{"id":1899,"date":"2013-07-23T10:20:04","date_gmt":"2013-07-23T16:20:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/?p=1899"},"modified":"2013-07-23T12:51:52","modified_gmt":"2013-07-23T18:51:52","slug":"leaked-pakistani-report-confirms-high-civilian-death-toll-in-cia-drone-strikes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/leaked-pakistani-report-confirms-high-civilian-death-toll-in-cia-drone-strikes\/","title":{"rendered":"Leaked Pakistani report confirms high civilian death toll in CIA drone strikes"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Chris Woods, Bureau of Investigative Journalism
\nclick here for original article<\/a><\/p>\n

A secret document obtained by the Bureau reveals for the first time the Pakistan government\u2019s internal assessment of dozens of drone strikes, and shows scores of civilian casualties.<\/p>\n

The United States has consistently claimed only a tiny number of non-combatants have been killed in drone attacks in Pakistan \u2013 despite research by the Bureau and others suggesting that over 400 civilians may have died in the nine-year campaign.<\/p>\n

The internal document shows Pakistani officials too found that CIA drone strikes were killing a significant number of civilians \u2013 and have been aware of those deaths for many years.<\/p>\n

Of 746 people listed as killed in the drone strikes outlined in the document, at least 147 of the dead are clearly stated to be civilian victims, 94 of those are said to be children.<\/p>\n

The confidential 12-page summary paper, titled\u00a0Details of Attacks by Nato Forces\/Predators in FATA<\/em>\u00a0was prepared by government officials in Pakistan\u2019s Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA).<\/p>\n

\n

Can you imagine the uproar that would be caused anywhere else in the world if 94 children were reported murdered in just three years?\u2019<\/strong>\u00a0<\/em>
\nJemima Khan<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Based on confidential reports from a network of government agents in the field, it outlines 75\u00a0separate\u00a0CIA drone strikes between 2006 and late 2009 and provides details of casualties in many of the attacks.\u00a0Five\u00a0<\/strong>attacks alleged to be carried out by Nato or other unspecified forces are also listed.<\/p>\n

The numbers recorded are much higher than those provided by the US administration, which continues to insist that\u00a0no more than 50 to 60 \u2018non-combatants\u2019<\/a>\u00a0have been killed by the CIA across the entire nine years of Pakistan bombings. New CIA director John Brennan has described claims to the contrary as \u2018intentional misrepresentations<\/a>\u2018.<\/p>\n

The document shows that during the 2006-09 period covered, when Pakistan\u2019s government and military were\u00a0privately supporting the CIA\u2019s campaign,<\/a>\u00a0officials had extensive internal knowledge of high civilian casualties.<\/p>\n

A spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs told the Bureau the present Pakistani government opposes drone strikes: \u2018Pakistan\u2019s position on drone strikes has been stipulated on several occasions. The drone strikes violate our sovereignty and international law. These also entail human rights and humanitarian implications.\u2019<\/p>\n

A former Political Agent for North Waziristan who was shown the leaked report by the Bureau says he does not believe the casualty figures to be exaggerated.<\/p>\n

\u2018There was no benefit in officials \u201ccooking the books\u201d here, since this document was clearly never intended to be seen outside the civilian administration,\u2019 said Rauf Khan Khattak, who also recently served in Pakistan\u2019s caretaker government.<\/p>\n

Three separate sources
\n<\/strong>The leaked document \u2013 which the Bureau obtained from three separate sources \u2013 is based on field reports by government officials rather than on media coverage. The Bureau understands that the document is continually updated as attacks occur \u2013 although the copy obtained ends with a strike on October 24 2009.<\/p>\n

Prepared for the\u00a0FATA Secretariat<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 the political\u00a0administration\u00a0of the tribal areas \u2013 the document was never intended for public release. Since no individual victims are named, the Bureau has assessed that it is safe to publish the paper in its entirety.<\/p>\n

Read the full internal Pakistani document.<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

\n

Of 746 people listed killed in the 75 drone strikes, at least 147 of the dead are clearly stated by the leaked report to be civilian victims. Some 94\u00a0of those are said to be children.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The document often includes fresh information on strikes, for example confirming\u00a0the location and target of a\u00a0September 2 2008 CIA attack<\/a>, only previously alluded to in a\u00a0US intelligence document<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The newly released paper gives a precise location and casualty count for that strike, noting:<\/p>\n

Predator attack was made on the house of Bakhtawar Khan Daur, Mohammad Khel, Tehsil Datta Khel Miranshah. One injured.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

According to former officials familiar with the process, the internal casualty data listed in the document would have been collated through an extended network of government contacts.<\/p>\n

