New America Foundation, where Katherine Tiedemann is a policy analyst.
2010 indicated that more than 700 civilians were killed by the drones in 2009 alone. 6 At the other end of the spectrum, an anonymous U.S. government official told the New York Times in early December that just over 20 civilians and more than 400 fighters had been killed in less than two years. 7 reports in the leading English-language newspapers in Pakistan the Daily Times, Dawn, and the News as well as those from Geo TV, the largest independent Pakistani television network. (Links to all those reports are available from www.newamerica.net/drones, a Web site we are launching to track the drone strikes, where this research will be updated regularly.) Other commentators have suggested that the civilian death rate from the drone attacks in Pakistan is 98 percent, while one study claims it is only 10 percent. 8 Trying to ascertain the real civilian death rate from the drone strikes is important both as a moral matter and as a matter of international law, which prohibits indiscriminate attacks against civilians. 9 Compounding the issue is that the civilians who die in these strikes are the citizens of a U.S. ally, and just as it has become a core doctrine of U.S. military operations in Afghanistan that civilians must be protected, so too it should be across the border in Pakistan. Mapping the drones We have also constructed a map, based on the same reliable press accounts and publicly available maps, of the estimated location of each drone strike. 10 Click each pin in the online version to see the details of a reported strike; the red border represents the extent of Pakistan's tribal regions in the northwest of the country. And while we are not professional cartographers, and Google Maps is at times incomplete or imperfect, this map gives our best approximations of the locations and details of each reported drone strike since 2004. 2 A better understanding of the real costs and benefits of the drone strikes in Pakistan might also make the program less controversial there. The lower the civilian casualty rate in such strikes, the more likely the Pakistani public will balance their effects with the fact that the militants targeted in these strikes have themselves masterminded or carried out operations in which more than a thousand Pakistani civilians have died in the last year alone. Our analysis of the civilian death rate from the strikes presents a picture quite different from those of Pakistani authorities, the anonymous U.S. government official, and other commentators. But first, a word about our methodology: Our research draws only on accounts from reliable media organizations with deep reporting capabilities in Pakistan, including the New York Times, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal, accounts by major news services and networks the Associated Press, Reuters, Agence France-Presse, CNN, and the BBC and As a whole, these news organizations cover the drone strikes as accurately and aggressively as possible, and 2 Red pin=2004-2007 Pink pin=2008 Dark blue pin=2009 (Purple pin=bush in 2009) Light blue pin=2010 New America Foundation Counterterrorism.NewAmerica.Net page 2
though we don t claim our research has captured every single death in every drone strike particularly those before 2008, when the pace of the program picked up dramatically it has generated some reliable open-source information about the number of militant leaders killed, a fairly strong estimate of the number of lower-level militants killed, and a reliable sense of the true civilian death rate. One challenge in producing an accurate count is that it is often not possible to differentiate precisely between militants and civilians in these circumstances, as militants live among the population and don t wear uniforms. For instance, when Baitullah Mehsud was killed by a drone last August, one of his wives and his father-in-law died in the strike as well. 11 Further muddying the picture, government sources have an incentive to claim that all those killed in the strikes were militants, while the militants often do the opposite. Number of U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan 60 50 40 The true civilian fatality rate according to our analysis is approximately 32 percent. The year 2009 presented a series of interesting developments in the burgeoning field of dronology. When Pakistan s military began its much-anticipated operations in the Pakistani Taliban stronghold of South Waziristan on October 17, there was a halt in reported drone strikes in that tribal agency after 26 strikes earlier in the year. At the same time, the pace of the attacks in neighboring North Waziristan picked up dramatically, from just 13 strikes in the first nine and a half months of 2009 to nine in the last two and a