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drone attack
Israel Bombs Yemen Saturday in Escalation with Houthis
The attack came a day after the Houthis claimed responsibility for a drone attack on Tel Aviv
Jul 20, 2024
Houthi-run media say Israeli air strikes Saturday targeted oil storage facilities in the Yemeni port city of Hodeidah and that there are an unspecified number of fatalities and injuries.
The attack came a day after the Houthis claimed responsibility for a drone attack on Tel Aviv that killed one person and struck just yards from a U.S. Embassy branch office.
Israel’s air strikes will not stop the Houthi's military operations in support of the Palestinian people, Houthi political bureau member Mohammed al-Bukhaiti said in a post on X, warning they will instead increase until the war in Gaza ends. “The Zionist entity will pay the price for targeting civilian facilities, and we will meet escalation with escalation,” al-Bukhaiti wrote.
Military and political analyst Elijah Magnier told Al Jazeera, “Is this going to change the course of action of a non-state actor that is motivated to support the people of Gaza? Certainly not,” Magnier said. “They’ve been given a perfect reason to increase the attacks. We have not seen the end of it – far from it,” he said.
In another post on X, the Houthis’ spokesman, Mohammed Abdulsalam, called the Israeli air strikes “a brutal Israeli aggression against Yemen that aims to deepen people’s suffering and to pressure Yemen to stop supporting Gaza.” Abdulsalam called the attack an Israeli “dream that will not come true. We affirm that this brutal aggression will only increase the determination of the Yemeni people and their valiant armed forces to be steadfast and to continue their support for Gaza. The Yemeni people are able to face all challenges for the sake of victory for oppressed Palestine and the people of Gaza, whose cause is the most just on earth.”
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'War Is Clearly Back on the Agenda': US Says Israel Was Behind the Drone Attack on Iran
"This latest act of sabotage conducted via a military attack inside Iran is a dangerous escalation and should be cause for concern for everyone who opposes war," said one campaigner.
Jan 30, 2023
Unnamed U.S. officials on Sunday confirmed suspicions that Israel was behind the weekend drone attack on a purported military facility in the Iranian city of Isfahan, heightening concerns that the far-right government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is gearing up for a broader assault on Iran as international nuclear talks remain at a standstill.
The New York Times reported that the drone attack—which Iran says it mostly thwarted—was "the work of the Mossad, Israel's premier intelligence agency, according to senior intelligence officials who were familiar with the dialogue between Israel and the United States about the incident."
"American officials quickly sent out word on Sunday morning that the United States was not responsible for the attack," the Times noted. "One official confirmed that it had been conducted by Israel but did not have details about the target."
The Times added that the "facility that was struck on Saturday was in the middle of the city and did not appear to be nuclear-related."
The Wall Street Journal also reported Sunday that Israel carried out the attack, which was launched hours before U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived in the Middle East for planned trips to Israel, Egypt, and the occupied West Bank.
Last week, CIA Director William Burns made an unannounced trip to Israel to discuss "Iran and other regional issues," according to the Journal.
Jamal Abdi, president of the National Iranian American Council (NIAC), said in a statement that he is "deeply concerned by the gathering clouds of war in the Middle East."
"This latest act of sabotage conducted via a military attack inside Iran is a dangerous escalation and should be cause for concern for everyone who opposes war," said Abdi. "War will only further empower the most violent and repressive forces inside Iran at the expense of ordinary Iranians demanding freedom, and will embolden reactionary elements in Iran, Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the U.S."
"It is vital that we call for all sides to exercise restraint and to prioritize non-military solutions to the tensions threatening the region."
Israel's latest attack inside Iran's borders came after negotiations aimed at bringing the U.S. back into the Iran nuclear accord—which former President Donald Trump violated in 2018—hit a wall. President Joe Biden told a rallygoer in November that the Iran deal "is dead, but we're not gonna announce it."
Israel's spy agency has made clear that a newly negotiated nuclear accord would not stop its attacks on Iran.
"Even if a nuclear deal is signed, it will not give Iran immunity from the Mossad operations," Mossad chief David Barnea said in September. "We won't take part in this charade and we don't close our eyes to the proven truth."
Earlier this month, Netanyahu—a longtime Iran hawk who has been making false predictions about Tehran's supposed nuclear bomb ambitions for years—vowed to "act powerfully and openly on the international level against the return to the nuclear agreement."
In the absence of a nuclear agreement, the Journal reported Sunday that the U.S. and Israel are looking for "new ways to contain" Iran, which condemned the Saturday attack as "cowardly."
Citing the Journal's story, Trita Parsi of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft tweeted Sunday that "unlike before, when U.S. officials stayed silent or only confirmed Israel's role in attacks on Iran days later, now U.S. officials immediately name Israel and appear to hint that it is part of a joint effort to 'contain' Iran."
