"A US drone fired two missiles into a[n alleged] Taliban training camp on Wednesday, destroying the compound and killing at least five [alleged] militants, local officials said. The attack took place in the Baber Ghar area of South Waziristan tribal district on the Afghan border, a supposed stronghold of Taliban leader Hakimullah Mehsud." (04/18/13)
http://tinyurl.com/cwkfuhh"Investigative reports and on-the-ground testimonies have made it public knowledge that far more people than al-Qaida leaders are killed by drone strikes. The U.K.’s Bureau of Investigative Journalism (BIJ) estimates that in Yemen, Pakistan and Somalia over 1,000 civilians may have been killed by U.S. drone strikes. The Obama administration has long maintained, however, that strikes are only ever authorized to target 'specific senior operational leaders of al-Qaida and associated forces.' Documents obtained by McClatchy newspapers suggest that these claims are false." (04/10/13)
http://tinyurl.com/d75bxns"Eleven children and a woman were killed by an air strike during a Nato operation targeting Taliban commanders in eastern Afghanistan, officials in the region said today. ... The deaths came on the same day that a car bomb killed five Americans, including three US soldiers, a young diplomat and a US Defence Department contractor in the southern province of Zabul."
http://tinyurl.com/ct7uswd"According to local authorities in southern Kandahar province of Afghanistan, at least four children were killed and two others were injured following an explosion in Mianshin district. Provincial government office following a statement confirmed the incident and said the improvised explosive device was planted by militants recently in order to attack Afghan security forces." (03/24/13)
http://tinyurl.com/ajhp3dw"Two boys out collecting firewood with their donkeys were killed by weapons fired from a NATO helicopter, Afghan and American military officials announced Saturday. The new American commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr., promptly issued an apology and said the killings were an accident." (03/02/13)
http://tinyurl.com/d48fr8s"At least five suspected militants were killed Wednesday in a drone attack in Pakistan's northwest tribal region, a media report said. The pilot-less predator plane targeted a house in Spin Wam area of North Waziristan along the border with Afghanistan, Xinhua reported." (02/06/13)
http://tinyurl.com/ape9zxv"According to local authorities in western Herat province of Afghanistan, at least two women were killed and three children were injured following a military operation by US special forces in this province. ... [Shindand district chief Abdul Hamid] Noor further added at least two militants commanders were also killed following the operation and two Afghan and US troops were injured." (02/05/13)
http://tinyurl.com/a73mnxa"The sixth 2013 U.S. drone strike inside Pakistan killed eight citizens on Wednesday. ... A trio of drone-fired missile strikes between Wednesday and Thursday killed a Pakistani Taliban commander and 19 others. Earlier a drone attack on Sunday killed another 17 people. ... he average time in between strikes last year was 7.7 days. But eight days into 2013, there have already been six deadly drone strikes, for reasons that remain unclear." (01/09/13)
http://tinyurl.com/ahjdvl4"A U.S. drone fired a pair of missiles at a house in Pakistan's northwest tribal region near the Afghan border Thursday, killing three suspected militants, Pakistani intelligence officials said." (12/05/12)
http://tinyurl.com/9wlys5t"At least four people were killed and four others injured in a U.S. drone strike launched in South Waziristan on Thursday. U.S. unmanned aircraft fired two missiles at a vehicle suspected of carrying militants in the Shane Warsak area of Wana, capital town of South Waziristan which borders Afghanistan." (11/29/12)
http://tinyurl.com/chy49pp"Ties between Britain, the U.S. and Pakistan could be jeopardized if a judge grants a request for a court inquiry into the possible role of U.K. spy agencies in aiding covert CIA drone strikes in Pakistan's northwest tribal region, a government lawyer told Britain's High Court on Thursday. ... Noor Khan, a 27-year-old whose father was killed by a drone strike in northwest Pakistan in March 2011, has asked Britain's High Court to examine whether U.K. intelligence officials assisted the action and may be liable for prosecution." (10/25/12)
http://tinyurl.com/cyk5yvf"The absolute majority of the people killed by American UAVs in Pakistan are innocent civilians, claims Pakistani Interior Minister Rehman Malik. If given the drone technology, Pakistan can do the job better, he argued earlier. Malik revealed that according to Islamabad calculates, the number of drone attacks in recent years totaled to 336 episodes, of which 96 were launched from Afghanistan. ... The latest US study claimed that only 2 per cent of drone strike casualties in Pakistan are top militants." (10/18/12)
http://rt.com/news/pakistan-civilian-victims-drones-695/"The US campaign of drone strikes in Pakistan’s northwestern tribal belt is terrorising civilians 24 hours a day and breeding bitter anti-American sentiment, researchers said Tuesday. The attacks are largely based in northwest Pakistan, where militants linked to Taliban and al Qaeda have strongholds have killed thousands of people since they began in June 2004, says a report by experts from Stanford Law School and the New York University School of Law." (09/25/12)
http://bit.ly/QhJ2tn"Delivering its first sentence, the International Criminal Court jailed Congolese warlord Thomas Lubanga Dyilo for 14 years on Tuesday for recruiting child soldiers. Lubanga was found guilty in March of abducting boys and girls under the age of 15 and forcing them to fight in a war in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2002 and 2003." (07/10/12)