half. The New York Times reported that the Pakistani military had requested the slowdown in South Waziristan, seemingly because of its large-scale operations in the area. 12 This suggests more Pakistan-U.S. cooperation on the touchy issue of drone strikes, as Pakistan s military and government cognizant that American drones often target militants who are attacking the Pakistani state offer less pushback than they did in 2008. Strikes 30 20 34 53 600 Average deaths from U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan, 2004-2010 10 18 9 0 2004-7 2008 2009 2010 (2/24/10) Year Our study shows that the 114 reported drone strikes in northwest Pakistan from 2004 to the present have killed between 830 and 1,210 individuals, of whom around 550 to 850 were described as militants in reliable press accounts, about two-thirds of the total on average. Thus, the true civilian fatality rate since 2004 according to our analysis is approximately 32 percent. Averaging the press reports in 2009 indicates that 502 people were killed, 382 of whom were described as militants, for an average civilian fatality rate of 24 percent. Average Deaths 502 500 120 400 301 300 200 175 382 100 9 18 130 98 126 89 112 0 Others 2004-7 2008 2009 2010 (2/24/10) Militants Year Additionally, the White House reportedly authorized an expansion of the drone program in Pakistan to reinforce the efforts of the 30,000 new U.S. troops being sent to Afghanistan, even before the December attack on the CIA post in Khost. 13 The Obama administration had already New America Foundation Counterterrorism.NewAmerica.Net page 3
dramatically increased the frequency of drone strikes in comparison to the Bush administration, but the flurry of 12 missile attacks in less than three weeks after the suicide attack on the CIA officers was unparalleled. Those strikes may have been a direct reaction to the December 30 blast; a current U.S. intelligence official told the Washington Post that al-balawi s attack would be avenged. Some very bad people will eventually have a very bad day. 14 So far in 2010, between around 80 and 140 reported militants have been killed in drone strikes which, for the most part, have still avoided South Waziristan. Hakimullah Mehsud, like his forerunner Baitullah Mehsud, seems to have been a frequent target of the strikes, and was reportedly killed by one in mid-january. 15 None of the reported strikes has appeared to target America s most wanted terrorist, Osama bin Laden. Nor, apparently, has his top deputy, Ayman al-zawahiri, been targeted since he narrowly escaped being killed in a drone strike four years ago. 16 None of the reported strikes has appeared to target America s most wanted terrorist, Osama bin Laden. Despite the sharp rise in drone strikes over the past year and a half, Afghanistan and Pakistan still face extraordinary levels of terrorist violence. In 2009, there were a record 87 suicide attacks in Pakistan, which killed around 1,300 people, 1,155 of them civilians. This was up from 63 suicide bombings the previous year (and only nine in 2006). 17 Pakistani Taliban militants mounted a fierce campaign of attacks against military, government, and civilian targets throughout the fall after Pakistani ground operations in South Waziristan began in mid-october. 18 Across the border, nearly 6,000 Afghan civilians were killed or injured in attacks in 2009, according to the United Nations; it was the highest number of such casualties recorded since the fall of the Taliban regime in late 2001. 19 More than 1,600 of the civilian deaths two-thirds of the total were caused by the Taliban and other antigovernment forces, a 41 percent increase from 2008. The fact that both Pakistan and Afghanistan have seen record levels of Taliban and other militant violence in 2009 raises a large question about the drone program: How effective is it? The campaign is killing significant numbers of militant leaders and foot soldiers, but these losses are clearly being absorbed. Nor has the expanded drone program stopped al Qaeda and its allies from continuing to train Western recruits. Onetime Wall Street coffee vendor Najibullah Zazi, an Afghan-American, traveled in late August 2008 to Pakistan, where by his own admission he received explosives training from al Qaeda members along the Afghan border. After Zazi s arrest, the FBI found pages of handwritten notes on his laptop computer about making explosives, detonators, and fusing systems. He had picked up this technical knowledge in training camps in Pakistan s Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) during the fall of 2008, when the drone program was going into full swing. 