The US has been conducting drone strikes on a large scale in Pakistan since June 2004. Pakistan has been hit with the second highest number of drone strikes in the world, behind Afghanistan.
The US has been conducting drone strikes on a large scale in Pakistan since June 2004. Pakistan has been hit with the second highest number of drone strikes in the world, behind Afghanistan.
The strikes were initially launched from the airbases inside Pakistan. But after the Salala incident in 2011 by NATO forces, which killed 28 soldiers, US-Pakistan relations turned bitter. The rest of the strikes were carried out across the border from Afghanistan.
In the first few years of the war, strikes were not very frequent. But since 2008, they increased in frequency towards the end of George Bush's last year. The President Barack Obama tenure saw a dramatic rise in strike frequency. Obama ordered more strikes in his first year of presidency than Bush did during his entire two terms of presidency.
Most the strikes in Pakistan were carried out with ISI approval, but the Pakistan Army kept it a secret for a while by claiming to have conducted the strikes themselves. According to ‘a senior CIA official who served in the region,’ the official told the New Yorker: ‘I would show them the Predator footage and I would say, “This is what is happening—massive training camps.”
A Pakistani military spokesman said after the very first drone strike in June, hiding US involvement that Nek Mohammed was apparently hiding along his fighters when Pakistan security forces swiftly launched its operation and he was killed as a result.
Steve Coll exposed the secret arrangement between Pakistan and the CIA in his article. He wrote that the Pakistani Army enhanced its operations in South Waziristan, and Musharraf greenlighted the CIA to use its airspace to support Pakistan military actions. In return, he demanded the latest helicopters armed with precision missiles and night-operating capabilities.
Civilians deaths in Pakistan over the 14 year period are reported to be more than 600 which some estimates said is underreported.
In 2008, then Director of C.I.A, Michael Hayden revised the targetting and strike quidlines for drones operartions. These changed were termed as "signature strikes." These new changes allowed the remote drone operators to fire missile at armed military-aged men engaged in or facilitating suspecious activity even if there identities were unknown. The first year of Obama proved to be the most deatliest for civilians because of these changed in the internal documents.
Signature strikes are “not a concept known to international humanitarian law,” according to Christof Heyns, the U.N. special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary, or arbitrary executions.
He further said if signature strikes involves "targeting without sufficient information to make the necessary determination, it is clearly unlawful."
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