Defence`s Feeds

Airbus has completed its previously announced deal to sell its Defence Electronics business to private equity firm KKR, the company said on 28 February. KKR paid EUR1.1 billion (USD1.2 billion) for the group, although several factors are slowing the transfer of some segments of the unit. Defence

The Federal Office of Bundeswehr Equipment, Information Technology, and In-Service Support (BAAINBw) has awarded a contract to Airbus Helicopters to retrofit 26 of the Luftwaffe's CH-53GS/GE medium transport helicopters, the company announced on 27 February. Approved by the German parliament's

Exercise FIRE BLADE 2017 will be hosted by Hungary at Pápa Airbase and takes place from the 1st to the 12th of May. 17 air assets and 450 personnel are expected to take part in this live fire focused training exercise.  

FIRE BLADE 2017 (FB17) marks the 11th helicopter exercise under the umbrella of the Helicopter Exercise Programme (HEP). The HEP is one of the European Defence Agency’s (EDA) helicopter training projects and programmes. It is the first time that Hungary will host a HEP event, thus becoming the 7th member state to do so. 

In excess of 450 personnel are due to take part in this exercise programme. A total of 17 air assets from 5 Member States (Austria, Belgium, Germany, Hungary, Slovenia) are expected to take part. In addition, observers from Italy and Czech Republic are foreseen. FB17 will deliver tactical training, over a 12 day intensive programme, offering participants an unique opportunity to plan and execute missions within a joint combined framework. FB17 will be designed to allow European helicopter crews to train, adopting joint procedures while operating in a challenging scenario.

Today at the EDA in Brussels the Final Coordination Conference for FB17 took place. Following on from the Main Planning Conference which was held last October in Hungary, today’s conference put the final preparations in place ahead of the beginning of FB17 on May 1st. Tom Bennington, Head of Education, Training & Exercise Unit at EDA commented, “the exercise gives a good opportunity to train in a realistic operational setting. Specifically we will be working with Special Forces, and will be focusing on live weapons firing using the Composite Air Operations Concept, effectively operating the helicopters with fast jets and ground assets [e.g. surface-to-air missile (SAM) systems]”.

At the event, on behalf of the host nation Hungary, Lieutenant colonel Péter Simon of the Hungarian Air Force and Commander of the Air Task Force for exercise FB17 said, “as per previous Blade exercises, FB17 will have its own training subjects, in this case live firing. Hungary is an excellent location for live fire exercises due to diversity and quality of ranges available to visiting European crews”.    

The aim of the exercise is to enhance interoperability at a tactical level between helicopter units by using the COMAO concept in a combined, joint, realistic and challenging environment and to teach and learn helicopter Techniques, Tactics and Procedures (TTPs). During FB17 the units will fly a diverse set of day and night training missions, with a focus on live firing operations. FB17 is a real-world example of what can be achieved through European defence cooperation.  

Further updates on FB17 can also be found on Twitter using  #FIREBLADE2017.  
 

More information:

• Helicopter Initiatives (EDA project page)
• Pictures from Exercise BLACK BLADE 2016
• Fact Sheet Exercise BLACK BLADE 2016

Source : © European Union, 2017 - EP

Source : © European Union, 2017 - EP

On 28 February, Spain joined the EU SatCom Market becoming the 22nd member of this EDA initiative launched in 2009 to provide flexible commercial satellite communication solutions for contributing members. Spain is already the second new member in 2017 given that Estonia also joined on 24 January.

The EU SatCom Market project has been benefitting from an increased interest over the past twelve months with no less than ten new members having joined.

Commercial satellite communications are used by all nations to provide extra capacity on top of their own military and governmental satellite communications. The EU SatCom Market project provides a flexible and cost-effective way of doing this, offering its members’ a pay-per-use solution without imposing any binding financial commitments beyond services ordered.

Within the EU SatCom Market project, the EDA acts as the central purchasing body on behalf of the contributing members and the current Framework Contract was signed in January 2016 with Airbus Defence and Space as the services provider.

The current 22 contributing members are: Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Greece, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxemburg, Portugal, Romania, the United Kingdom, Spain, Serbia, the Athena Mechanism and the civilian missions EUCAP SAHEL Niger, EUCAP SAHEL Mali, EUAM Ukraine, EUCAP NESTOR and EUMM Georgia.

 

More information:

• EU SatCom Market project page
• EU SatCom Market factsheet
• EDA and CSDP civilian missions develop cooperation (EDA news June 2016)

Armed drones came of age, by chance, at the onset of the United State’s ‘war on terror’. Washington has used them ever since to provide close air support to troops on the ground and to carry out targeted killings. In Afghanistan, they have been relatively uncontroversial, but in other countries, their legality, effectiveness and potential harm to civilians have all been questioned. In her second dispatch on the subject, Kate Clark looks at how different countries have experienced armed drones and asks whether a US ‘drone-mainly’ mission of the sort seen in Pakistan’s tribal areas might one day be seen in Afghanistan.

AAN’s first dispatch on drones looked at how they came to be developed and used in Afghanistan: Drone warfare 1: Afghanistan, birthplace of the armed drone.

A ‘drone-mainly’ US mission in Afghanistan? 

For the moment, the US seems comprehensibly embroiled in Afghanistan and, indeed, possibly about to enlarge its ground force (see here). However, if Washington did demand of its military a narrow, counter-terrorism mission in Afghanistan with fewer boots on the ground, drones would be the obvious, relatively cost-effective option. They need far less support in or near the battlefield than ground troops or other types of aircraft. They need somewhere to fly from – and the further away from the battlefield, the trickier this becomes in terms of carrying fuel and the time spent getting to and from a location. However, they only need a limited force located with the drones to ensure repairs and maintenance, and the collection or destruction of wreckage when a drone crashes (although this is far less substantial than the force needed for the search and rescue of a downed pilot). Piloting drones, however, can be done from anywhere in the world.

If Washington did decide to pull back to a mission focussed on the targeted killings of suspected members of al Qaeda and ISKP/Daesh (and possibly the Taleban, if they were seen as a threat to US interests), the way it would do this is evident from the experiences of other countries. Washington has deployed drones for targeted killings as its only or main tactic in Pakistan (since 2004), Yemen (in 2002 and then since 2009) and Somalia (since 2011). This dispatch looks first at why targeted killings using drones has become such an integral part of the US war on terror, before delving into the experiences of US drones in these three countries.

The expansion of the American armed drones programme

 Technological advance – the development of the armed drone in the last 1990s and early 2000s – enabled America to establish a targeted killing programme. Previously, killing someone in a foreign country needed either the deployment of forces or local proxies, or the ‘blunt instrument’ of a missile strike. Drones, however, can cross borders easily and virtually risk-free to those piloting and deploying them, at least when flown into countries with either an acquiescent government or a weak military. They have reduced the political and military costs of initiating hostilities. The US targeted killing programme has also been driven by the political transformation brought about by 9/11: Washington needed to deal with a non-state, terrorist enemy dispersed in different countries and decided a military course of action was necessary and targeted killing the most effective tactic.

The sort of uneasiness felt by the CIA and White House about assassinating al Qaeda leader, Osama bin Laden before 9/11, as described in AAN’s first dispatch on drones, became overnight a thing of the past. Indeed, the swell of support for America and its government by US citizens, other nations and institutions such as the United Nations and NATO in the wake of 9/11 meant there was little opposition voiced to what would previously have been a highly contentious tactic.(1)

The legal controversy

The debate over whether America’s targeted killing programme is lawful centres on whether the US is actually involved in an ‘armed conflict’. Except during wartime, states cannot use lethal force, unless as a last resort and when absolutely necessary to save human life, for example, a police officer shooting someone who is about to kill another person. (This is according to International Human Rights Law.) Critics of the US targeted killings programme say the level of violence from al Qaeda and ‘associated forces’ is too sporadic and on too small a scale for it to be categorised as an armed conflict, so America’s use of lethal force is therefore unlawful. (2) The US has responded by saying it does not need to establish sufficient intensity of violence in each location where al Qaeda is based: even in places “outside areas of active hostilities” (its phrase), its use of lethal force is lawful. Yet that would mean, a senior legal advisor to the International Committee of the Red Cross (see here) has conjectured, that Washington has expanded its ‘battlefield’ to include the whole world, something which cannot be permissible.

