Somalias al-Shabab fighters say a US assassination drone attack has left at least 38 people dead and dozens of others wounded in the Horn of Africa state, Press TV reports. The airstrike is said to have taken place in Somalia\'s southwestern district of Badade, a Press TV correspondent reported.
The US military uses remote-controlled drones in Somalia for reconnaissance operations and targeted killings. Washington has been carrying out assassination attacks using the unmanned aircraft in other countries including Afghanistan, Libya Pakistan, and Yemen. Washington claims the CIA-run strikes are meant to eliminate militants, but witness reports and figures offered by local authorities indicate the attacks have led to massive civilian deaths in these countries.
The United Nations has slammed the assassination drone attacks as targeted killings, saying that they pose a challenge to international law. Ten years ago, the United States Air Force successfully launched a missile from a Predator drone for the first time at a test range in the Nevada desert.
While unmanned aerial vehicles (or drones as they are commonly known) had previously been used in military operations for reconnaissance, surveillance and targeting purposes,this was a significant point in the evolution of military drones. Just months later, in the aftermath of ‘9/11’, the first operational armed strike by a remote controlled unmanned drone took place in Afghanistan, when a CIAoperated Predator drone attacked al-Qaeda leader Mohammed Atef. According to media reports, Atef was killed along with seven other people.
Since that first attack, the use of armed drones has risen, slowly at first but more dramatically since 2009, to the point where at times drone strikes are almost a daily occurrence. In 2011 the use of drones continued to rise with drone strikes in at least six countries (Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, Libya and Gaza).
While the vast majority of these strikes were carried out by the United States, the UK also uses armed drones, announcing in September 2011 that it had reached the ‘landmark’ of 200 drone strikes in Afghanistan; Israel continued to use armed drones in the Occupied Territories and the Italian air force flew Reaper drones during the Libyan conflict. With both the Unites States and the UK announcing
that they are to double the size of their drone fleet, and with fifty countries reportedly developing or buying unmanned aerial vehicles, drone strikes can only increase.
As the use of drones expands however, controversy about their use also grows. Supporters of armed drones argue that their ability to loiter over a particular area together with their highly accurate sensors and cameras gives the ability to have increased control over when and where to strike, thus enabling greater accuracy and less ‘collateral damage’. Opponents argue that by removing one of the key restraints to warfare – the risk to one’s own forces – unmanned systems make undertaking armed attacks too easy and will make war more likely.
The ‘persistent presence’ of drones over a particular area looking for suspicious behavior and ‘targets of opportunity’ is also leading, it is suggested, to large numbers of civilian casualties, while legal experts and human rights organisations have condemned the rise in targeted extra-judicial killing enabled by the use of armed drones. Despite the increased use of armed drones – and the controversy surrounding their use – accessible, accurate and reliable information about drones, about how they are being used and about future developments remains difficult to find.
Watchkeeper and Hermes 450
While the Watchkeeper drone was originally supposed to be in service with UK forces in Afghanistan by February 2010, delays pushed back the in-service date until 2011 and then early 2012. By early 2011 over 200 Watch keeper test flights had taken place in Israel, while test flights of the Watch keeper continued at Parc Aberporth in West Wales throughout 2011 where by September 230 test flight had taken place.
In January 2011, Amnesty International criticised the fact that British army personnel were in Israel being trained to use the Watchkeeper drone. Amnesty International UK Campaigns Director Tim Hancock told Sky News 8 "It would seem wholly inappropriate for UK forces to be trained in the use of drones by a country with a track record of applying this technology in grave abuses of people's human rights." In May 2011 British Army personnel also began training to use Watch keeper at Boscombe Down in Wiltshire from where the aircraft will be flown in airspace specially allocated for UAV flying around the Salisbury Plain Training Area.
Meanwhile use of the ‘stop gap’ Hermes 450 drone by British forces in Afghanistan continued with Thales announcing in September 2011 that over 50,000 flight hours had been achieved.
Reaper
In May 2011, the British MoD announced that a second RAF squadron would be formed to ‘fly’ Reaper drones in addition to the RAF 39 Squadron, based at Creech USAF base in Nevada. The new RAF 13 Squadron will be based at RAF Waddington in Lincolnshire meaning that for the first time Reaper drones would be controlled from the UK.
It is thought that the RAF will also continue to control British Reapers from Creech in the US and may maintain a presence there in the long term. In July 2011 the Ministry of Defence confirmed that a British Reaper strike in March 2011 had mistakenly killed four Afghan civilians and injured two others.
The revelation came after a NATO ISAF investigation into the attack. Local reports suggest that children had been among the casualties but this has not been possible to confirm. At the end of July 2011 Armed Force Minister, Nick Harvey visited the RAF Reaper drone pilots in Las Vegas to congratulate them on their work. In September 2011 RAF Wing Commander Gary Coleman briefed defence industry delegates on Reaper operations at a UAV conference. His presentation, obtained by Drone Wars UK under the Freedom of Information Act revealed that:
• From mid-2012 there will be 44 Reaper crews operating UK Reapers with three Reapers constantly flying 24/7
• Hellfire missiles are three times more likely to be used in British drone strikes than the 500lb Paveway bomb
• If “lower yield weapons” had been available more strikes would have been undertaken
• Reaper “mishaps” [i.e. crashes] happen approximately every 10,000 hours of flying
• There are “Fatigue and Psychological stressors” on personnel operating Reaper 9 A report on the conference by a journalist from the military press revealed that the stresses on drone pilots included the fact that Reaper crews were away from family and friends for a long times as they were deployed to Creech on three - year postings, as well as the fact that time differences meant that crews were
operating Reaper drones on night shifts.
These factors may well have contributed to decision to control Reapers from the UK in future. In April the MoD announced that it had reached a significant landmark in its operation of Reaper drones - 20,000 operational flying hours over Afghanistan.
In September another milestone was passed – the 200 th British drone strike. As always details about the circumstances of the strike remain secret.
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