20 In September 2009 Zazi was allegedly planning to launch what could have been the deadliest terrorist attack on U.S. soil since 9/11, with explosives similar to those used in the 2005 London transit system bombings. European militants have also been active in the FATA since the drone program was ramped up there in the summer of 2008; several Belgian jihadists, having trained in the tribal regions, returned to Belgium in December 2008 and were arrested on suspicion of national security threats. A Tunisian militant also from Belgium, Moez Garsallaoui, arrived in the FATA in late 2007 and is believed to be still operating around the tribal areas; he claims to have killed five Americans in Afghanistan and encouraged attacks in Europe in the fall of 2008 via a jihadist Web site. 21 Four Swedes were arrested in August 2009 en route to North Waziristan. 22 New America Foundation Counterterrorism.NewAmerica.Net page 4
At least 30 Germans traveled from Europe to Pakistan to train with Taliban militants in 2009. 23 And according to IntelCenter, a government contractor that tracks jihadist materials, during 2008 and 2009 a total of 10 German citizens appeared in more than a dozen propaganda videos made by al Qaeda and its allied militant groups based in Pakistan s tribal regions. 24 In total, between 100 and 150 Westerners are believed to have traveled to the FATA in 2009. 25 So far, however, none of these militants has been able to carry out an attack in the West. After around 18 months of sustained drone strikes, many of Pakistan s militants have likely moved out of their once safe haven in the FATA and into less dangerous parts of the country, potentially further destabilizing the already rickety state. And although drone strikes have killed hundreds of lower-level militants, they also have destroyed the pocket litter documents, cell phones, and the like that could have provided valuable leads to investigators. Also lost was information that could have been gleaned from interrogating militants if they had been captured rather than killed. Of course, the drone program has created real problems for the Taliban and its allies in Pakistan s tribal regions. Several European militants captured in late 2008 described an atmosphere of fear and distrust among members of al Qaeda in Pakistan, 26 and the Tunisian-Belgian militant Garsallaoui told his wife via e-mail that he narrowly missed being hit by a drone strike. 27 David Rohde, the New York Times reporter who was held by the Taliban-allied Haqqani network for seven months, 28 called the drones a terrifying presence in South Waziristan, and key militant figures reportedly sleep outside under trees to avoid being targeted. 29 Taliban militants regularly execute suspected spies in Waziristan accused of providing information to the United States, suggesting they also fear betrayal from within. 30 But the U.S. drone strikes don t seem to have had any great effect on the Taliban s ability to mount operations in Pakistan or Afghanistan or to deter potential Western recruits, and they no longer have the element of surprise. But the U.S. drone strikes don t seem to have had any great effect on the Taliban s ability to mount operations in Pakistan or Afghanistan or to deter potential Western recruits, and they no longer have the element of surprise. Three broader strategic concerns also come into play when assessing the efficacy of the drone strikes. The first is that they might be on shaky legal ground, according to Columbia Law School professor Matthew Waxman: The principle of proportionality says that a military target may not be attacked if doing so is likely to cause incidental civilian casualties or damage that would be excessive in relation to the expected military advantage of the attack... But there is no consensus on how to calculate these values. Nor is there consensus on what imbalance is excessive. 31 Second, drone strikes in Pakistan are not a strategy, but a tactic. Bruce Hoffman, a Georgetown University authority on terrorism, has observed that the 2006 airstrike that killed Abu Musab al-zarqawi, the leader of al Qaeda in Iraq, hardly forced the group to shut its doors: Violence in Iraq accelerated following his death. 32 Third, although the drone strikes have disrupted militant operations, their unpopularity with the Pakistani public and their value as a recruiting tool for extremist groups may have ultimately increased the appeal of the Taliban and al Qaeda, undermining the Pakistani state. This is more disturbing than almost anything that could happen in Afghanistan, given that Pakistan has dozens of nuclear weapons and about six times the population. New America Foundation Counterterrorism.NewAmerica.Net page 5
