A series of new reports has leaked out over the Internet, indicating the controversial U.S. drone strikes in Afghanistan have killed a huge number of individuals who were actually not the intended target of the attacks.A full report published by The Intercept has revealed almost 90 percent of individuals killed from drone strikes in Afghanistan were actually civilians. This report, which is an extensive eight-part series, makes use of leaked documents on Operation Haymaker. The report of The Intercept discloses that drone strikes from January 2012 through February 2013 in Afghanistan resulted in the killing of more than 200 individuals. Of the 219 people killed by airstrikes, 35 of these were not really the targets. “The materials also include a chart revealing that airstrikes killed 219 people over a 14-month period in 2012 and 2013, resulting in at least 35 jackpots,” reads one report from the series. The documents were given by a source within the intelligence community who worked on the types of programs as well as operations, according to the report. From errors in target selection — killing the wrong person — to the circumstances in which a target is struck — how many other individuals are nearby and whether they can be considered legitimate targets — the programme appears to be rife with problems. What is particularly alarming is that new documents concern drone strikes carried out by the US military — which was thought to be relatively more transparent and, therefore, rigorous in its application of force than the ultra-secretive CIA campaign believed to control drone strikes inside Pakistan.Now, with Pakistan having deployed and used an armed drone in Fata already, the mistakes of the US programme are perhaps being replicated here. The American experience suggests that when a new platform for waging war is acquired and then used against the most serious of national security threats in remote areas, troubling results will usually follow. Armed drones can be useful and can have a significant impact; the first three leaders of the Pakistani Taliban, for example, Nek Mohammad, Baitullah Mehsud and Hakeemullah Mehsud, are all believed to have been killed by US-operated drones. But there are genuine risks, posed not least by the backlash that can be caused by errant missile strikes. In the Pakistani case, that problem is compounded by the near-total absence of independent and verifiable battlefield information. The absence of public information tends to encourage impunity, a great deal of which can come from the belief that a just war is being waged against mortal enemies of the state. The US programme includes the president himself in the chain of command and yet many civilians are believed to have died. In Pakistan, who is authorised to select targets and who can authorise the firing of a missile?
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