The US also holds that it is acting in self-defence (allowed for by the UN Charter). When members of non-state groups pose a terrorist threat to US citizens or interests, Washington says, and the host government is “unwilling or unable” to deal with them, it can legally carry out targeted killings to defend itself. (Israel has made this argument for decades and the United Kingdom more recently). Critics such as former United Nations Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary Or Arbitrary Executions, Philip Alston, says such arguments have led to the “displacement of clear legal standards with a vaguely defined licence to kill, and the creation of a major accountability vacuum.”

Whichever side of the argument one comes down on (for a selection of papers outlining the legal debate, see footnote 3), it is clear that the technical capacity to carry out targeted killings across borders and the nature of the al Qaeda threat since 9/11 led the US to re-think its interpretation of the law. All three factors mean the US is now fighting in ways not previously possible.

Ordering drone strikes

The targeted killing programme using drones expanded in the last year of Bush’s presidency and then massively under Obama, (see here) with ten times more drone strikes carried out in Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen, than under Bush. Indeed, more strikes were authorised in Obama’s first year in office than in his predecessor’s entire presidency. The surge was driven by a huge increase in attacks on suspected militants in the ‘safe havens’ of Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). The New York Times reported in 2012 that President Obama personally authorised all strikes in Yemen and Somalia and “the more complex and risky ones” in Pakistan (about a third of the total). The Washington Post reported in the same year that the director of the CIA signed off strikes in Pakistan (see here). The Post also detailed how targeting lists were built up and decisions to kill people made. See also reporting on this from The Guardian and The Intercept).

Both the CIA and the military, in particular the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), well-known in Afghanistan for being the key player in kill or capture operations there, are involved in targeted killing operations using drones. Different legislation governs the CIA and the military, which gives the CIA extensive license to run secret programmes and legally restricts the government from providing information about them (although the military has scarcely been more open about what it does). There are particular concerns about the CIA’s lack of accountability and transparency. (See a legal analysis of the dangers of the CIA conducting military operations here and specifically in Afghanistan, here).

There have been reports of ‘turf fighting’ between the Pentagon and CIA over who should control the programme, but mainly reports of a high degree of operational cooperation, for example in kill/capture operations in Yemen, Iraq and cross-border strikes from Afghanistan into Pakistan, (4) and of air force pilots flying drones on behalf of the CIA. Last year, a general shift from the CIA to JSOC carrying out drone strikes was reported. That could mean the US government wants to be less secretive about its drones. However, as Robert Chesney of the US law and national security website, Lawfare, has said, in terms of practicalities, it may make little difference: although the military may now be giving the final order, subject to presidential approval where required, the operations themselves may still be hybrid, involving both military and CIA surveillance and intelligence.

For many years, the US neither confirmed or denied its targeted killing programme. Then, in 2013, Obama published rules governing the use of lethal force in counterterrorism operations outside the US and “outside areas of active hostilities,”(see here) defined in 2016 (see here) as “not Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and certain portions of Libya.” (Pakistan appears possibly not to be covered by this guidance or just not (see here) by the ‘imminent threat’ pre-condition for attack, mentioned below.

Lethal force, the guidance says, can only be used against “a target which poses a continuing, imminent threat to U.S. persons.” If force is used in foreign territories, “international legal principles, including respect for sovereignty and the law of armed conflict, impose important constraints.” There must be “near certainty” that the terrorist target is present, as well as near certainty that non-combatants are not, capture (which is preferable) is not possible and there are no other alternatives for dealing with the threat and the government of the country “cannot or will not effectively address the threat.” (Given that much of the legal debate over the US targeted killings programme is whether it is covered by the Laws of Armed Conflict or International Human Rights Law, it is interesting that the Obama guidance draws on both.)

Drones in Pakistan

Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) have seen the most drone strikes outside of Afghanistan, reports the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, with the first coming in 2004. The Bureau has calculated that more than 400 strikes aimed at the Pakistani Taleban (TTP), al Qaeda and other foreign jihadist groups and the Afghan Taleban have been launched. (5) (See a mapping of the strikes here). Strikes increased in frequency in 2008 and peaked in 2010. The author of “Sudden Justice: America’s Secret Drone Wars”, Chris Woods, has argued that the increase was driven by the US military in Afghanistan wanting to hit insurgent safe havens across the border. The many strikes on the TTP which were not a threat to the US in Afghanistan might have been part of a quid pro quo deal between the CIA and Islamabad, ie the US struck the TTP in return for Pakistan turning a blind eye to the US killing those threatening American soldiers in Afghanistan.

The most recent reported attack in Pakistan was on the then Taleban leader, Mullah Akhund Mansur in Baluchistan in May 2016 (see AAN reporting here). Exceptionally, according to the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, this was claimed by the US military. Otherwise, the CIA has been in charge of the Pakistan programme, the secrecy surrounding its actions helping Islamabad pretend it was hostile to the strikes. However, as the International Crisis Group said in a 2013 report, “Ample evidence exists of tacit Pakistani consent and active cooperation with the drone program, contradicting the official posture that it violates the country’s sovereignty.” It said that President Musharraf, after 2001, had permitted a substantial CIA presence in at least two airbases, Shamsi in southern Balochistan and Shahbaz in Sindh’s Jacobabad district, for intelligence gathering and collaboration. “Both were used to gather intelligence for drone strikes,” it said, “and possibly even to conduct them.” That sort of cooperation ended when a NATO air strike in November 2011 on the border killed 24 Pakistani soldiers. Crisis Group said:

Pakistan’s attitude towards drones borders on the schizophrenic. Rather than inherently opposing the strikes, its leadership, in particular its military, seeks greater control over target selection. This is often to punish enemies, but sometimes, allegedly, to protect militants who enjoy good relations with, or support from, the military – leaders of the Haqqani network, for example, or some Pakistani Taliban groups with whom the military has made peace deals.

Drones in Yemen

The first US targeted killing using a drone outside Afghanistan came in Yemen, in 2002, with a strike on those believed to have attacked the USS Cole in Aden harbour in 2000 (see here). It began to fly drones consistently into Yemen from 2009 (see here). The Bureau of Investigative Journalism reports between 145 and 165 confirmed drone strikes on Yemen with about one hundred others possible but not confirmed. (6) The most recent drone strike was on 30 January 2017. On 29 January, another a capture operation led by JSOC, with commandos also from the United Arab Emirates, targeted a commander with Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP); it reportedly resulted not only in the deaths of 14 men claimed by the AQAP as their fighters, but also more than twenty civilians. These reportedly included nine children under the age of 13. These two operations were President Trump’s first ordered targeted killing by drone and his first ‘kill or capture’ operation.

Both the JSOC and CIA have carried out drone strikes in Yemen, operating from Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti and a base in Saudi Arabia (location unknown). The US has also carried out air strikes using conventional aircraft and Cruise missiles.
Drones in Somalia

 The US has carried out targeted killings of suspected fighters with al-Shabab since 2011, although al-Shabab was only officially designated an ‘associated force’ of al Qaeda in November 2016, a shoring up of the legal basis for strikes under domestic US legislation brought in after 9/11 (see here). The Bureau of Investigative Journalism reports that JSOC is the lead agency, with its own fleet of armed Reaper drones flying from various bases in the region. “Elite troops,” reports the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, “are routinely deployed on the ground for surveillance, reconnaissance, and assault and capture operations. Since June 2011, the US has reportedly carried out 32 to 36 drone strikes, (7) most recently on 7 January 2017, a “self-defense strike” a press release said, carried out “in coordination with the Federal Government of Somalia,” by Somali partner forces, African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) forces and US advisors. The strike came, it said “during a counterterrorism operation to disrupt al-Shabaab,” after “the combined partner forces observed al-Shabaab fighters threatening their safety and security.” No-one was killed.