Each tribal area such as North Waziristan is administered by a Political Agent and his assistants. Beneath them are agents known as\u00a0tehsildars<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0naibs<\/em>\u00a0who gather information when drone strikes occur \u2013 the names and identities of those killed, damage to property and so on. Additional information is also drawn from the\u00a0khassadar \u2013\u00a0<\/em>the local tribal\u00a0police \u2013 and from paid informants in villages.<\/p>\n

\u2018What you end up with in these reports is reasonably accurate, because it comes from on-the-ground sources cultivated over many years. And the political agent is only interested in properly understanding what actually happened,\u2019 says former official Rauf Khan Khattak.<\/p>\n

Key document<\/strong>
\nBoth the US and Pakistani authorities have historically been wary of releasing casualty data for the \u2018secret\u2019 CIA campaign.<\/p>\n

However in March, UN special rapporteur Ben Emmerson QC \u2013 who is carrying out an investigation into drone strikes \u2013 said that Pakistani officials had now produced\u00a0estimates of civilians killed<\/a>\u00a0in CIA drone attacks.<\/p>\n

\n

What you end up with in these reports is reasonably accurate, because it comes from on-the-ground sources cultivated over many years.\u2019\u00a0<\/strong><\/em>
\nRauf Khan Khattak, former FATA Political Agent<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Emmerson stated that Islamabad \u2018has been able to confirm that at least 400 civilians had been killed as a result of drone strikes, and that a further 200 individuals were regarded as probable non-combatants. Officials indicated that due to under-reporting and obstacles to effective investigation on the ground these figures were likely to be under-estimates of the number of civilian deaths.\u2019<\/p>\n

In contrast, leaked\u00a0US intelligence documents<\/a>\u00a0recently obtained by news agency McClatchy show the CIA rarely admits to civilian deaths in Pakistan.<\/p>\n

Yet the internal document obtained by the Bureau shows that for years Pakistani officials were noting privately what news media and researchers were already reporting publicly \u2013 that significant numbers of civilians were indeed being killed in CIA attacks.<\/p>\n

In a US strike on the village of Damadola in January 2006, for example, officials noted: \u201905 children 05 women and 6 mens [sic] all civilians\u2019 died. Press reports at the time indicated that between\u00a010 and 18 civilians had died<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"56829352<\/p>\n

The leaked report details 16 civilian deaths in this January 2006 drone strike. (Photo: AFP\/Getty)<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

On four\u00a0other occasions, tribal officials privately reported civilian deaths where the media had reported none.<\/p>\n

On June 14 2009, for example, FATA officials secretly noted that an\u00a0attack on a vehicle<\/a>\u00a0which killed three people was on \u2018a civilian pickup truck\u2019. No Urdu or English-language media at the time reported any civilian deaths.<\/p>\n

Most controversially, tribal officials reported back to Islamabad in October 2006 that 81 civilians, all but one of whom were described as children, were killed in a single drone strike on a religious school in Bajaur Agency.<\/p>\n

According to officials, the casualties were \u201980 children 01 men all civilian\u2019. \u00a0It was widely reported\u00a0at the time that scores of children had died: Pakistani newspaper The News\u00a0published the names and ages<\/a>\u00a0of 69 children, under the UN definition of a child as being under 18 years old. The discrepancy appears to be because the FATA Secretariat has also classified older students killed as children.<\/p>\n

As with all early CIA drone strikes, Pakistan\u2019s military had initially claimed it was responsible for the 2006 Bajaur strike. As word of civilian deaths began to emerge, the army reversed its position and denied carrying out the attack, although it has consistently claimed that only militants died that day.<\/p>\n

\n

Most controversially, tribal officials reported back to Islamabad in October 2006 that 81 civilians, all but one of whom were described as children, were killed in a single drone strike on a religious school.\u2019<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

In June 2012, Pakistan\u2019s former President General Pervez Musharraf\u00a0told journalist Jemima Khan<\/a>: \u2018In the media, they said it was all children. They were absolutely wrong. There may have been some collateral damage of some children but they were not children at all, they were all militants doing training inside.\u2019<\/p>\n

Jemima Khan is associate editor of British magazine the\u00a0New Statesman<\/a>\u00a0and also the former wife of Pakistani politician Imran Khan \u2013 who campaigns vociferously against US drone strikes.<\/p>\n

\u2018Can you imagine the uproar that would be caused anywhere else in the world if 94 children were reported murdered in just three years?\u2019 Ms Khan told the Bureau.<\/p>\n

Ms Khan said that she was angered to learn that senior military and government officials were denying the deaths of children at Bajaur, even as they privately knew otherwise.<\/p>\n

\u2018This leaked document proves what many have suspected all along \u2013 that US and Pakistani politicians have been lying to us,\u2019 she said.<\/p>\n