An American ground incursion into Pakistan s tribal areas is out of the question, given intense Pakistani official and popular opposition to the prospect. When the United States sent Special Forces soldiers across the Afghan border in September 2008, the powerful chief of the Pakistani Army, Gen. Ashfaq Kayani, issued an unusual direct rebuke to the United States, saying that Pakistan s sovereignty would be protected at all costs. 33 Similarly, despite some discussion of the issue in the press, the United States is quite unlikely to use drone strikes in Baluchistan to target the leadership of the Afghan Taliban at its headquarters in and around the provincial capital, Quetta. 34 Baluchistan is part and parcel of the Pakistani state, unlike the northwestern tribal areas, which have their own legal and social codes and have largely been seen as outside of Pakistan proper. Despite the controversy, drone strikes are likely to remain a critical tool for the United States to disrupt al Qaeda and Taliban operations and leadership structures. 1 Joby Warrick and Pamela Constable, CIA base attacked in Afghanistan supported airstrikes against al-qaeda, Taliban, The Washington Post, January 1, 2010., http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpdyn/content/article/2009/12/31/ar2009123100541_pf.html; Bomber Fooled CIA, Family, Jordanian Intelligence, Associated Press, January 6, 2010. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,582107,00.html. 2 Mustafa Abu al-yazid: Infiltrating the American Fortress, NEFA Foundation, released December 32, 2009. http://www.nefafoundation.org/miscellaneous/nefaabul-yazid0110.pdf 3 Anand Gopal, Siobhan Gorman and Yochi J. Dreazen, Taliban Member Claims Retaliation, The Wall Street Journal, January 4, 2010. http://online.wsj.com/article/sb126246258911313617.html; Stephen Farrell, Video Links Taliban in Pakistan to C.I.A. Attack, The New York Times, January 9, 2010. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/10/world/middleeast/10balawi.html 4 Mark Mazzetti and Souad Mekhennet, Qaeda Planner in Pakistan Killed by Drone, The New York Times, December 11, 2009. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/12/world/asia/12drone.html?_r=1; Anwar Iqbal, US drones killed two terrorist leaders in Pak, Dawn, September 17, 2009. http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn- content-library/dawn/news/world/12- us+drones+killed+two+terrorist+leaders+in+pak--bi-10. Despite the controversy, drone strikes are likely to remain a critical tool for the United States to disrupt al Qaeda and Taliban operations and leadership structures. Though these strikes consistently kill Pakistani civilians, which angers the population, and prompt revenge attacks from the militants, Pakistani and U.S. strategic interests have never been more closely aligned against the militants than they are today. Both countries seem to be increasingly cognizant of this as American drones kill leaders of the Pakistani Taliban and al-qaeda, and Pakistani soldiers mount serious operations against the militants, from Swat to South Waziristan. The drone attacks in the tribal regions seem to remain the only viable option for the United States to take on the militants based there who threaten the lives of Afghans, Pakistanis, and Westerners alike. 5 Pakistan: State of the Nation, Al Jazeera English, August 13, 2009. http://english.aljazeera.net/focus/2009/08/2009888238994769.html 6 Over 700 killed in 44 drone strikes in 2009, Dawn, January 2, 2010. http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content- library/dawn/news/pakistan/18-over-700-killed-in-44-drone-strikes-in- 2009-am-01 7 Scott Shane, C.I.A. to Expand Use of Drones in Pakistan, The New York Times, December 3, 2009. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/04/world/asia/04drones.html 8 Bill Roggio and Alexander Mayer, Charting the data for US airstrikes in Pakistan, 2004-2010, The Long War Journal, last updated February 18, 2010. http://www.longwarjournal.org/pakistan-strikes.php; David Kilcullen and Andrew McDonald Exum, Death From Above, Outrage Down Below, The New York Times, May 16, 2009. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/17/opinion/17exum.html; Amir Mir, 60 drone hits kill 14 al-qaeda men, 687 civilians, The News, April 10, 2009.http://www.thenews.com.pk/top_story_detail.asp?Id=21440. New America Foundation Counterterrorism.NewAmerica.Net page 6