The impact of drones on civilians

One thing to stress at the outset is that US military operations in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia are far less transparent or accountable than its operations in Afghanistan. The US war in Afghanistan is overt and there is a military presence in country which means citizens, MPs, the UN and others can speak directly to officers. The media, both Afghan and international, is comparatively strong and UNAMA, with its Security Council ‘protection of civilians’ mandate, has built up a reliable, nationwide monitoring operation and advocates effectively on behalf of civilians. Finding out about drone strikes in other countries is far more difficult, although a number of studies have tried to determine the impact on civilians, including whether the Obama guidance is being followed.

That the US is underreporting the numbers of civilian casualties in drone strikes appears to be clear across the board. The Bureau of Investigative Reporting contrasted the US estimate of between 64 and 116 killed in countries other than Afghanistan between January 2009 and the end of 2015 with the number it had recorded – 380 to 801, ie six times lower. In Pakistan and Yemen, a 2016 Open Societies Foundation (OSF) report on mitigating civilian casualties found that the United States had failed to publicly acknowledge a single instance of civilian casualties over 400 and 120 strikes, respectively. Human rights and media have, however, documented “credible claims of civilian harm” and in Pakistan, these have been “corroborated by leaked internal Pakistani government documents.”

A 2015 Open Societies Foundation report on Yemen which investigated nine targeted killings (seven by drones and two by other aircraft) found that civilians had been killed and injured in all of them, leading it to question the US’s assertion that strikes are not conducted unless there is “near-certainty” that civilians are not present. It also looked at whether the Obama guidance had been followed in other instances. The study questioned whether the US used an overbroad definition of combatant to mask the number of civilians killed, in particular using proximity to a target as a proxy for determining someone’s combatant status. (8) It found that, in two of the strikes, the militants targeted could have been detained by the Yemeni government (ie lethal force was not necessary). Finally, it found that in none of the nine strikes documented “did the U.S. or the
Yemeni government state that the individuals targeted and killed had posed
a continuing and imminent threat to the American people.”

In its use of drones in Yemen, Somalia and Pakistan, the US has been accused of expanding the category of ‘combatants’, for example, assuming men in proximity to the target are fighters or that all ‘military-age’ men are fighters, (it denies both accusations), not taking proper precautions to safeguard civilians and having a programme that lacks transparency and proper investigations into who is killed: all of this ends, critics say, in civilians being killed and injured.

As has been seen in Afghanistan, there are particular dangers with targeted killings if people are killed not in response to hostile action, but based on intelligence. If the intelligence is wrong, airstrikes end up killing civilians (see analysis here). This may be especially problematic when people are attacked based solely on their ‘patterns of life’ which indicate to US targeters that they are combatants (these are called ‘signature strikes’). Some evidence for this has come from Pakistan where, the OSF civilian casualties study reported, statements by US officials and media reporting suggested that stricter rules on targeting and a reduction in ‘signature strikes’ had resulted in a marked decrease in the number of civilians killed in drones strikes (from an average of five civilians killed in each of 120 strikes in 2010, to one per strike in 2012, and to less than one per strike in 2013-15). (9)

The wider picture

The US targeted killing programme cannot be judged solely in terms of dead civilians, or even dead militants. Drones do not operate in a vacuum. Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia all have a variety of armed actors operating on their territories, ranging from militant groups and government forces to African peace-keepers in Somalia, and Saudi and other forces in Yemen (all of whom tend to be far less careful about civilians than the US military, and far less transparent). That plethora of armed actors means that local civilians have other concerns than just US drones. Moreover, US choices of local allies and the compromises this involves also have consequences.

Several studies on Pakistan have tried to assess this ‘wider picture’. Neither the US or Pakistani governments are open with information and travel by independent researchers and journalists to the tribal areas is hazardous, so getting reliable information is tough. “Fearing retaliation from the militants or the military, respondents choose their words carefully,” International Crisis Group reported in 2013. It thought it impossible to gauge the real views of local civilians. Some studies have tried, however, and reached very different conclusions.

In 2012, the Stanford and New York University Schools of Law (see here) reported that drones were counterproductive, imposing a great strain on civilians living beneath them and leading to increased recruitment to militant groups:

Drones hover twenty-four hours a day over communities in northwest Pakistan, striking homes, vehicles, and public spaces without warning. Their presence terrorizes men, women, and children, giving rise to anxiety and psychological trauma among civilian communities. Those living under drones have to face the constant worry that a deadly strike may be fired at any moment, and the knowledge that they are powerless to protect themselves. 

A 2016 study by Aqil Shah of the University of Oklahoma, however, found that hostility to drones increases the further you go from the ‘battlefield’. Attitudes towards them, he said, were far more positive in the tribal areas and most favourable in the area which had seen the highest number of drone strikes, North Waziristan:

In fact, 79 percent of the respondents [from North Waziristan] endorsed drones. In sharp contrast to claims about the significant civilian death toll from drone strikes, 64 percent, including several living in villages close to strike locations, believed that drone strikes accurately targeted militants. While many interviewees did specifically point to pre-2013 “signature strikes,” which targeted groups of men based on behavior patterns rather than individual identity, as the cause of occasionally high fatalities, 56 percent believed drones seldom killed non-militants.

 Locals, Shah found, were much more frightened of local militants and said the drones were more accurate than the Pakistani military’s ground and air offensives. He found no evidence that drones led to greater recruitment to militant groups.

The US believes its operations in the Pakistani tribal areas have been successful; they have “disrupted terrorist plots and reduced the original Qaeda organization along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border to a shell of its former self.” The OSF civilian casualties report, while accepting this is the case, argues that the situation is not so simple:

“Core” al Qaeda leadership may have been severely diminished, but the United States has paid a high political price as a result, arguably undermining its longer-term interests and strategic objectives in Pakistan. Domestic observers have raised concerns that the space for rational domestic debate around counter-terrorism and conflict resolution has shrunk beneath the dominant anti-U.S., anti-drone narrative, which has been capitalized on by religious conservatives.

Similar complexities are seen in Yemen where the US has not only targeted AQAP, but also backed Saudi Arabia and its coalition fighting Houthi rebels. It has provided intelligence, air-to-air refuelling and arms sales to Riyadh. The Saudi-led air campaign has been characterised by multiple, egregious targeting of civilians, including strikes on hospitals, schools and wedding parties; the UN estimates it has caused twice as many casualties as all other warring parties. In the face of Saudi and US strikes, says OSF, AQAP has managed to re-brand itself as a nationalist, pro-poor populist movement: “Victims and experts have questioned whether U.S. drone strikes, and subsequently its seemingly uncritical support to Saudi Arabia have also strengthened the hand of al-Qaeda, ISIL (Daesh), and other militant groups, while undermining the credibility and interests of the United States.”

The picture in places like Pakistan and Yemen is complicated. At the very least, it can be said that targeted killings always have wider consequences: they can stir up domestic support for rebels and strengthen the power of conservatives, and US air power can also be manipulated by governments to target their own, domestic enemies. Drone strikes may also mean non-military options – better civil and political rights in FATA, for example – can be ignored. However, all claims and assumptions need to be scrutinised: some of the criticism made in Pakistan, for example, asserting that drone strikes encourage locals to join armed groups seem not to be true, although the strikes may have encouraged militancy beyond FATA.

