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drone strikes
The Forever Wars Grind on Without Apology
The U.S. has a long history of killing civilians in air strikes, failing to investigate the deaths, and ignoring pleas for apology and compensation.
Jan 31, 2024
In war, people die for absurd reasons or often no reason at all. They die due to accidents of birth, the misfortune of being born in the wrong place— Cambodia or Gaza, Afghanistan or Ukraine—at the wrong time. They die due to happenstance, choosing to shelter indoors when they should have taken cover outside or because they ventured out into a hell-storm of destruction when they should have stayed put. They die in the most gruesome ways—shot in the street, obliterated by artillery, eviscerated by air strikes. Their bodies are torn apart, burned, or vaporized by weapons designed to destroy people. Their deaths are chalked up to misfortune, mistake, or military necessity.
Since September 2001, the United States has been fighting its “war on terror”—what’s now referred to as this country’s “Forever Wars.” It’s been involved in Somalia almost that entire time. U.S. Special Operations forces were first dispatched there in 2002, followed over the years by more “security assistance,” troops, contractors, helicopters, and drones. American airstrikes in Somalia, which began under President George W. Bush in 2007, have continued under Presidents Barack Obama, Donald Trump, and Joe Biden as part of a conflict that has smoldered and flared for more than two decades. In that time, the U.S. has launched 282 attacks, including 31 declared strikes under Biden. The U.S. admits it has killed five civilians in its attacks. The U.K.-based air strike monitoring group Airwars says the number is as much as 3,100% higher.
On April 1, 2018, Luul Dahir Mohamed, a 22-year-old woman, and her four-year-old daughter Mariam Shilow Muse were added to that civilian death toll when they were killed in a U.S. drone strike in El Buur, Somalia.
They could have taken one more hard look and, in the process, let a mother and child live. Instead, they launched a second missile.
Luul and Mariam were civilians. They died due to a whirlwind of misfortune—a confluence of bad luck and bad policies, none of it their fault, all of it beyond their control. They died, in part, because the United States is fighting the Somali terror group al-Shabaab even though Congress has never declared such a war and the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force on which the justification for the conflict rests predates the group’s existence. They died because Somalia has limited options when it comes to rural public transport and they caught a ride with the wrong people. They died because the United States claims that its brand of drone warfare is predicated on precision strikes with little collateral damage despite independent evidence clearly demonstrating otherwise.
In this case, members of the American strike cell that conducted the attack got almost everything wrong. They bickered about even basic information like how many people were in the pickup truck they attacked. They mistook a woman for a man, and they never saw the young girl at all. They didn’t know what they were looking at, but they nonetheless launched a Hellfire missile that hit the truck as it motored down a dirt road.
Even after all of that, Luul and Mariam might have survived. Following the strike, the Americans—watching live footage from the drone hovering over the scene—saw someone bolt from the vehicle and begin running for her life. At that moment, they could have paused and reevaluated the situation. They could have taken one more hard look and, in the process, let a mother and child live. Instead, they launched a second missile.
What Luul’s brother, Qasim Dahir Mohamed—the first person on the scene —found was horrific. Luul’s left leg was mutilated, and the top of her head was gone. She died clutching Mariam whose tiny body looked, he said, “like a sieve.”
In 2019, the U.S. military admitted that it had killed a civilian woman and child in that April 1, 2018, drone strike. But when, while reporting for The Intercept, I met Luul’s relatives last year in Somalia’s capital, Mogadishu, they were still waiting for the Pentagon to contact them about an apology and compensation. I had obtained a copy of the internal U.S. military investigation which the family had never seen. It did acknowledge the deaths of a woman and child but concluded that their identities might never be known.
Expendable People
The Pentagon’s inquiry found that the Americans who carried out the strike were both inexperienced and confused. Despite that, the investigation by the very unit that conducted the attack determined that standard operating procedures and the rules of engagement were followed. No one was judged negligent, much less criminally liable, nor would anyone be held accountable for the deaths. The message was clear: Luul and Mariam were expendable people.