Former officials agree that the leaked document is most likely accurate: \u2018You can\u2019t distort that kind of information. If children hadn\u2019t been killed, we\u2019d have had people coming to us from all over Bajaur who would have told us so,\u2019 former FATA agent\u00a0Rauf Khan Khattak insists.<\/p>\n

Unnamed dead
\n<\/strong>The secret government papers are revealing, but they also have some puzzling omissions.<\/p>\n

None of those killed are named in the document \u2013 either civilians or alleged or known militants. Even where prominent militant commanders were killed \u2013 such as Baitullah Mehsud, head of the Pakistan Taliban (TTP), who died in August 2009 \u2013 no reference is made to the target.<\/p>\n

Reports of civilian deaths also disappear entirely for most of 2009, after President Obama took office.<\/p>\n

In part this is because officials occasionally note that \u2018details of casualties are yet to be ascertained.\u2019\u00a0But many credible reports of civilian deaths are simply missing.<\/p>\n

The Bureau\u2019s own research shows that civilian deaths have been credibly reported in at least\u00a017of the 53 CIA drone strikes in Obama\u2019s first year in office.<\/p>\n

\"Sth-Wana-letter-Jan-20091<\/a><\/p>\n

Yet FATA officials report civilian deaths in only three incidents in 2009.<\/p>\n

On January 23 that year, for example, the secret file notes only that five people died in a strike in South Waziristan \u2013 with no indication of civilian deaths.<\/p>\n

However, a letter from the South Waziristan Political Agency \u2013 obtained in 2010 by\u00a0the Center for Civilians in Conflict<\/a>\u00a0(right<\/em>) \u2013 clearly notes four civilian deaths in that attack. President Obama is also reported to havebeen informed<\/a>\u00a0of civilian deaths in this and another strike on the same day.<\/p>\n

For the years 2006 to 2008, the internal document far more closely matches media reports of civilian deaths. Yet measured against the public record, it is unclear why references to civilian deaths in the report disappear almost entirely after Obama\u2019s election.<\/p>\n

\u2018No such documents\u2019
\n<\/strong>Ambassador Rustan Shah Mohmand, who was a senior administrator in the tribal areas for 25 years between 1973 and 1998, cautions that the released file might not be the fullest data available.<\/p>\n

Noting that Pakistan\u2019s military is responsible for security in FATA, he told the Bureau: \u2018Tribal documents might present a broad picture. But any accuracy is dependent on what data the military chooses to release to or withhold from the political agents. In the last eight years, for example, no precise casualty figures have ever been submitted to Pakistan\u2019s parliament.\u2019<\/p>\n

Rumours have been circulating for many months of internal Pakistani documents detailing drone strike casualties.\u00a0The Chief Justice of the Peshawar High Court, Dost Muhammad Khan, began demanding in mid 2012 that the FATA Secretariat release all casualty data it held.<\/p>\n

Khan presided over a successful civil case against the CIA brought by the\u00a0Foundation for Fundamental Rights<\/a>. FATA officials at first claimed that\u00a0no such internal documents<\/a>\u00a0existed, though in August 2012 an\u00a0official\u00a0presented the court<\/a>\u00a0with limited details of CIA strikes up to 2008.<\/p>\n

\n

Rumours have been circulating for many months of internal Pakistani documents detailing drone strike casualties.\u2019<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

In his\u00a0final judgment<\/a>\u00a0Chief Justice Khan, citing \u2018Political Authorities\u2019 in FATA, said that 896 civilians had been killed by the CIA between 2007 and 2012 in North Waziristan, with a further 533 civilian deaths in South Waziristan.<\/p>\n

Those figures indicate that FATA officials may now be claiming a far higher civilian death toll than that reported by the leaked document –\u00a0 although the source for those claims is not clear.<\/p>\n

\u2018How come the same civil servants are feeding one kind of data to the Peshawar High Court and another kind of data to the FATA secretariat?\u2019 asked\u00a0Shahzad Akbar, a legal fellow at charity Reprieve and the Pakistani barrister behind the successful Peshawar case. \u2018Are they fudging the numbers based on who was on the receiving end?\u2019<\/p>\n

US counter-terrorism officials declined to comment on the specifics of the leaked document, though referred the Bureau to recent comments by both\u00a0President Obama\u00a0<\/a>and\u00a0CIA Director Brennan<\/a>\u00a0stating that the US goes to great lengths to limit civilian deaths in covert drone strikes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Chris Woods, Bureau of Investigative Journalism click here for original article A secret document obtained by the Bureau reveals for the first time the Pakistan government\u2019s internal assessment of dozens of drone strikes, and shows scores of civilian casualties. The United States has consistently claimed only a tiny number of non-combatants have been killed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1900,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1899","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/72299001.jpg?fit=994%2C1228&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1899","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1899"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1899\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1902,"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1899\/revisions\/1902"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1900"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1899"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1899"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1899"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}