The future of drones in Afghanistan and beyond

Many people feel an instinctive unease about armed drones. Human Rights Watch’s John Sifton believes this is because they enable “the most intimate form of violence – the targeted killing of a specific person,” while being “the least intimate of weapons,” mixing “everyday violence” with “all the alienation of intercontinental ballistic missiles.” Nevertheless, in America’s wake, other countries are following. Armed drones are fast becoming a standard feature of many arsenals. Those already making or acquiring them include Israel, Russia, Turkey, China, India, Iran, Britain and France (see here), Iraq, Nigeria and Pakistan, with China (see here) as the main seller. (10) The primary constraint on their use now seems to be the capability to deal with huge streams of data (unless you just attack what you can see). Up till now, it has largely been the US arguing that it was legal for it to kill people using drones outside traditional battlefields. It is now possible for other countries to do the same: will Washington be as sanguine about Russia, Iran or China carrying out targeted killings in the way it now does?

Apart from the lowered barriers to initiating hostilities across borders, the other obvious concern coming from the research on the US drone programme is over accountability and transparency. This last problem is amplified when those carrying out the killings are secretive (JSOC) or covert (the CIA). Having said that, however, compared to most other countries and non-state armed groups, the US is still relatively careful and transparent when it comes to civilian casualties. (11)

As to Afghanistan, a US ‘drones-mainly’ strategy there as seen in Pakistan’s FATA and elsewhere, is not on the cards in the near future. However, given the seemingly never-ending nature of the war in Afghanistan and the fact that it remains a place attractive to foreign jihadists with internationalist aims, that could change. A future US Afghanistan mission limited to counterterrorism operations conducted mainly from the skies is not impossible to imagine.

Edited by Sari Kouvo and Borhan Osman

 

 

(1) Targeted killings have proved to be one of the least controversial of practices and reinterpretation of the law carried out by the Bush administration in the war on terror. Others, including torturing and rendering security detainees and denying them the protections of common article 3 of the Geneva Conventions were thrown out by the courts or by Obama, but may again make a come back under President Trump.

(2) Heather Brandon, writing on the Lawfare website, said that the US accepts the ‘Tadic formulation’ which sets out the intensity which violence must reach for there to be a ‘non-international armed conflict’ (the legal term for a conflict that does not involve two or more states). In the Dusko Tadic case at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) ‘non-international armed conflicts’ were defined as requiring “protracted armed violence” between either government forces and sufficiently organized non-state groups or between two or more of these organized non-state groups.”

(3) Legal papers looking at targeted killings, including with drones, include:

Gabriella Blum and Philip Heymann, “Law and Policy of Targeted Killing”, Harvard National Security Journey, Volume 1—June 27, 2010.

Philip Alston “Report of the Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions: Addendum
Study on targeted killings”, Presented to the United Nations Human Rights Council, A/HRC/14/24/Add.6, 28 May 2010.

Jelena Pejic
“Extraterritorial targeting by means of armed drones: Some legal implications”, International Review of the Red Cross, 2015, 1-40.

HCJ 769/02 Public Comm. Against Torture in Israel v. Gov’t of Israel (Targeted Killings Case), 2005.

Heather Brandon “Will Obama’s Targeted Killing Policy Say What “Areas of Active Hostilities” Means?” Lawfare, 5 May 2016.

(4) The Washington Post’s 2011 article reported:

Their [CIA officials, special forces and contractors, all under CIA command] activities occupy an expanding netherworld between intelligence and military operations. Sometimes their missions are considered military “preparation of the battlefield,” and others fall under covert findings obtained by the CIA. As a result, congressional intelligence and armed services committees rarely get a comprehensive view.

Hybrid units called “omega” or “cross matrix” teams have operated in Afghanistan, Iraq and Yemen, according to senior U.S. military officials. Those employed in Afghanistan were “mostly designed against specific high-value targets with the intent of looking across the border” into Pakistan, said a former senior U.S. military official involved in Special Operations missions. They wore civilian clothes and traveled in Toyota Hilux trucks rather than military vehicles.

(5) The Bureau’s figures for Pakistan are:

Total strikes: 424

Obama strikes: 373

Total killed: 2,499-4,001

Civilians killed: 424-966

Children killed: 172-207,
Injured: 1,161-1,744

(6) The Bureau’s figures for Yemen are:

Total confirmed strikes 145-165

Total killed: 601-871

Civilians killed: 65-101

Children killed: 8-9
Injured: 100-234

Possible extra drone strikes: 90-107

Total killed: 357-509

Civilians killed: 26-61

Children killed: 6-9

Injured: 82-109

Other covert operations: 21-84

Total killed: 234-509

Civilians killed: 78-127

Children killed: 28-36

Injured: 47-136

(7) The Bureau’s figures for Somalia are:

Drone strikes: 32-36

Total killed: 242-418
Civilians killed: 3-12

Children killed: 0-2

Injured: 5-24

Other covert operations:

10-14
Total killed: 59-160

Civilians killed: 7-47

Children killed: 0-2

Injured: 11-21

(8) AAN’s 2010 investigation into a targeted killing in Takhar province of Afghanistan found that, as well as intelligence failures leading to a civilian being mistaken for a commander and killed, his companions were all also assumed to be combatants as well, ie proximity was used as a proxy for distinguishing civilian from combatant. In this case, ten civilians were killed, all campaigners in parliamentary elections.

(9) In Yemen, a reverse trend was seen: reported civilian casualties from U.S. strikes, said OSF, declined in 2011-2012; then in 2013-2014, the rate of civilian casualties per operation rose by five per cent.

(10) CNBC reported that China had moved into the market strongly because, unlike the US, it is not a signatory to the 1987 Missile Technology Control Regime, which requires signatory states to “apply a “strong presumption of denial” to exports of unmanned vehicles capable of carrying a 1,100-pound payload more than 185 miles.” 

(11) See, for example, data from Physicians for Human Rights on attacks on medical facilities in Syria, largely by Syrian state and Russian forces, and reports on attacks on civilian targets, including medical facilities in Yemen, published by Physicians for Human Rights (see here) and Médecins Sans Frontières (see here).

 

The US Navy has decommissioned its Los Angeles-class fast-attack submarine USS Albuquerque (SSN 706) during a ceremony held at Keyport Undersea Museum, Washington.

The UK Government has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the British Royal Navy and the Argyll and Bute Community Planning Partnership to invest millions of pounds for developing HM Naval Base (HMNB) Clyde in Scotland.

Raytheon has been awarded a new indefinite-delivery / indefinite-quantity (IDIQ) contract to operate and maintain two forward-deployed shipboard radars.

Americas

• Raytheon has been contracted $128 million to support the USAF’s Mobile Sensors program. The four-year deal will see the company operate and maintain forward-deployed radars including the Cobra King used aboard the USNS Howard O. Lorenzen and the Gray Star radar used aboard the USNS Invincible. Both vessels are US Navy Missile Range Instrumentation Ships, which are designed to monitor missile launches and collect data.

• US President Donald Trump has announced hopes for an “historic” increase in defense spending, with plans to add $54 billion, or 10%, to current funds. Trump said the funds would go toward rebuilding a depleted military, and officials familiar with the proposal say there will be a focus on shipbuilding, military aircraft, and establishing “a more robust presence in key international waterways and choke points” such as the Strait of Hormuz and South China Sea. In order to pay for the increase, cuts have been proposed to US foreign aid, environmental protection, and education, and have already been met with opposition from both Republican and Democratic lawmakers as well as warnings from military officials.

• Israel Aerospace Industries’ (IAI) Elta North America subsidiary will provide counter-unmanned air system equipment to the USAF in a $15.5 million deal. The contract calls for the production and delivery of 21 MANPADS kits and the provision of training to the service. Last year, IAI unveiled the Drone Guard system which integrates a 3D radar and electro-optical (EO) sensors for detection and identification of UAS vehicles, plus jamming technology to disrupt its flight by either using a “send to home” function or causing the UAS to crash.