9 International Committee of the Red Cross, Convention (IV) relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War. Geneva, August 12, 1949. http://www.icrc.org/ihl.nsf/7c4d08d9b287a42141256739003e636b/67564 82d86146898c125641e004aa3c5 10 http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=utf8&hl=en&msa=0&msid=1116112 83754323549630.00047e8cdfc55d220dee7&ll=33.008088,70.125732&spn= 0.409404,0.617294&z=11. 11 Jane Mayer, The Predator War, The New Yorker, October 26, 2009. 19 United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, Annual Report on the Protection of Civilians in Armed Conflict, 2009. http://www.foreignpolicy.com/images/100113_protection_20of_20civilian _202009_20report_20English.pdf 20 United States v. Najibullah Zazi, Memorandum of Law in Support of the Government s Motion for a Permanent Order of Detention. United States District Court, Eastern District of New York, 09-CR-663, September 24, 2009. 21 Paul Cruickshank, The 2008 Belgium Cell and FATA s Terrorist Pipeline, CTC Sentinel 2:4 (2009). http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/10/26/091026fa_fact_mayer http://www.ctc.usma.edu/sentinel/ctcsentinel-vol2iss4.pdf; Nic 12 Scott Shane and Eric Schmitt, C.I.A. Deaths Prompt Surge in U.S. Drone Strikes, The New York Times, January 22, 2010. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/23/world/asia/23drone.html 13 Scott Shane, C.I.A. to Expand Use of Drones in Pakistan, The New York Times, December 3, 2009. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/04/world/asia/04drones.html 14 Joby Warrick and Peter Finn, Suicide bomber who attacked CIA post in Afghanistan was trusted informant from Jordan, The Washington Post, January 5, 2010. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpdyn/content/article/2010/01/04/ar2010010402150_pf.html 15 Andrew Lebovich and Katherine Tiedemann, Daily brief: Pakistani Taliban chief reported wounded in drone strike, The AfPak Channel, January 15, 2010. http://afpak.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/01/15/daily_brief_pakistani_tali ban_chief_reported_wounded_in_drone_strike ; Katherine Tiedemann, Daily brief: sources: Pakistani Taliban chief confirmed dead, The AfPak Channel, February 9, 2010. http://afpak.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/02/09/daily_brief_sources_pa kistani_taliban_chief_confirmed_dead. Katherine Tiedemann, Daily brief: rumors fly over fate of Pakistani Taliban Chief, The AfPak Channel, February 1, 2010. http://afpak.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/02/01/daily_brief_rumors_fly_ over_fate_of_pakistani_taliban_chief 16 Christina Lamb, Airstrike misses Al-Qaeda chief, The Times of London, January 15, 2006. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article788673.ece 17 Pak Institute for Peace Studies, Security Report 2009. 18 Ibid. Robinson and Paul Cruickshank, Belgian al Qaeda cell linked to 2006 airline plot, CNN, February 13, 2009. http://www.cnn.com/2009/world/europe/02/10/belgium.terror/index. html 22 Craig Whitlock, Flow of terrorist recruits increasing, The Washington Post, October 19, 2009. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpdyn/content/article/2009/10/18/ar2009101802549_pf.html 23 Ibid. 24 IntelCenter, The merits of jihad, released October 3, 2009, email to author. 25 Lolita C. Baldor, Terror Training Camps Smaller, Harder to Target, Associated Press, November 9, 2009. http://abcnews.go.com/print?id=9031020 26 Jane Mayer, The Predator War, The New Yorker, October 26, 2009. http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/10/26/091026fa_fact_mayer?printable=true 27 Paul Cruickshank, The 2008 Belgium Cell and FATA s Terrorist Pipeline, CTC Sentinel 2:4 (2009). http://www.ctc.usma.edu/sentinel/ctcsentinel-vol2iss4.pdf 28 David Rohde, Times Reporter, Escapes Taliban After 7 Months, The New York Times, June 20, 2009. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/21/world/asia/21taliban.html 29 David Rohde, Held by the Taliban, Part Four A Drone Strike and Dwindling Hope, The New York Times, October 20, 2009. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/21/world/asia/21hostage.html?pagewan ted=print; Jason Burke, On the front line in war on Pakistan s Taliban, The Guardian, November 16, 2008. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/nov/16/pakistan-afghanistantaliban New America Foundation Counterterrorism.NewAmerica.Net page 7
30 Taliban kill seven US spies in North Waziristan, Dawn, January 24, 2010. http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-contentlibrary/dawn/news/pakistan/04-taliban-kill-six-nwaziristan-qs-06; Taliban kill two US spies in Miranshah, The Daily Times, January 31, 2010. http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2010\01\31\story_31-1- 32 Ibid. 33 Jane Perlez, Pakistan s Military Chief Criticizes U.S. Over a Raid, The New York Times, September 10, 2008. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/11/world/asia/11pstan.html 34 Eric Schmitt and Christopher Drew, More Drone Attacks in Pakistan Planned, The New York Times, April 6, 2009. 2010_pg1_3. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/07/world/asia/07drone.html; Scott 31 Peter Bergen and Katherine Tiedemann, Revenge of the Drones, New America Foundation, October 19, 2009. http://www.newamerica.net/publications/policy/revenge_of_the_drones Shane, C.I.A. to Expand Use of Drones in Pakistan, The New York Times, October 3, 2009. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/04/world/asia/04drones.html New America Foundation Counterterrorism.NewAmerica.Net page 8