“In over five years of trying to get justice, no one has ever responded to us,” another of Luul’s brothers, Abubakar Dahir Mohamed, wrote in a December 2023 op-ed for the award-winning African newspaper The Continent. He continued:
When I found out later that the U.S. admitted that they killed civilians in the attack, I contacted them again, telling them that the victims were my family members. I am not sure if they even read my complaint.
In June 2020, [U.S. Africa Command] added a civilian casualties reporting page to their website for the first time. I was very happy to see this. I thought there was finally a way to make a complaint that would be listened to. I submitted a description of what happened and waited. No one got back to me. Two years later, in desperation, I submitted a complaint again. Nobody responded. I now know that the U.S. military has admitted not only to killing Luul and Mariam, but doing so even after they survived the first strike. It killed them as Luul fled the car they targeted—running for her life, carrying Mariam in her arms. The U.S. has said this in its reports, and individual officers have spoken to journalists. But it has never said this to us. No one has contacted us at all.
Late last month, a coalition of 24 human rights organizations called on Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin to make amends to Luul and Mariam’s family. The 14 Somali groups and 10 international non-governmental organizations devoted to the protection of civilians urged Austin to take action to provide the family with an explanation, an apology, and compensation.
“The undersigned Somali and international human rights and protection of civilians organizations write to request that you take immediate steps to address the requests of families whose loved ones were killed or injured by U.S. airstrikes in Somalia,” reads the letter. “New reporting illustrates how, in multiple cases of civilian harm in Somalia confirmed by the U.S. government, civilian victims, survivors, and their families have yet to receive answers, acknowledgment, and amends despite their sustained efforts to reach authorities over several years.”
Days later, the Pentagon unveiled its long-awaited “Instruction on Civilian Harm Mitigation and Response,” which clarified “the Department’s enduring policies, responsibilities, and procedures for mitigating and responding to civilian harm” and laid out “further steps to protect civilians and to respond appropriately when civilian harm occurs.” Under the DoD-I or “dody,” as it is known at the Pentagon, the military is directed to take steps including:
(1) Acknowledging harm suffered by civilians and the U.S. military’s role in causing or otherwise contributing to that harm.
(2) Expressing condolences to civilians affected by military operations.
(3) Helping to address the harm suffered by civilians.
Under the DoD-I, the military is instructed to “acknowledge civilian harm resulting from U.S. military operations and respond to individuals and communities affected by U.S. military operations… This includes expressing condolences and helping to address the direct impacts experienced…”
The mandate seems clear. The implementation is another story entirely.
Phoning It In
Since the letter from the humanitarian organizations was sent to Austin, the defense secretary has been both everywhere—and nowhere to be found. In December, he traveled to Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar to thank American military personnel for their “selflessness and service.” He met with the king and crown prince of Bahrain to discuss their “enduring defense partnership” with the United States. On December 20, he paid a visit to the USS Gerald R. Ford carrier strike group in the Mediterranean Sea to thank the sailors for their “patriotism and professionalism.”
A couple days later, Austin underwent surgery without informing his deputy Kathleen Hicks, much less his boss, President Biden. On January 1, Austin was rushed back to the hospital, in “intense pain,” but that information, too, was withheld from the White House until January 4, and from Congress and the American public for an additional day.
Austin reportedly worked from his hospital room, monitoring American and British air attacks on Houthi rebel targets in Yemen—more than 150 munitions fired from the sea and air on January 11, alone—and conducting meetings by phone with military officials and the National Security Council. He was released from the hospital four days later and began working from home. “Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III spoke by phone today with Ukrainian Minister of Defense Rustem Umerov to discuss the latest on the situation on the ground,” Pentagon spokesman Major General Pat Ryder announced on January 16. Two days later, he had a call with Israeli Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant. And on the 19, he talked shop with Swedish defense minister Pål Jonson.
“My sister was killed, and she won’t be back again—but doesn’t she have the right to get justice, and for her family to at least be compensated for the loss of her life?”
Austin has had plenty of time for phone calls, travel, and elective surgery. He’s been around the world and is now hunkered down at home. But what he hasn’t done, since the letter from those 24 humanitarian groups was sent to the Pentagon more than a month ago, is make any apparent effort to contact Luul and Mariam’s family.