Europe

• Finland’s government has blocked the use of direct lobbying for the HX Fighter Replacement Program (HX-FRP) in an effort to add transparency and fairness to the competition. All the manufacturers entering the competition: Boeing (F/A-18), BAE Systems (Eurofighter Typhoon), Saab (JAS Gripen), Dassault Aviation (Rafale) and Lockheed Martin (F-35), have recruited Finnish lobbying and public relations agencies to represent their special interests, as well as contracting former senior Finnish military officers to help them develop sales strategies and add energy to their separate marketing efforts. The HX-FRP is estimated to be worth between $15 and 20 billion.

Asia Pacific

• Chinese media has reacted angrily to the Lotte Group and South Korea’s agreement to a land-swap that will allow for the deployment of the US Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system. The influential state-run tabloid the Global Times called for a boycott of Lotte in China and proposed “that Chinese society should coordinate voluntarily in expanding restrictions on South Korean cultural goods and entertainment exports to China, and block them when necessary.” Tourism to South Korea has also been affected with South Korean central bank figures citing a drop in the number of Chinese tourists visiting the tourist island of Jeju by 6.7% over the Lunar New Year holiday from last year, partly because of Beijing’s “anti-South Korea measures due to the THAAD deployment decision.”

• China has received their largest foreign order for the indigenous next-generation Wing Loong II UAV. However, the report did not disclose the identity of the buyer or the size of the order. Beijing has been driving to increase their market share of the military drone market at the expense of US and Israeli products, by offering lower-cost technology to customers and a willingness to sell to governments to which Western states will not sell. The Wing Loong II’s predecessor is marketed for $1 million, while the General Atomics MQ-9 Reaper, to which it has sometimes been compared, is priced at around $30 million.

• Australian firm Austal has announced the successful completion of the detailed design review of its $243 million Pacific Patrol Boat Replacement Project. The contract has tasked Austal with designing, producing, and sustaining 19 steel vessels that will then be gifted to 12 Pacific island nations as part of efforts to bolster regional maritime security. Austal hopes to begin construction for the ships in April 2017, and expects to begin deliveries between 2018 and 2023.

• Australia and Indonesia are to resume defense ties following a short suspension in cooperation. In January, Indonesian Armed Forces’ head of communications, Major General Wuryantyo, announced that the service was halting all activities with their Australian counterparts in response to an Indonesian officer taking offense to allegedly insulting reading materials found at an Australian military training facility. In addition to military exercises, the agreement facilitates defense-related trade and cooperation on counter-terrorism and maritime strategies.

Today’s Video

• Wing Loong UAV strike capabilities:

PB Lata

Australia’s Pacific Patrol Boat program solves a regional problem. Australia needs stability, but many of its neighbors are island sets with vast territories to cover, small populations, and small economies. Australia’s regional Defence Cooperation Program eventually provided 22 Patrol Boats to 12 different Pacific nations from 1987 – 1997. This includes all ongoing maintenance, logistics support and training, as well as Royal Australian Navy (RAN) specialists in the countries where the PPBs are based. Pacific nations, in turn, use them to support their local military, police and fisheries agencies.

It hasn’t always gone well…

Australian patrol boats were used in Papua New Guinea’s blockade of Bougainville during their civil war, and in 2000, the Solomon Islands boat was co–opted by Malaitan militias and used against Guadalcanal villages. Even so, the program’s overall benefits led Australia to begin a life-extension program in 2000, designed to extend Australia’s involvement to at least 2017 at a cost of A$ 350 million.

In 2014, the Australian government made another major commitment to the program, with a $2 billion proposal to build new boats.

Contracts & Key Events

Honaira

February 28/17: Australian firm Austal has announced the successful completion of the detailed design review of its $243 million Pacific Patrol Boat Replacement Project. The contract has tasked Austal with designing, producing, and sustaining 19 steel vessels that will then be gifted to 12 Pacific island nations as part of efforts to bolster regional maritime security. Austal hopes to begin construction for the ships in April 2017, and expects to begin deliveries between 2018 and 2023.

Dec 9/14: Tending the tender. Frazer-Nash, a British engineering consultancy which opened offices in Australia in 2010, announces that it was recently contracted by the Australian government to review the PPB-R’s high level technical specifications. The AUS $186K award was for a consulting engagement from July to November 2014. Meanwhile Power Initiatives, another consulting firm, won an AUS $243K study on October 7 to support the acquisition. These are small awards but they show that the tender is moving along. The effort is known as SEA3036.

Oct 17/14: Tender. Australia’s DMO published a notice saying that they intend to “release a Request for Tender (RFT) in Quarter 3 2014/2015 seeking a prime contractor for both the acquisition and support of a replacement fleet of Pacific Patrol Boats with the possibility that the support contract will include the provision of training services to the Pacific Island Countries.”

June 17/14: Announcement. Australia announces an A$ 594 million program to build “more than 20” purpose-designed, all-steel patrol boats for 13 PPB member countries: Cook Islands, Fiji, Kiribati, Republic of Marshall Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, Vanuatu, and new member Timor-Leste.

Exact numbers and allocations will be discussed with the member states, and the boats themselves will be built under a competitive tender. Given that the current program involved 22 boats, a final tally of 22-25 boats is reasonable. The major cost driver will actually be an estimated A$ 1.38 billion for 30 years of through-life sustainment and advisory personnel costs. Sources: Australian DoD, “Minister for Foreign Affairs and Minister for Defence – Maritime security strengthened through Pacific Patrol Boat Program” | Fiji Times Online, “$2b for Pacific patrol boat program”.

March 6/14: Maritime security cooperation talks between the Federated States of Micronesia and Australia. Micronesia’s Secretary of Foreign Affairs Lorin S. Robert singled out the Pacific Patrol Boat program:

“We cannot overemphasize its importance and its utility not only in ensuring maritime surveillance and law enforcement but also in addressing emergency relief operations, apprehending and preventing sea-borne security threats and delivering needed government services to outlying remote islands in the federation…”

Unsurprisingly, the program’s future was a subject of their talks. At the time, the report said only that “The dialogue ended on a clear direction of what to achieve for 2014 and the long-term plan for the patrol boats.” Sources: Islands Business, “Australia, FSM discuss Pacific patrol boat program”.

Additional Readings

• Nautilus Institute – Pacific patrol boat program. Useful background 2000 – 2009.

• Australian National University – Australian member committee of the Council for Security Cooperation in the Asia Pacific (Aus-CSCAP).

Swedish RBS 70 Man-Portable Air Defense Missile System

On March 1 st EUCAP Nestor, the European Union Maritime Capacity Building Mission to Somalia, will be renamed “EUCAP Somalia”, the EU Capacity Building Mission in Somalia.
A Council decision published on December 12th 2016 in the Official Journal of the European Union, states in article 1, EUCAP Somalia has been established as a Capacity Building Mission in Somalia.

The operational “switch-over” to the new Mission’s name is now taking place.
For the occasion, a redesign of the Mission's Website has been launched under www.eucap-som.eu . All past content from www.eucap-nestor.eu has been migrated and will be accessible on the new site.

EUCAP Somalia operates under a new, broadened civilian maritime security mandate. With an active presence in Mogadishu, Hargeisa (Somaliland) and Garowe (Puntland), EUCAP Somalia works to strengthen Somali capacity to ensure maritime security, carry out fisheries inspection and enforcement, ensure maritime search and rescue, counter smuggling, fight piracy and police the coastal zone on land and at sea.

Source

Tag: EUCAP SomaliaEUCAP Nestor

The US Coast Guard (USCG) has awarded five firm-fixed-price contracts with a total value of nearly $20m, in order to conduct early industry design studies and analysis for the purchase of the country's next heavy polar icebreaker.

The Royal Australian Navy's (RAN) Canberra-class landing helicopter dock (LHD) ship HMAS Canberra has welcomed two Eurocopter Tiger armed reconnaissance helicopters (ARHs) for first-of-class flight trials.