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Last Updated: Friday, 26 March, 2004, 13:42 GMT US beefs up forces in Afghanistan The United States is sending up to 2,000 more marines to Afghanistan to step up the hunt for Osama Bin Laden and other al-qaeda and Taleban leaders. The troops will join about 12,000 US troops already in the country. Pakistan has also announced it is reinforcing its operation in the tribal areas on its side of the border. Pakistani forces there have launched a full-scale assault against al-qaeda and foreign militants and the tribesmen believed to be protecting them. "We are pursuing with the Pakistanis parallel, complementary efforts on both sides of the borders," a US military spokesman told the BBC. This amounts to a significant stepping up of the pressure, but is not the final US push against al-qaeda - nor an explicit mission to capture Bin Laden, says the BBC's defence correspondent Jonathan Marcus. 'Spring offensive' The US launched a new offensive in Afghanistan two weeks ago. Operation Mountain Storm - like many earlier operations - was intended to find and destroy remaining al-qaeda and Taleban elements. Before the launch, the Pentagon had despatched key reinforcements to Afghanistan including special forces and a variety of airborne surveillance systems. US military spokesman in Kabul, Colonel Brian Hilferty, told the BBC the new deployments - currently based on ships in the Persian Gulf - would join the hunt "both for the leadership of the Taleban - and al-qaeda". "We are getting much better intelligence from the Afghan people" on the whereabouts of the militants, Col Hilferty told the BBC's Newshour programme. The Pentagon says the deployment has been planned for some time We are getting much better intelligence from the Afghan people Col Brian Hilferty US military spokesman There was a lot of talk just a few weeks ago about a major US "spring offensive" designed to knock out any chance of the Taleban and al-qaeda re-grouping, our correspondent says. And even though this might not be the "spring offensive", this is a major
operation that fits into a continuous pattern, he says. Afghanistan is also preparing for critical elections and Operation Mountain Storm along with the additional marines are all part of a package intended to enable those elections to take place in an atmosphere of relative calm, our correspondent says. Mission 'accomplished' Pakistan's information minister said more army troops were being mobilised for what might be another onslaught against the al-qaeda and foreign militants in the mountainous region of South Waziristan province. The announcement follows the failure of efforts by tribal leaders to negotiate the release of 14 hostages, most of them government forces taken at the beginning of the offensive last week. In an interview with a leading Pakistani newspaper, the army commander in charge of the operation, General Saftar Hussein, said he wanted to wind it up by Saturday. He said the mission to destroy hundreds of militants and deny them sanctuary had been accomplished. About 30 soldiers and a number of militants have died in the fighting. The government launched the operation - involving 5,000-7,500 troops - believing a "high-value target" was among the militants. That figure was initially reported to be al-qaeda deputy leader Ayman al- Zawahri, but the BBC's Paul Anderson in Islamabad says that if he was there it appears he has now escaped.
The 2008 ACR preview Page 1 of 2 The Ploughshares Monitor Summer 2008, volume 29, no. 2 The 2008 Armed Conflicts Report preview After a period of seven years, during which there was a cumulative decrease of 12 armed conflicts, 2007 saw an increase in armed conflicts from 29 to 30, with two added to the report and one removed. The number of countries involved increased from 25 to 26. Fighting between Israel and Lebanon (Hezbollah) ended in August 2006 with a UN-brokered ceasefire and the deployment of Lebanese and UN forces into southern Lebanon. Yemen and Turkey were again added to the map, both having been included in past Armed Conflicts Reports Yemen for its 1994 civil war and Turkey for the 1984 2002 phase of the conflict with Kurdish rebels. Research indicates that half of all post-war countries are in danger of reverting to war within a decade. In Yemen, the current armed conflict began in 2004 with the emergence of a new rebel group (the Shabab al-moumineen or Youthful Believers). By the end of 2007, the total number of deaths greatly exceeded 1,000. The earlier phase of the Turkish conflict ended in 2002 when conflict-related deaths totaled less than 25 for the second consecutive year. A unilateral ceasefire had been declared by Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militants in 1999. In 2004 the ceasefire ended, after the Turkish government refused to issue a general amnesty to PKK militants and militant Kurdish bases in northern Iraq became better equipped. Since then conflict fatalities have been on the rise, exceeding 1,000 in 2007. Table 1: Geographic distributions of armed conflicts in 2007 Region # of countries in region # of conflicts in region # of countries hosting conflicts % of countries in region hosting conflicts % of world conflicts Africa 50 12 11 22 40 Asia 42 11 8 19 36.7 Europe 42 1 1 2.4 3.3 The Americas 44 2 2 5 6.7 Middle East 14 4 4 29 13.3 World Totals 192 30 26 13.5 100