“Since the strike, our family has been broken apart. It has been more than five years since it happened, but we have not been able to move on,” wrote Abubakar in December. It’s been a common story. In Yemen, where the U.S. has recently ramped up air strikes, victims of past U.S. attacks wait—just like Luul and Mariam’s family—for acknowledgment and apology.
Between 2013 and 2020, for example, the U.S. carried out seven separate attacks in Yemen—six drone strikes and one raid—that killed 36 members of the intermarried Al Ameri and Al Taisy families. A quarter of them were children between the ages of three months and 14 years old. The survivors have been waiting for years for an explanation as to why it happened while living in fear. In 2018, Adel Al Manthari, a civil servant in the Yemeni government, and four of his cousins—all civilians—were traveling by truck when a U.S. Hellfire missile slammed into their vehicle. Three of the men were killed instantly. Another died days later in a local hospital. Al Manthari was gravely wounded. Complications resulting from his injuries nearly took his life in 2022. He beseeched the U.S. government to dip into the millions of dollars Congress annually allocates to compensate victims of U.S. attacks. They ignored his pleas. His limbs and life were eventually saved by the kindness of strangers via a crowdsourced GoFundMe campaign.
The U.S. has a long history of killing civilians in air strikes, failing to investigate the deaths, and ignoring pleas for apology and compensation. It’s a century-old tradition that Austin continues to maintain, making time to issue orders for new strikes but not to issue apologies for past errant attacks. Through it all, Luul and Mariam’s family can do nothing but wait, hoping that the U.S. secretary of defense will eventually respond to the open letter and finally—almost six years late—offer amends.
“My sister was killed, and she won’t be back again—but doesn’t she have the right to get justice, and for her family to at least be compensated for the loss of her life?” Abubakar wrote in his op-ed. He and his relatives find themselves endlessly grappling with their loss as the Pentagon puts out press releases filled with high-minded and (as yet) hollow, rhetoric about “improving the Department’s approach to mitigating and responding to civilian harm,” while promising to make amends under the DoD-I.
It isn’t the only War on Terror pledge to be broken. President Joe Biden entered the White House promising to end the “forever wars.” “I stand here today for the first time in 20 years with the United States not at war,” Biden announced in 2021. “We’ve turned the page.” It wasn’t remotely true.
Instead, the Forever Wars grind on from the Middle East to the African Sahel. And despite assertions to the contrary, America’s conflict in Somalia grinds on, too, without apology—from Biden for the broken campaign promise and from the Pentagon for Luul Dahir Mohamed and Mariam Shilow Muse’s deaths.
“The U.S. claims that it works to promote democracy, social justice, the rule of law, and the protection of rights around the world,” Abubakar wrote. “As we struggle to get them to notice our suffering, we hope the U.S. will remember what they claim to stand for.”
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Pentagon Doc Reveals US Lied About Afghan Civilians Killed in 2021 Drone Strike
One Amnesty International campaigner called the new report "more evidence that we need a huge change in how the U.S. uses lethal force and assesses and reveals its consequences."
Jan 06, 2023
U.S. military officials knew that an August 2021 drone strike in Kabul likely killed Afghan civilians including children but lied about it, a report published Friday revealed.
New York Times investigative reporter Azmat Khan analyzed a 66-page redacted U.S. Central Command report on the August 29, 2021 drone strike that killed 10 members of the Ahmadi family, including seven children, outside their home in the Afghan capital. The strike took place during the chaotic final days of the U.S. ground war in Afghanistan, just three days after a bombing that killed at least 182 people, including 13 American troops, at Kabul's international airport.
"When confirmation bias was so deadly in this case, you have to ask how many other people targeted by the military over the years were also unjustly killed."
Zamarai Ahmadi, a 43-year-old aid worker for California-based nonprofit Nutrition and Education International, was carrying water containers that were mistaken for explosives when his Toyota Corolla was bombed by a Lockheed-Martin Hellfire missile fired from a General Atomics MQ-9 Reaper drone.
As reports of civilian casualties began circulating hours after the strike, U.S. military officials claimed there were "no indications" that noncombatants were harmed in the attack, while stating that they would investigate whether a secondary explosion may have killed or wounded people nearby.