Austal has successfully completed the detailed design review (DDR) for Australia's A$306m ($234.4m) Pacific patrol boat replacement (PPB-R) project.

Americas

• Lockheed Martin subsidiary Sikorsky and their Polish affiliate PZL Mielec are in the final stages of planning a tour of the M28 Skytruck short takeoff and landing aircraft. The tour will involve a transatlantic flight from Poland to the Caribbean and Latin America, with key stops in Trinidad & Tobago and 12 other cities in Brazil, Argentina, Ecuador, Colombia, Mexico and Panama. Built for transporting passengers and cargo, the M28 is being marketed for both civilian and military applications as a platform that can operate in extreme weather conditions and fly very different mission profiles.

• The USAF is expected to green light a study into a potential low-cost, light-attack fighter fleet to augment the A-10 Warthog and other close-air support (CAS) platforms in Iraq and Syria. The service will abandon plans for a more long-term replacement of the Warthog, which is expected to keep flying well into the 2020s. $100 million has already been earmarked for the study, scheduled to start in the Spring, and will look at the capabilities of the existing commercial designs such as Textron’s Scorpion light-attack fighter before calling out to industry.

• Leonardo and its Team Spartan partners have mounted a legal challenge with the Public Services and Procurement Canada (PSPC) over the decision to award Airbus the Fixed-Wing Search-and-Rescue (FWSAR) program. Leonardo’s C-27J Spartan lost out to the C295W, however Team Spartan stated that “the C295W is a slower aircraft and will have difficulty covering the required search-and-rescue regions in a way that is compliant with the request for proposal [RfP]. The inclusion of a 5th Main Operating Base in the Airbus proposal would be the only way to be compliant, and that was not submitted. As it stands, this will significantly increase operating times in the north of Canada.” The team also criticised the C295W’s ability “to safely perform all missions without the presence of an auxiliary power unit [APU]” because it would not have the necessary Extended Range Twin Engine Operations rating.

Africa

• The UN has been notified that the German military’s Heron I UAV has achieved Full Operational Capability in Mali. Deployment of the UAV in Mali is planned to initially last until February 2018 when German operators will undergo intelligence gathering and surveillance missions after taking over from the Netherlands last July. The aircraft has been leased from Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) and has undergone maintenance and overhaul work by Airbus Defence and Space Airborne Solutions GmbH (ADAS).

Europe

• Germany’s Jenoptik has been contracted $13.8 million to provide components supporting the Patriot air and missile defense system. The manufacturer has been a long-term supplier for the Patriot program, offering power-supply units and sub-systems for the platform. The latest deal follows on earlier contracts in 2016 and will see the company deliver electrical generators, spare parts packages and testing equipment.

Asia Pacific

• Lotte Group has signed an agreement with the South Korean government to move ahead with a land swap that will see the deployment of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defence (THAAD) system on a golf course owned by the firm. Seoul said that the system will be in place by the end of the year with a South Korean military official indicating that the system could be in place as early as August. While the reasoning for the system making its way to the Korean peninsula comes amid North Korean ballistic missile testing, the deployment has received protests from China, concerned over THAADs powerful radar penetrating Chinese territory.

• India’s Ministry of Defense has rejected a plan to procure British Advanced Hawk trainer aircraft. The decision was made after revelations that British engine-maker Rolls-Royce bribed officials of India’s state-owned Hindustan Aeronautics Limited between 2005 and 2009 to secure orders for engines to power the Hawk 132 advanced jet trainers destined for the Indian Air Force. An IAF official stated, “this is because the MoD does not want [to] give additional orders for engines to tainted Rolls-Royce for the Advanced Hawk program.” New Delhi had initially contracted BAE for 123 Hawk Mk-132 advanced jet trainers for the IAF and the Navy.

• It’s been reported that a North Korean spy agency has been illegally selling defense equipment through a front company out of offices in Malaysia. Glocom sells battlefield radio equipment in violation of United Nations sanctions and advertises over 30 radio systems for “military and paramilitary” organizations. Last July, an air shipment of North Korean military communications equipment, sent from China and bound for Eritrea, was intercepted in an unnamed country. The seized equipment included 45 boxes of battlefield radios and accessories labeled “Glocom”, short for Global Communications Co. Malaysia is one of few in the international community with strong ties with Pyongyang, but these have been put under strain in recent weeks following the assassination of the older half-brother of dictator Kim Jong-un by North Korean agents in Kuala Lumpur Airport.

Today’s Video

• PZL M28 demo:

UH-60 Blackhawk

Helicopter-maker Sikorsky Aircraft Corp. has agreed to acquire aircraft and helicopter maker PZL Mielec from the Polish government. Under the agreement Sikorsky will acquire a 100% stake in the 1,500-employee Mielec, Poland firm; a Reuters report placed the deal at 250 million zlotys (currently about $84.3 million). Polskie Zaklady Lotnicze (Polish Aviation Factory) Mielec is a government holding company and manufacturer of fixed-wing aircraft under the Ministry of Treasury’s ARP (Industrial Development Agency); the transaction is subject to regulatory approval and pre-closing conditions. Sikorsky’s parent company UTC and its subsidiaries currently employ more than 7,000 people in Poland in the aerospace and building systems industries.

Janes Defense Industry observes that:

M28 Skytruck
(click to view full)

“The US group’s relationship with PZL was cemented in September 2006 when the Mielec site was selected as a strategic partner and assembly center for the International Black Hawk programme… Sikorsky has previously said, however, that it will look to maintaining production of the PZL M28 Skytruck [link added] passenger, transport and surveillance aircraft at the site, improving it with new technologies and creating a stable and efficient customer support network worldwide.”

Sikorsky’s release confirms:

“In 2006 Sikorsky announced plans to develop an International BLACK HAWK helicopter variant for global customers that would be manufactured using a global supply chain. Upon completion of this acquisition Sikorsky plans to aggressively modernize the factory and tooling at PZL Mielec to support International BLACK HAWK production and continue the current capability for aircraft design, manufacture, flight test and delivery… PZL Mielec will form the foundation of Sikorsky’s European operations.”

Sikorsky is currently facing serious challenges within its American operations, following an unusual Level 3 warning/CAR from the US government concerning the UH-60 Black Hawk program.

Update

February 27/17: Lockheed Martin subsidiary Sikorsky and their Polish affiliate PZL Mielec are in the final stages of planning a tour of the M28 Skytruck short takeoff and landing aircraft. The tour will involve a transatlantic flight from Poland to the Caribbean and Latin America, with key stops in Trinidad & Tobago and 12 other cities in Brazil, Argentina, Ecuador, Colombia, Mexico and Panama. Built for transporting passengers and cargo, the M28 is being marketed for both civilian and military applications as a platform that can operate in extreme weather conditions and fly very different mission profiles.

Using drones to carry out targeted killings has become an integral part of the United States’ ‘war on terror’. Afghanistan in the late 1990s was the laboratory where the US developed armed drones as it searched for a way to deal with Osama bin Laden who was then ordering attacks on American targets from his safe haven in Kandahar. At that time, Washington was uneasy about ordering an assassination, especially one likely to result in civilian casualties. After 9/11, such doubts disappeared and it embraced drones, using them to carry out targeted killings of Islamist militants in many countries. In this first of two dispatches, AAN’s Kate Clark looks at armed drones in Afghanistan.

A second dispatch will look at the expansion of America’s targeted killing by drone programme in the war on terror and asks whether Afghanistan might in the future see a US ‘drone-only’ or ‘drone-mainly’ mission of the sort seen in Pakistan’s tribal areas.

