drone strike

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White House Defends Drone Campaign

John Brennan: Civilians are not 'intentionally targeted'

(Newser) - White House counterterrorism official John Brennan publicly described how al-Qaeda targets are chosen for drone strikes, the first time the Obama administration has described the widely known practice so openly and in such detail. Brennan, speaking in Washington today, said President Obama wants to be more transparent with the American...

US Restarts Drone Strikes in Pakistan

First strikes in a month could hurt negotiations

(Newser) - Despite Pakistan's insistence that the US cease its drone strikes there , CIA drone missiles struck militant targets in the country for the first time in a month yesterday, the Washington Post reports. Pakistan's Foreign Ministry condemned the strikes, which killed four fighters linked to al-Qaeda. Just last week,...

CIA Wants Green Light to Bomb Yemen at Will

Asks for OK to launch strikes even if it's not sure who will be killed

(Newser) - CIA Director David Petraeus has requested permission to launch drone strikes in Yemen even when the agency is not sure who the strikes might kill. Instead, the CIA would launch attacks based on patterns of suspicious activity, much the way it does in Pakistan, a tactic known as "signature...

US Won't Punish Soldiers in Deadly Pakistan Airstrike

Announcement expected to raise anger in Pakistan

(Newser) - The US soldiers responsible for the wayward airstrike that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers in November will not face any disciplinary action, reports the New York Times . The initial American investigation found fault on both sides for the strike, noting that Pakistani soldiers fired first, their camp was not identified on...

Pakistan Parliament to US: No More Drone Strikes

Parliamentary committee completes review after NATO incident

(Newser) - A Pakistani parliamentary committee wants US drone attacks in the country to stop, it said today. The committee was tasked with reviewing US-Pakistan ties after the November NATO attack that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers, Reuters reports. Following that attack, Pakistan stopped supplies to NATO troops based in Afghanistan, and ordered...

Holder Defends the Right to Kill Americans

Attorney general: Killing American terrorists is not 'assassination'

(Newser) - Eric Holder made his long-awaited speech today on the legality of America hunting down and killing its own citizens, the Washington Post reports. In a speech at Northwestern University in Chicago, the attorney general argued that an Oval Office review of the facts regarding any American amounted to "due...

Victims of US Strikes in Pakistan: Mostly Militants

But drone critics say covert program still needs greater oversight

(Newser) - The Pakistani public widely believes that American drone strikes there overwhelmingly hit civilians, not militants. However, an investigation of the 10 deadliest attacks over the past 18 months in the main militant region along the Afghan border shows that 70% of those killed were militants, according to an investigation by...

Our Dirty Drone War Must End

 Our Dirty Drone War Must End 
OPINION
Feb 20, 2012 1:13 PM CST

Our Dirty Drone War Must End

It may be creating more terrorists than it's killing: Gary Kamiya

(Newser) - Before 9/11, if the US president had announced that the government was going to "play God, reaching down from our high-tech heaven to kill whoever we want, whenever we want, wherever we want"—including US citizens, without a trial—the news would have been met with uproar. But...

US Kills Taliban Commander With al-Qaeda Ties

Drone strike indicates again that drones are back in action in Pakistan.

(Newser) - A US drone fired two missiles at a house in Pakistan's northwest tribal region today, killing five suspected militants, according to intelligence officials. The Taliban identified one of them as Badar Mansoor, a prominent commander who has served as a key link to al-Qaeda. Mansoor led a group of...

US Drones Return to Hit Rescuers, Funerals

Strikes occurring every 4 days under Obama: report

(Newser) - A few days back, President Obama said that US drone attacks in Pakistan had "not caused a huge number of civilian casualties." But a Bureau of Investigative Journalism report finds that somewhere between 282 and 535 civilians, including 60 children, have been "credibly reported" killed in the...

Obama to Woman: Send Me Jobless Husband's Resume

Also defends drone use in Google+ chat

(Newser) - President Obama sat down for an extended "interview" in a Google+ Hangout yesterday, and at one point, things got a little personal, Politico reports. When a woman confronted him over H-1B visas for skilled immigrants, saying that her husband, a semiconductor engineer, couldn't find a job, Obama turned...

Drone Strike Kills Top al-Qaeda Operative

Aslam Awan killed in Jan. 10 attack: official

(Newser) - A CIA drone strike in early January killed a key al-Qaeda operative who was planning attacks on the West, according to a US official. The official said yesterday that the strike on Jan. 10 hit Aslam Awan, who was described as an "external operations planner" inside the organization. The...

US Restarts Drone Attacks, Kills 4 in Pakistan Strike

Officials insist there was no moratorium

(Newser) - The US' drone war in Pakistan is back on. The US launched its first strike last night since a November attack that killed 28 Pakistani soldiers and ratcheted the already fraught tensions between the two nations to a new high. The attack hit a North Waziristan home just before midnight,...

US Thinks Saleh Tricked It Into Killing Rival

CIA relied completely on Yemen government for intelligence

(Newser) - The government of Yemen appears to have tricked the US into taking out a local political nuisance with a missile strike, top military leaders involved in the attack tell the Wall Street Journal . Yemeni officials alerted the US to a gathering of al-Qaeda leaders on May 25, 2010, and the...

Under Obama, a Force of Killer Drones Evolved

Semi-secret assassination program has expanded greatly in his term

(Newser) - In the five years before President Obama took office, America’s drones launched 44 strikes, all confined to Pakistan, killing about 400 people. But during his Oval Office tenure there have been almost 240 strikes, killing at least four times as many people, and the US has built dozens of...

Pakistani Cricketer Draws 100K+ to Rally

Politician attracts followers with anti-US message

(Newser) - More than 100,000 people rallied in support of Pakistani cricket legend and opposition politician Imran Khan in the southern city of Karachi today, further cementing his status as a rising force in politics. His message of cracking down on corruption and standing up to the US has found new...

29% of Drone Pilots Are Burned Out, Exhausted

Air Force points to three reasons for the stress

(Newser) - Drones may be unmanned, but they're not pilot-less, and many of those pilots are having a pretty rough time. NPR reports on a new Pentagon study, commissioned by the Air Force, that looks at the mental toll that fighting "remote-controlled war" takes, and the stats are somewhat disheartening....

CIA Paused Drone Attacks in Pakistan 6 Weeks Ago

Part of an attempt to improve relations with Islamabad

(Newser) - In an effort to make nice with Islamabad, the CIA paused drone missile strikes against low-level militants in Pakistan nearly six weeks ago, current and former officials tell the Los Angeles Times . The suspension affects so-called signature strikes: attacks on those who were observed, via drone or another form of...

Obama, CIA Refuse to Justify Drone War

Secrecy reigns over deadly program

(Newser) - The CIA has ramped up its drone strikes under President Obama, killing somewhere between 1,350 and 2,250 people in Pakistan alone over the past three years. Yet the US has identified virtually none of those victims, nor provided any legal rationale for their killings, the Washington Post observes,...

US to Iran: Give Us Back Our Drone, Please

But Obama, Clinton don't seem to be holding their breath

(Newser) - Red-faced American officials have requested that Iran return a crashed US drone —the one apparently paraded before Iranians and stripped of whatever secrets it was carrying. "We have asked for it back. We'll see how the Iranians respond," said President Obama in the first confirmation that...

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