\u201cNEW: A U.S. Central Command investigation into the botched August 2021 drone strike in Kabul reveals how biases and assumptions led to the deadly blunder, and that military analysts saw possible civilian casualties within minutes of the strike:\nhttps://t.co/iGcmulbyw9 #FOIA\u201d— Azmat Khan (@Azmat Khan) 1673007692
However, as the Times details:
Portions of a U.S. Central Command investigation obtained by The New York Times show that military analysts reported within minutes of the strike that civilians may have been killed, and within three hours had assessed that at least three children were killed.
The documents also provide detailed examples of how assumptions and biases led to the deadly blunder.
Military analysts wrongly concluded, for example, that a package loaded into the car contained explosives because of its "careful handling and size," and that the driver's "erratic route" was evidence that he was trying to evade surveillance.
Furthermore:
The investigation refers to an additional surveillance drone not under military control that was also tracking the vehicle but does not specify what it observed. The Times confirmed that the drone was operated by the CIA and observed children, possibly in the car, moments before impact, as CNN had reported.
U.S. military officials initially claimed the "righteous strike" had prevented an imminent new attack on the airport. However they later admitted that the botched bombing was a "horrible mistake."
The military's investigation was completed less than two weeks after the strike. However, it was never released to the public. The Pentagon said it would not punish anyone for killing the Ahmadi family.
Hina Shamsi, an ACLU attorney representing families victims of the strike, told the Times that the investigation "makes clear that military personnel saw what they wanted to see and not reality, which was an Afghan aid worker going about his daily life."
"When confirmation bias was so deadly in this case, you have to ask how many other people targeted by the military over the years were also unjustly killed," Shamsi added.
Daphne Eviatar, who heads Amnesty International's Security With Human Rights program, called the new report "more evidence that we need a huge change in how the U.S. uses lethal force and assesses and reveals its consequences."
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Obama's Five Rules for Covert Drone Strikes
In his most comprehensive public comments yet on the US covert drone war, President Barack Obama has laid out the five rules he says the United States uses to target and kill alleged terrorists - including US citizens.
The president has also warned of the need to avoid a 'slippery slope' when fighting terrorism, 'in which you end up bending rules, thinking that the ends always justify the means.'
Sep 06, 2012
In his most comprehensive public comments yet on the US covert drone war, President Barack Obama has laid out the five rules he says the United States uses to target and kill alleged terrorists - including US citizens.
The president has also warned of the need to avoid a 'slippery slope' when fighting terrorism, 'in which you end up bending rules, thinking that the ends always justify the means.'
Obama's comments were made in an on-camera interview with CNN's chief White House correspondent Jessica Yellin. Only once before has the president publicly discussed the US covert drone policy, when he spoke briefly about strikes in Pakistan's tribal areas.
Now Obama says there are five rules that need to be followed in covert US drone attacks. In his own words:
1 'It has to be a target that is authorized by our laws.'
2 'It has to be a threat that is serious and not speculative.'
3 'It has to be a situation in which we can't capture the individual before they move forward on some sort of operational plot against the United States.'
4 'We've got to make sure that in whatever operations we conduct, we are very careful about avoiding civilian casualties.'
5 'That while there is a legal justification for us to try and stop [American citizens] from carrying out plots... they are subject to the protections of the constitution and due process.'
'Misreporting'
Obama twice referred to what he claims has been 'misreporting' by the media of his drones policy.
Apparently responding to recent allegations that his administration prefers to kill rather than capture suspects, the president said that 'our preference has always been to capture when we can because we can gather intelligence' but that it's sometimes 'very difficult to capture them.'
CNN's Yellin did not bring up the issue of civilian casualties - despite CNN itself reporting multiple civilian deaths in a suspected Yemen drone strike just hours earlier. However Obama insisted that 'we are very careful about avoiding civilian casualties, and in fact there are a whole bunch of situations where we will not engage in operations if we think there's going to be civilian casualties involved.'
Obama also took on the contentious targeted killing of US citizens - the subject of a number of high profile legal cases. Insisting that there was 'legal justification' for such killings, the president conceded that 'as an American citizen, they are subject to the protections of the constitution and due process.'