"War is clearly back on the agenda," Parsi added.
Abdi of NIAC echoed that warning, arguing that "the Islamic Republic's brutal crackdown against the Iranian people, its assistance in Russia's illegal invasion of Ukraine, and its rapidly expanding nuclear program freed from the restraints of the JCPOA have pushed tensions to a boiling point."
"This, coupled with the rise of a hardline administration in Israel that appears determined to push the envelope militarily, an increasingly assertive Saudi royal family, and a U.S. that has been unable to turn the page on the Trump administration's destabilizing Middle East policies, makes for an exceedingly volatile cocktail," Abdi said. "For those of us who favor democracy, human rights, and peace, it is vital that we call for all sides to exercise restraint and to prioritize non-military solutions to the tensions threatening the region."
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New Report Highlights US Legacy of Lies on Civilian Drone Deaths
Rights group exposes contradictions between government statements on civilian casualties and independent reports showing much higher figures
Jun 30, 2016
In anticipation of an impending White House announcement on civilian deaths from drone strikes, the international human rights group Reprieve has released a report that finds that there is significant evidence the U.S. government is lying about the human toll of the aerial bombing campaign.
President Barack Obama is expected to announce as early as Friday that since 2009, U.S. military and CIA airstrikes have inadvertently killed only about 100 people in nations that are not officially recognized as battlefields, such as Libya, Pakistan, Somalia, and Yemen. On the other hand, the numbers for active war zones like Iraq and Afghanistan will not be included.
But according to Reprieve's report, Opaque Transparency (pdf), every previous statement made by the Obama administration on the civilian casualties from drone strikes has been misleading at best, with some being outright false.
That includes an on-record comment from CIA director John Brennan in June 2011 that "there hasn't been a single collateral death" in Pakistan for nearly a year and a claim from Obama in May 2013 that strikes are only carried out when there is "near certainty that the target is present" and "near certainty that noncombatants will not be injured or killed."
As Reprieve notes, internal CIA documents leaked in 2013 show that the agency itself recorded a civilian death just two months before Brennan's comments, while the Bureau of Investigative Journalism and other independent investigators found that dozens of local elders were killed in a strike in March 2011. As of this February, only ten drone victims killed in Pakistan last year had been identified.
The Daily Beast separately noted earlier this month that the White House's expected estimate of 100 collateral deaths is approximately one-tenth of the real number, which most independent advocacy groups put at 1,000.
That could be because, as the Intercept revealed last year, the military posthumously labels its unidentified drone victims as "Enemies Killed in Action" unless they are proven otherwise.
The president's claims that strikes are not carried out unless there is "near certainty" that noncombatants will not be killed were similarly contradicted by other internal CIA memos that "show[ed] that drone operators weren't always certain who they were killing despite the administration's guarantees," according to McClatchy.
Indeed, in 2015, a group of drone operators turned whistleblowers accused the administration of allowing the killings of "innocent civilians" while "lying publicly about the effectiveness of such a program."
The figures, published annually from now on, will not include details such as names and countries of origin. The administration is also not expected to explain how it defines its targets, Reprieve said, rendering Friday's announcement virtually meaningless.
"[I]t has to be asked what bare numbers will mean if they omit even basic details such as the names of those killed and the areas, even the countries, they live in," the report states. "[T]he numbers without the definitions to back up how the Administration is defining its targets is useless, especially given reports the Obama Administration has shifted the goalposts on what counts as a 'civilian' to such an extent that any estimate may be far removed from reality."
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Congressional Progressive Caucus Co-Chair Joins Chorus Questioning Legality of Drone Killing Program
Statement by Rep. Keith Ellison sparked by Intercept exposé on killing program
Oct 24, 2015
Sparked by an expose on the Obama administration's drone war, co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), has echoed human rights groups and called into question the legality of the killing program.
The Drone Papers, based on documents leaked to The Intercept by an anonymous intelligence source, offer an unprecedented look at the global killing program.
As Common Dreams previously summarized,
The series of articles [...] follows months of investigation and uses rare primary source documents and slides to reveal to the public, for the first time, the flaws and consequences of the U.S. military's 14-year aerial campaign being conducted in Yemen, Somalia, and Afghanistan--one that has consistently used faulty information, killed an untold number of civilians, and stymied intelligence-gathering through its "kill/capture" program that too often relies on killing rather than capturing.
Rep. Ellison said in a statement to The Intercept published Friday that the program "needs transparency and oversight." He added that it "results [s] in significant civilian casualties" and "breeds resentment and erodes our credibility with international partners."
"Attempts to hide civilian casualties by naming any person within the vicinity of an airstrike an 'enemy combatant' is wrong," Ellison stated.