The 2008 ACR preview Page 2 of 2 Africa and Asia continued to be most affected by war (see Table 1), hosting 12 and 11 armed conflicts respectively, or about three-quarters of the world s total, leaving the three remaining regions of Europe, the Americas, and the Middle East with a combined share of about onequarter. Between 1998 and 2007, 30 armed conflicts ended (see Table 2), but only in Europe and the Middle East was a net gain realized. In Europe, three conflicts were resolved with one still active. Six conflicts in the Middle East were resolved and four remain active. Iran, Indonesia, and Angola each resolved multiple conflicts. Table 2: Geographical distribution of armed conflicts resolved between 1998 and 2007 Region # of conflicts resolved % of total resolved conflicts Africa 10 33.3 Asia 10 33.3 Europe 3 10 The Americas 1 3.3 Middle East 6 20 Totals 30 100 Full descriptions of all 2007 armed conflicts are available in the Armed Conflicts Report 2007 under the Library link on the Project Ploughshares website (www.ploughshares.ca). Project Ploughshares has reported annually on armed conflicts since 1987. *Defining Armed Conflict: For the purposes of the annual Armed Conflicts Report an armed conflict is defined as a political conflict in which armed combat involves the armed forces of at least one state (or one or more armed factions seeking to gain control of all or part of the state), and in which at least 1,000 people have been killed by the fighting during the course of the conflict. An armed conflict is added to the annual list of current armed conflicts in the year in which the death toll reaches the threshold of 1,000, but the starting date of the armed conflict is shown as the year in which the first combat deaths included in the count of 1,000 or more occurred. The definition of political conflict becomes more difficult as the trend in current intrastate armed conflicts increasingly obscures the distinction between political and criminal violence. In a growing number of armed conflicts, armed bands, militia, or factions engage in criminal activity (e.g., theft, looting, extortion, drug trafficking) to fund their political/military campaigns, but frequently also for the personal enrichment of the leadership and the general livelihood of the fighting forces. Thus, in some circumstances, while the disintegrating order reflects the social chaos borne of state failure, the resulting violence or armed combat is not necessarily guided by a political program or a set of politically motivated or defined military objectives. However, these trends are part of the changing character of war, and conflicts characterized more by social chaos than political/military competition are thus included in the tabulation of current armed conflicts. In many contemporary armed conflicts the fighting is intermittent and involves many levels of intensity. An armed conflict is deemed to have ended if there has been a formal ceasefire or peace agreement and, following which, there are no longer combat deaths (or at least fewer than 25 per year); or, in the absence of a formal ceasefire, a conflict is deemed to have ended after two years of dormancy (in which fewer than 25 combat deaths per year have occurred). The above definition builds upon, but differs in some aspects from, the definitions of other groups producing annual conflict tabulations, notably reports from the Department of Peace and Conflict Research, Uppsala University (Sweden), published annually in the yearbook of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. Project Ploughshares 57 Erb Street West Waterloo, Ontario, Canada N2L 6C2 Tel (519) 888-6541 Fax (519) 888-0018 Email: plough@ploughshares.ca
Armed Conflicts in 2007 Russia Colombia Haiti Israel/Palestine Algeria Nigeria Côte d Ivoire Chad Sudan D.R. Congo Turkey Iraq Afghanistan Yemen Somalia Pakistan Ethiopia Uganda Kenya India Nepal Thailand Sri Lanka Burma (Myanmar) Philippines Burundi Project Ploughshares 2008 Project Ploughshares 57 Erb Street West Waterloo, Ontario, Canada N2L 6C2 Tel. 519-888-6541 Email: plough@ploughshares.ca www.ploughshares.ca