The US Department of Justice (DoJ) is presently trying to block publication of administration legal opinions which allegedly provided the justification for the killing of US citizen Anwar al Awlaki and others.
In a recent court submission the DoJ insisted that Obama's January comments on the covert drone war could not be taken as an admission that it was taking place: 'Plaintiffs speculate that the president must have been speaking about CIA involvement in lethal operations.... This is insufficient to support a claim of official disclosure.'
With Obama now publicly laying out the ground rules for the covert drone war, the DoJ's position appears further damaged.
'Slippery slope'
The president also discussed in some detail his moral concerns regarding the campaign, admitting that he 'struggle[s] with issues of war and peace and fighting terrorism.'
He said that he and his national security team needed to 'continually ask questions about "Are we doing the right thing? Are we abiding by the rule of law? Are we abiding by due process?"'
If that failed to happen, the president warned, there was the risk of a 'slippery slope... in which you end up bending rules, thinking that the ends always justify the means.'
The continuing deaths of civilians - and CIA tactics such as the deliberate targeting of rescuers - have led some to argue that the US is already bending or even breaking those rules.
* * *
Full transcript of President Obama's comments to CNN
Jessica Yellin: On April 30 your homeland security adviser John Brennan acknowledged for the first time that the US uses armed drones to attack terrorists. My question to you is, do you personally decide who is targeted and what are your criteria if you do for the use of lethal force?
Obama: I've got to be careful here. There are classified issues, and a lot of what you read in the press that purports to be accurate isn't always accurate. What is absolutely true is that my first job, my most sacred duty as president and commander in chief, is to keep the American people safe. And what that means is we brought a whole bunch of tools to bear to go after al Qaeda and those who would attack Americans.
Drones are one tool that we use, and our criteria for using them is very tight and very strict. It has to be a target that is authorised by our laws; that has to be a threat that is serious and not speculative.
It has to be a situation in which we can't capture the individual before they move forward on some sort of operational plot against the United States. And this is an example of where I think there has been some misreporting. Our preference has always been to capture when we can because we can gather intelligence. But a lot of terrorist networks that target the United States, the most dangerous ones operate in very remote regions and it's very difficult to capture them.
And we've got to make sure that in whatever operations we conduct, we are very careful about avoiding civilian casualties, and in fact there are a whole bunch of situations where we will not engage in operations if we think there's going to be civilian casualties involved.
So we have an extensive process with a lot of checks, a lot of eyes looking at it. Obviously as president I'm ultimately responsible for decisions that are made by the administration. But I think what the American people need to know is the seriousness with which we take both the responsibility to keep them safe, but also the seriousness with which we take the need for us to abide by our traditions of rule of law and due process.
Yellin: Sir, do you personally approve the targets?
Obama: You know, I can't get too deeply into how these things work, but as I said as commander in chief ultimately I'm responsible for the process that we've set up to make sure that folks who are out to kill Americans, that we are able to disable them before they carry out their plans.
Yellin: Are the standards different when the target is an American?
Obama: I think there's no doubt that when an American has made the decision to affiliate himself with al Qaeda and target fellow Americans, that there is a legal justification for us to try and stop them from carrying out plots. What is also true though is that as an American citizen, they are subject to the protections of the constitution and due process.
Yellin: Finally on this topic even Brennan said that some governments struggle with this. Do you struggle with this policy?
Obama: Absolutely. Look, I think that - A president who doesn't struggle with issues of war and peace and fighting terrorism, and the difficulties of dealing with an opponent who has no rules, that's something that you have to struggle with. Because if you don't it's very easy to slip into a situation in which you end up bending rules, thinking that the ends always justify the means. And that's not been our tradition, that's not who we are as a country.
Our most powerful tool over the long term to reduce the terrorist threat is to live up to our values and to be able to shape public opinion not just here but around the world, that senseless violence is not a way to resolve political differences.
And so it's very important for the president and the entire culture of our national security team to continually ask questions about 'Are we doing the right thing? Are we abiding by the rule of law? Are we abiding by due process?' And then set up structures and institutional checks so that you avoid any kind of slippery slope into a place where we're not being true to who we are.
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