How many civilians killed by drones

Although civilian suffering caused by U. In , under the yoke of public outrage, the Barack Obama administration signed an executive order requiring the intelligence community to publish the death tolls of civilians in drone strikes outside war zones. Despite wide opposition, former U. President Donald Trump revoked the policy of his predecessor in , saying the rule was "superfluous" and distracting.

Some victims tried to demand justice from the United States through judicial channels, but were ignored or even obstructed by the U. Both were sitting at home when they were killed. Khan had petitioned the Islamabad High Court for the registration of a murder case against Jonathan Banks, former CIA station chief in Pakistan, yet he received no reply. In , after being denied a U. A spokesman for Afghanistan's new Taliban rulers, Zabihullah Mujahid, said at the time that the attack killed seven people, and that the Taliban was investigating.

The strike came three days after an Islamic State suicide bomber killed 13 U. Following the suicide bombing at the airport, the U. That strike is not under review. The second, mistaken strike came as the U. General Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, appeared to blame the fog of war, even as he acknowledged in a statement that the civilian deaths were "heart wrenching".

The use of drones was supposed to both respect the law and protect the vulnerable. Yet in Iraq the methods that killed the most civilians per event were drone strikes. To protect civilians from indiscriminate harm, as required by international humanitarian law, military and civilian policies should prohibit aerial bombing in civilian areas, unless it can be demonstrated —- by monitoring civilian casualties —- that civilians are being protected. If only drones were used, goes the logic, wars would still be fought in far-off places, but without tens of thousands of boots on the ground.

Yet despite their increasing use, drones have not fully enabled militaries to avoid the usual dirty and costly methods of fighting wars. Iraq and Afghanistan started as high-tech wars, but rapidly evolved into widespread insurgencies. In response, the US and its allies committed hundreds of thousands of boots on the ground, resulting in casualties in the occupied countries and in the west.

In the last 15 years we have turned to the new technologies of eyes in the sky — armed drones and long-range strikes, but also special forces and privatised military corporations. The US has admitted that a drone strike in Kabul days before its military pullout killed 10 innocent people. A US Central Command investigation found that an aid worker and nine members of his family, including seven children, died in the 29 August strike.

The deadly strike happened days after a terror attack at Kabul airport, amid a frenzied evacuation effort following the Taliban's sudden return to power. It was one of the US military's final acts in Afghanistan, before ending its year operation in the country. The investigation found the man's car had been seen at a compound associated with IS-K, and its movements aligned with other intelligence about the terror group's plans for an attack on Kabul airport.

At one point, a surveillance drone saw men loading what appeared to be explosives into the boot of the car, but these turned out to be containers of water. Gen McKenzie described the strike as a "tragic mistake", and added that the Taliban had not been involved in the intelligence that led to the strike.

The strike happened as the aid worker - named as Zamairi Ahmadi - pulled into the driveway of his home, 3km 1. The explosion set off a secondary blast, which US officials initially said was proof that the car was indeed carrying explosives.

However the investigation has found it was most likely caused by a propane tank in the driveway. One of those killed, Ahmad Naser, had been a translator with US forces.