Bin Laden and the birth of drone warfare

The project to create armed drones grew out of the need felt by Washington to eliminate the threat posed by bin Laden. In the late 1990s, he was orchestrating attacks on American targets while living under Taleban protection. US options were limited by a presidential standing order banning assassinations (1) which meant the CIA was legally bound to plan an operation with detention as its sole aim. Additionally, CIA officials were worried about the women and children living in bin Laden’s compound – visible on satellite footage – who would be harmed if the capture operation turned into a firefight. “[CIA officers,” reported Steve Coll, “found themselves pulled into emotional debates about legal authorities and the potential for civilian casualties…” (2) (p 393)

In 1998, bin Laden ordered attacks on two American embassies in east Africa and Washington responded with Cruise missile strikes on training camps in Khost (which it said was an act of self-defence, not an assassination attempt). Even after that, however, Washington hesitated about making another attempt to kill the al Qaeda leader. The CIA insisted on definitive legal cover from the White House that officers would not later be charged with having carried out an ‘illegal’ assassination. Uneasiness was exacerbated by the fact that officials could never identify bin Laden with enough confidence to go ahead with a missile strike and they were still worried about killing women and children. Ahmad Shah Massud’s intelligence aides scorned this hesitation, reported Coll, portraying it as the US insisting on “capturing the king without disturbing the pawns.” (p535)

It was the need for accurate, absolutely up-to-date information about the target that drove the development of armed drones. They had already been used for surveillance in the Balkans, but now the decision was taken to increase their range and reliability and to arm them. Shortening the wait between target identification and strike, it was thought, would reduce the possibility of a precise strike with minimum ‘collateral damage’.

In the end, killing bin Laden by drone became feasible just as al Qaeda launched its attacks on New York and Washington on 11 September 2001. The US responded with a full military assault on al Qaeda and its hosts, the Taleban, and the first armed drone strike came that autumn, in Afghanistan, with an attempt to kill Taleban leader Mullah Muhammad Omar (see here). This time, there was no debate about legality: this was not now an assassination, but the lawful killing of a combatant during wartime.

Armed drones have been used ever since by the US in its ‘war on terror’, for both targeted killings and air support for troops on the ground. They have been deployed in Afghanistan, in Iraq after the 2003 invasion and more recently in Libya, and against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (for information about strikes in these three countries, see the Airwars website). Drones have also been used for targeted killings of al Qaeda and what the US calls ‘associated forces’ in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia. Targeted killings by drone have become, former director of the CIA Michael Hayden said, “part of the American way of war.”

Since 2001, the US has asserted its legal right to kill hostile non-state actors if their host government is “unwilling or unable” to deal with the threat. The concerns which agonised the CIA and the White House over killing bin Laden, before 9/11 – whether targeted killings were legal and the danger of civilians being harmed in an assassination attempt – are now dismissed or downplayed by Washington. (This will be looked at in more detail in the second dispatch in this mini-series).

Drones in Afghanistan

Armed drones have been flown for more than fifteen years in Afghanistan. Yet data about them is scarce. Statistics for all aircraft flown by the United States, which, since 2014, has been the only foreign state carrying out combat operations in Afghanistan, are not disaggregated; we know only the numbers for the total air sorties flown and munitions dropped by all US aircraft. It had been believed that the statistics – even though not disaggregated to distinguish drones from other aircraft – were good. The US Air Force has been collating and publishing them for several years. (Note for anyone following this issue: the URL has recently been changed slightly; this one works.) However, the Military Times recently revealed that data for aircraft operated by the army in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria has been excluded from these statistics. The discrepancy is large: in Afghanistan, in 2016, for example, 615 strikes had been reported, but including strikes from army aircraft, the number rose to 1,017. Still, although some of those extra strikes will have been by drones – the Military Times reported that the US army was flying MQ-1 Gray Eagles to help provide “lethal support” (3) – it seems the bulk of the extra airstrikes came from Apache helicopters.

Working out who flies what and under whose command is difficult. Generally, air strikes can be ordered, according to a military spokesman for US forces in Afghanistan who spoke to the Military Times, for “self defense, counter terror and strategic effects, which may be required when senior commanders believe U.S. firepower could help turn the tide in regions deemed vital to Afghanistan’s broader stability.” Senior commanders have told AAN this, for example, might be preventing a district or provincial centre falling to the Taleban. Those who have access to airpower, including drones, on the US side are: the US Air Force, the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), which is the key player in counter-terrorism and particularly US targeted killings operations in Afghanistan, and the army. The CIA has a close working relationship with JSOC; in the past (and possibly still?), this included pooling intelligence and drawing up lists of targets for kill/capture operations. (4) The CIA also flies drones across the border to carry out targeted killings in Pakistan’s tribal areas. The use of covert Agency drones was important because of Islamabad’s claims to be hostile to the US strikes. (There will be more detail on this in AAN’s second dispatch on armed drones.)

Josh Smith, former Kabul correspondent with the independent US military newspaper, Stars and Stripes, and now with Reuters, has reported that the US Air Force flies MQ-9 Reapers and MQ-1 Predators out of American bases in Kandahar and Jalalabad. He told AAN that pilots and operators on the ground guide the drones in and out for take off and landing, but unless the mission is very local, for example, base protection, once a drone is in flight, control is handed over to other operators, almost all in the United States. The main hub is Creech Air Force Base in Nevada, but there are also a small number of control stations in other locations. “Pilots at Cannon Air Force Base in New Mexico, for example,” he said “flew most of the Air Force Special Operations Command missions.” Air force drone operators told Smith that they fly drones and conventional aircraft “for a range of customers.” That could include JSOC, the CIA (see also this piece) and the army, although all also have their own drones and pilots.

Between 2008 and 2014, before NATO’s transition to the non-combat, ‘train, advise, assist’ Resolute Support mission, the UK also flew armed drones in Afghanistan, with strikes made in 16 of the 34 provinces. These were “only,” said the Ministry of Defence, “in support of coalition ground forces”(see here). The Afghan Air Force now also has drones for surveillance. Members of the Taleban’s media branch recently posted pictures of what they say are their drones in action, carrying out surveillance in Afghanistan.

Drones and civilian casualties

Trying to determine the impact of drone strikes in Afghanistan is difficult. The scarcity of drone specific data and the sheer amount of other weaponry around makes singling out the effects of drones per se very difficult. Any air strike could have been carried out by a drone or another aircraft – it can be difficult to tell from the ground. Moreover, targeted killings have been carried out not only through airstrikes, but also in night raids (although here there is an aim to capture or kill). Both tactics proved controversial, but it was civilian casualties and the invasion of people’s homes that were upsetting, rather than the use of drones.

UNAMA, in its tracking of civilian casualties, does not separate those caused by drones from other aircraft. Indeed, it would not be able to disaggregate the figures without the US providing the information, if it wanted to.

There has been discussion about whether drones are or should be better than other aircraft in reducing the risk of killing civilians when making a strike. Supporters of drones and even some detractors point out that, because drones can loiter in ways that planes cannot, they allow for ‘tactical patience’ and more accurate targeting. All things being equal, therefore, there is less likelihood for civilians to be harmed. However, one study with access to classified military data which was able to compare strikes from drones and aircraft in Afghanistan (mid-2010 to mid-2011) found that drones were then causing ten times more civilian casualties. Co-author Sarah Holewinski of the non-governmental organisation Center for Civilians in Conflict, told The Guardian the disparity was a result of fighter pilots getting more training in avoiding civilian casualties: “‘These findings show us that it’s not about the technology, it’s about how the technology is used,’ Holewinski said. ‘Drones aren’t magically better at avoiding civilians than fighter jets. When pilots flying jets were given clear directives and training on civilian protection, they were able to lower civilian casualty rates.’”

There are other ways in which civilian casualties may be increased or reduced by the use of drones, although, here we can only speak speak about air power in general because the data for drones and other aircraft is not disaggregated. Reduction in international air cover generally since 2014, for example, has resulted, indirectly, in an overall increase in the number of civilians killed and injured in the Afghan conflict (see UNAMA report here and AAN reporting here. This is because the Taleban, no longer fearing attack from the skies, have been able to mass in ways that would previously have been suicidal. It has become possible for them to launch ground engagements and threaten Afghan towns and cities, pushing up the total number of civilians killed and injured in the conflict to new records.