"The report makes it clear," he said, "the U.S. drone program operates on highly questionable legal ground and offends our principles of justice."
Jeremy Scahill, lead author of the Drone Papers, spoke last week to Democracy Now! about the findings and said the program, as it often relies on "signals intelligence," is "basically death by metadata."
What we've published is an extensive look into how this program has operated historically, but specifically under President Obama. One of the most significant findings of this--and my colleague, Cora Currier, really dug deep into this--is we published for the first time the kill chain, what the bureaucracy of assassination looks like. And what you see is that all of these officials, including people like the treasury secretary, are part of signing off on all of this, where they have these secret meetings and they discuss who's going to live and die around the world. And at the end of that process, it is the president of the United States who signs what amounts to a death warrant for whoever they've decided should die, based on what amounts to a parallel, secret judicial system in the United States that is not really subjected to any kind of judicial review, where the president acts sort of as emperor--issues an edict that you die.
And what we show--and this is the first time that there's documentary evidence of this--is that the president gives the military a 60-day window to hunt down and kill these individuals. Ken Roth from Human Rights Watch pointed out today, if the standard is that the people who are being targeted for assassination is that they represent an imminent threat, which is what the president says the U.S. policy is, then why do they have 60 days to do it? Why don't they need to do it now, if it's imminent? Well, that's because they've redefined the term "imminent" to be so vague as to not even resemble its actual commonly understood definition.
In addition to Ellison's calls for further oversight, human rights group Amnesty International said the Intercept expose showed the need for an urgent congressional inquiry into the administration's drone assassination program.
"These documents raise serious concerns about whether the USA has systematically violated international law, including by classifying unidentified people as 'combatants' to justify their killings," Naureen Shah, Director of security with Human Rights at Amnesty International USA, said in a statement following the publication.
"These revelations are further damning evidence that the Obama administration is continuing the Bush-era project of treating the world as a global battlefield while evading public accountability," Shah added.
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Drone Papers 'No Surprise to Yemenis,' Says Man Who Lost Family
"For years, we have been confused by the sharp contrast between what we see with our own eyes and what the U.S. government tells the world," said Faisal bin Ali Jaber.
Oct 16, 2015
One man who lost family members to the covert U.S. drone war in Yemen responded Friday to The Intercept's explosive new expose of the American "assassination complex" by proclaiming he is not surprised but now more hopeful "the whole truth will come out."
"I read that the Americans have very little knowledge of the innocent civilians they are killing in Yemen," said Faisal bin Ali Jaber, a Yemeni engineer whose nephew Waleed bin Ali Jaber and brother-in-law Salem bin Ali Jaber were killed in a 2012 U.S. drone strike attack on their village of Khashamir.
"This is no surprise to Yemenis," he continued. "For years, we have been confused by the sharp contrast between what we see with our own eyes and what the U.S. government tells the world. Slowly, the whole truth will come out."
"I hope that my American court case will help that happen. But how many innocent Yemeni men, women and children will die before it does?" Jaber added, referencing his months-long court battle for justice or, short of that, acknowledgment of his loss. The administration of President Barack Obama earlier this month rejected a settlement offer that would have required a formal apology for the drone strike that killed Jaber's family.
Joe Pace, an attorney for the legal charity Reprieve who represents Jaber, said: "We were told that the drone program was 'safe' and 'effective.' When we raised concerns with the Administration that it was anything but, we were told 'trust us.'"
"These leaked reports confirming the staggering inaccuracy of the U.S drone program may be news to the American people who have been lied to by this Administration, but there's nothing revelatory for [Jaber] or the millions who live under constant threat of U.S. drone strikes," Pace continued. "[Jaber] and countless others have witnessed their loved ones literally blown to pieces based on a toxic combination of garbage intelligence and U.S. indifference to foreign lives."
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'You Have a Choice': Veterans Call On Drone Operators to Refuse Orders
Joint statement signed by 45 US military veterans urges drone operators to follow their consciences and say 'no' to surveillance and assassination missions
Jun 19, 2015
Dozens of U.S. military veterans released an open letter this week urging drone operators to "refuse to fly missions" or support them in any way--and letting them know that if they say "no" to surveillance and assassination orders, there is a whole community rooting for them.
"At least 6,000 peoples' lives have been unjustly taken by United States drone attacks in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, Iraq, the Philippines, Libya and Syria," states the letter, which was organized by the education and advocacy organization KnowDrones.com.
"Those involved in United States drone operations who refuse to participate in drone missions will be acting within accordance of Principle IV of the Principles of International Law Recognized in the Charter of the Nuremberg Tribunal and the Judgment of the Tribunal, The United Nations 1950," states the letter. "So, yes, you do have a choice--and liability under the law. Choose the moral one. Choose the legal one."