http://bit.ly/OtQQTQ"Former Liberian President Charles Taylor was jailed for 50 years on Wednesday for helping Sierra Leonean rebels commit what a court in The Hague called some of the worst war crimes in history. Taylor, 64, was the first head of state convicted by an international court since the Nazi trials after World War Two and the sentence set a precedent for the emerging system of international justice." (05/30/12)
http://bit.ly/KcyiL6"The war crimes trial of ex-Bosnian Serb commander Ratko Mladic has been postponed because prosecutors failed to disclose some evidence to the defence. About 7,000 pages of evidence, which should have been passed to Ratko Mladic's lawyers, were not handed over. The defence has asked for six months to process that material." (05/17/12)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-18106868"Twenty years after Serb forces unleashed a brutal campaign of ethnic cleansing in Bosnia, their military commander Gen. Ratko Mladic is finally going on trial on charges of masterminding atrocities throughout the country's devastating 1992-95 war. Mladic will enter the United Nations' Yugoslav war crimes tribunal Wednesday a frail 70-year-old, a far cry from the swaggering general who commanded Serb forces during the war that left some 100,000 people dead." (05/15/12)
http://tinyurl.com/c6z9tue"Nato has hit back at a report urging the alliance to investigate fully the deaths of civilians in air strikes in Libya last year. Human Rights Watch (HRW) said at least 72 civilians had been killed in the strikes and the bloc needed to bear responsibility where appropriate. But Nato's spokeswoman said the campaign was conducted 'with unprecedented care and precision.' She said Nato 'did everything possible to minimise risks to civilians.'" (05/14/12)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-18062012"Law-abiding U.S. citizens have been appalled that Jose Rodriguez, the director of the CIA’s National Clandestine Service until his retirement in 2007, was invited to appear on CBS’s 60 Minutes program last weekend to promote his book ... Rodriguez joins an elite club of public officials -- including George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and Donald Rumsfeld -- who have not been prosecuted for using torture or authorizing its use. Instead, they have been writing books, going on book tours, and appearing on mainstream TV to attempt to justify their unjustifiable actions." (05/07/12)
http://www.fff.org/comment/com1205d.asp"Nato forces in Afghanistan on Tuesday admitted responsibility for the deaths of a civilian family of six in an airstrike in the southern province of Helmand last week. ... The Helmand provincial governor's office said in a statement that the family was killed unintentionally in an airstrike last Friday after ISAF checkpoints came under attack by insurgents in Sangin district." (05/08/12)
http://bit.ly/KJXcMY"The good Professor Yoo is immune from legal consequences for his role in torture. So be it. And, given that he is tenured, I certainly wouldn’t want Berkeley to try to terminate his employment. However, where does it say that the Chancellor of the University lacks the inherent power to be flexible in teaching assignments? I propose that John Yoo be assigned to grade freshman lab reports. Moreover, where is it written that the university is obligated to pay him in cash? I propose that he be paid in freshman dining hall coupons with a cash value equal to his salary. Alternately, he can be paid in Ramen." (05/06/12)
http://highclearing.com/index.php/archives/2012/05/06/14580"UC-Berkeley law professor John Yoo cannot be sued by [Jose Padilla] for helping to craft the Bush administration's torture and detention policies in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks, a federal appeals court ruled Wednesday. ... The 9th Circuit found that Padilla was not entitled to the same constitutional protections as an ordinary prisoner at the time of his confinement because he was a 'suspected terrorist designated an enemy combatant.'" (05/02/12)
http://bit.ly/IAoKWy"International judges have found former Liberian leader Charles Taylor guilty of aiding and abetting war crimes during the Sierra Leone civil war. Taylor, 64, has been on trial in The Hague at the UN-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone for almost five years. He was accused of backing rebels who killed tens of thousands of people in Sierra Leone's 1991-2002 civil war. Taylor was convicted on 11 counts including terror, murder and rape -- but cleared of ordering the crimes." (04/26/12)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-17852488"The US military has decided that none of its soldiers involved in a Nato airstrike in November last year that had killed 24 Pakistani soldiers will face disciplinary charges, an incident that had plunged the bilateral ties to a new low. A second inquiry to determine whether any American military personnel should be held accountable for the incident concluded that the Americans fired in self-defence and should not be punished, 'The New York Times' reported quoting three senior military officials." (03/26/12)
http://bit.ly/GRDJuj
The torture memo Obama never rescinded
by Jeff Kaye
"Nearly a year ago, I asked If Obama Withdrew the Yoo, Bradbury Torture Memos .... The question has direct relevance today, because the Army Field Manual on interrogation (FM 2-22.3) and its Appendix M governs current interrogation policy at Guantanamo, where a major hunger strike of over 100 detainees has paralyzed operations. Detainees are protesting the hopelessness of indefinite detention, and the harassment they must endure, including searches of their holy book, the Koran. This article answers the question I asked earlier. It documents the fact the Obama administration never rescinded a Bush-era memo on the use of controversial interrogation tactics for use by the U.S. military." (05/01/13)
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