However, the data also shows that having a ‘pro-government’ aerial capability does not necessarily safeguard civilians. In 2016, air strikes killed and injured more civilians than in any year since at least 2009 when UNAMA started systematic documentation. UNAMA attributed about 40 per cent of the 2016 casualties caused by air strikes to the Afghan air force and about 40 per cent to the US air force (with the other 20 per cent not attributable to either party, but caused by one of them) (See the UNAMA annual report here and AAN’s analysis here). The situation is grave enough for UNAMA to have called for an immediate halt to strikes by armed aircraft in civilian-populated areas and for “clear tactical directives, rules of engagement and other procedures” to be adopted. In many of those intervening years, far more sorties were flown and strikes made, so what is pushing the numbers up?

On the US side, successive military commanders had made it more difficult for air strikes to be ordered, putting in place new sets of precautions and conditions. These led to successive drops in the number of civilians killed and injured in air strikes (for detail, see here and here). It seems the sharp rise in civilian casualties caused by US air operations in 2016 was probably due to poorer intelligence (fewer ground troops means the US is not as knowledgeable as it used to be) and/or failure to follow procedures. The latter was the case with the strike on the Médecins Sans Frontières hospital in Kunduz in October 2015 and the strike on Buz-e Kandahari village, again in Kunduz on 2-3 November 2016 (in each attack, about 30 civilians were killed and another 30 injured). In both cases, UNAMA and others questioned whether the US had breached the Laws of Armed Conflict.

On the Afghan side, it seems casualties are coming from failures to distinguish civilian from military targets, including recklessly firing at Taleban despite the harm bound to come to civilians (again, both potential breaches in the Laws of Armed Conflict). On 9 August 2016 in Nawa Barakzai district in Helmand, for example, UNAMA describes how Afghan air force helicopters tracked Taleban into residential compound and fired munitions, killing and injuring women and children.

So, in 2016, we saw sharp rises in civilians killed and injured by the most sophisticated air force in the world and one of the least – Afghan air strikes are often from machine guns mounted on helicopters. It was not the weaponry itself that was the crucial factor, but rather, mission aims and guidelines, training and intelligence. As a factor determining the numbers of civilian casualties, at least currently in Afghanistan, whether armed drones are used or not, seems to be a minor consideration. Moreover, if they are causing any variation, the distinction is not visible to anyone outside the US military.

Living under drones

 Just one study has managed to delve at all into the impact of drones on communities in Afghanistan. In autumn 2015, field interviews were carried out for Durham University with people living in two (un-named) districts of Nangarhar which had seen a “surge” in drone use. It is a preliminary study (the authors are currently finishing a longer research paper), but nevertheless, gives some pointers to how Afghan civilians may experience drones. In the two districts, said the study’s authors, the population is largely Pashtun and has a “notable history of support and loyalties towards Kabul.” They found that:

Drone strikes receive widespread support, as long as they effectively and accurately target Taliban, Daesh and elements from Pakistan believed to create and perpetuate these groups. Indeed, these insurgent and terror-group elements are clearly seen by citizens in the fieldwork areas as their enemies – and enemies of Afghanistan.

Respondents believed drones were “supremely accurate” and praised them for instilling fear in Taleban and Daesh members, thereby disrupting their movement and activities. However, it was the simultaneous menace of both insurgent groups and drones on respondents’ everyday life which the authors of the study found revelatory:

Fear of becoming caught up in a drone strike as a result of running livestock, collecting firewood in the mountains or cultivating fields where insurgent groups hide and pass through is economically damaging and encouraging depopulation. Activities that manifest and reinforce important social ties and networks are curtailed by the presence and fear of drones. This includes: providing hospitality to strangers who visit homes and may turn out to be Taliban; gathering to celebrate weddings; observing funerals; discussing the day’s issues at night after subsistence work; and simply moving around the village after dark.

 In other words, even if drone strikes were successfully targeting Taleban and other combatants, and this was popular among civilians, this was not creating the conditions for anything like a resumption of ‘normal life’. Nor did the killings feel like a victory for those on the ground.

The character of drone use in places like Nangarhar, said the Durham University study “is becoming more like that across the border in FATA.” This refers to a model where drones are used for targeted killings in a narrow, counter-terrorism mission aimed not at stabilising Afghanistan, with an eye to “restoring and reinforcing viable and effective governance, social and economic structures,” but at “containing the ability of Afghanistan-based terror-related groups to commit acts of violence beyond its borders, especially in areas central to US and wider western interests.” These two aims have, since 2001, always co-existed in the international military mission in Afghanistan, but the authors of the Durham study believe that in places like Nangarhar the narrow counter-terrorism mission has become dominant.

Nangarhar is a particular case in Afghanistan, a province where the situation on the ground most closely resembles the tribal areas of Pakistan, with a widespread, but fragmented armed opposition, a relatively weak Taleban and a plethora of Afghan and foreign jihadist groups (see AAN reporting here. US military operations in Nangarhar are not particularly representative of how it operates elsewhere in Afghanistan. However, it may suggest what a narrow US counter-terrorism mission could look like.

Constraints on US combat operations were written into the US-Afghanistan Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) (see here), signed in September 2014; they were limited to strikes on “al Qaeda and its affiliates.” This led to a concentration of US air strikes on Afghanistan’s eastern border with Pakistan, especially Nangarhar, where foreign jihadists are most active. (The US was also still playing its part in the non-combat NATO mission to support Afghan National Security Forces.) In June 2016, President Barack Obama, with Afghan agreement, did broaden out US targeting, allowing for strikes on Taleban and in support of Afghan troops and air strikes have been used more widely since. Even so, there are worrying aspects to US air strikes in Nangarhar. One to watch in 2017 will be civilian casualties. In 2016 UNAMA noted, there were “considerable increases in civilian casualties caused solely by international military forces in Nangarhar province.” 89 civilians were killed or injured in 13 aerial operations in 2016 compared to 18 during 10 aerial operations in 2015.

Looking ahead

For the most part, the use of US drones in the Afghan conflict has not been visible or controversial. This is in sharp contrast to their deployment in FATA, and also in Yemen and Somalia. In those three countries, where the US has conducted a ‘drone only’ or drone mainly’ mission to carry out targeted killings, there has been a fierce debate about their legality, effectiveness and impact on civilians.

A second dispatch in this mini-series will look at why and how the US drone programme expanded after that first drone strike in Afghanistan in October 2001. It will also examine the experiences of Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia and ask whether the ‘FATA model’ of drone use could be seen in the future in Afghanistan.

Edited by Sari Kouvo and Borhan Osman

 

 

(1) President Gerald Ford banned assassinations after various CIA scandals emerged after Watergate, including the Agency’s repeated attempts to kill Cuban president Fidel Castro. The ban was reinforced by Ford’s two successors. President Ronald Reagan’s version) said: “No person employed by or acting on behalf of the United States Government shall engage in, or conspire to engage in, assassination.”

(2) Steve Coll Ghost Wars: the Secret history of the CIA, Afghanistan and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Withdrawal to September 10, 2001, Penguin Books: London (2004).

(3) The military spokesman also included RQ-7 Shadows as one of the aircraft used by the army to provide “lethal support.” This model is actually used for surveillance, not targeting.

(4) In 2012, at the height of US kill or capture operations, the author wrote:

At the forward headquarters of the Joint Special Operations Command or JSOC at Bagram, where intelligence from multiple sources – the military, CIA, detainee interrogations, drone footage and intercepts – is collated, a joint targeting working group meets weekly. It has direct input from the Combined Forces Command and its divisional HQ, as well as lawyers, operational command and intelligence units, including the CIA and it places men deemed to be ‘insurgent leaders’ on the Joint Prioritised Effects List (JPEL) for capture or targeted killing.