The letter's 45 signatories include retired U.S. Army Colonel Ann Wright, who stepped down from her State Department position in 2003 to protest the U.S.-led war on Iraq.
Numerous veterans of the so-called "War on Terror" also signed the letter, including Aaron Hughes, Iraq veteran and organizer with Iraq Veterans Against the War. Hughes told Common Dreams that he backed the initiative because he thinks it is "extremely important for those who are flying those vehicles or doing logistics to know that there is a whole community out there that supports them in saying no."
Nick Mottern, coordinator of KnowDrones.org, echoed this point in a press statement released this week: "The people signing this letter know that they are asking drone operators to take a heavy step, but we feel it is perfectly legitimate to advise military people to stop taking part in illegal activity that has killed thousands without due process, is terrorizing thousands more and is wracking their own ranks with moral injury and PTSD."
"When our country unjustly inflicts violence on civilian populations it is our duty to resist."
--Maggie Martin, Iraq Veterans Against the War
The Air Force recently revealed that, due to the "stressors" of the job, the military is losing drone pilots and being forced to cut back flights. In a Government Accountability Office report (pdf) released in April 2014, the agency warned that drone pilots are quitting far more quickly than they are being recruited.
In an article published this March in TomDispatch, writer Pratap Chatterjee asked, "Are pilots deserting Washington's Remote-Control War?" He continued, "Could it be that the feeling is even shared by drone pilots themselves, that a sense of dishonor in fighting from behind a screen thousands of miles from harm's way is having an unexpected impact of a kind psychologists have never before witnessed?"
Former drone operators, including Heather Linebaugh, have testified to the horrors inflicted by the remotely operated lethal weapons. This reality is confirmed by civilians and reporters, including the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, which tracks the high number of civilian drone killings in Yemen, Pakistan, Somalia, and Afghanistan.
"When our country unjustly inflicts violence on civilian populations it is our duty to resist," Maggie Martin, Iraq veteran and organizer with Iraq Veterans Against the War, told Common Dreams. "Whether at home or abroad we have to take action to stand in solidarity with those facing state violence."
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In Public Challenge to Obama, Family of Drone Victim Asks: 'What is the Value of an Innocent Life?'
Seeking official apology, Faisal bin Ali Jaber says, 'Imagine that your loved one was wrongly killed by the U.S. government. Imagine they would not even admit their role in the death of your family members.'
Jun 13, 2015
The family of two U.S. drone victims is refusing to keep their pain silent as they seek an official apology by U.S. President Barack Obama for the deaths of their kin.
In a CNN op-ed published on Friday, Faisal bin Ali Jaber, a Yemeni civil engineer, issued a public challenge to the U.S. leader--who recently made public statements about the deaths of two westerners killed by U.S. drone strikes, but has refused to acknowledge Yemeni civilian casualties.
"What is the value of a human life?" Jaber asks.
In the column, Jaber describes how following the August 2012 strike that killed Waleed and Salem bin Ali Jaber, the family had to identify them "from their clothes and scraps of matted hair."
And how in the wake of the strike, while the family awaited an official apology, they were instead presented with "$100,000 in sequentially-marked U.S. dollars in a plastic bag."
Jaber writes: "A Yemeni security service official was given the unpleasant task of handing this over. I looked him in the eye and asked how this was acceptable and whether he would admit the money came from America. He shrugged and said: 'Can't tell you. Take the money.'"
"The secret payment to my family represents a fraction of the cost of the operation that killed them," he continues. "This seems to be the Obama administration's cold calculation: Yemeni lives are cheap. They cost the President no political or moral capital."
In contrast to the experience of Jaber and other relatives of innocent Yemenis killed by the U.S. drone war, in April, Obama publicly acknowledged that a U.S. counterterrorism operation had killed an American, Warren Weinstein, and an Italian, Giovanni Lo Porto. The lawsuit follows another failed court challenge in Germany in which Jaber's family sought to prosecute the home of Ramstein Air Base for its role in "facilitating American covert drone strikes in Yemen."
"Like a lot of Americans, my family and I watched the President's speech at home," Jaber writes. "But while many praised him for his forthrightness, we do not share that view. His speech shocked us. No, it was worse: his speech broke our hearts.
"As I watched," he continues, "I thought of my dead relatives, names that so far as I know have never crossed the President's lips: Waleed and Salem bin Ali Jaber."
On Monday, Jaber filed a suit asking a Washington D.C. district court to issue a declaration that the strike that killed Salem and Waleed was unlawful. He is seeking no monetary compensation.
"Imagine that your loved one was wrongly killed by the U.S. government, and the White House would not apologize. Imagine they would not even admit their role in the death of your family members," Jaber concludes. "We simply want the truth and an apology. We will not rest until it is ours."
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