Brian Williams - Predators

A similar errant strike took place in Radaa, Yemen, in September 2012 and led to the death of thirteen civilians. In this case, the drones hit a civilian vehicle traveling near a targeted terrorist vehicle. At the time the Yemeni government apologized for the mistake and said, “This was one of the very few times when our target was completely missed. It was a mistake, but we hope it will not hurt our anti-terror efforts in the region.” Grieving family members tried unsuccessfully to carry the bodies of the slain victims to the capital. When the government blocked their passage, a Yemeni who was near the strike angrily said, “You want us to stay quiet while our wives and brothers are being killed for no reason. This attack is the real terrorism.” 49

In her groundbreaking 2009 article on the cost of the drone war for the New Yorker , Jane Mayer wrote, “Cut off from the realities of the bombings in Pakistan, Americans have been insulated from the human toll, as well as from the political and the moral consequences. Nearly all the victims have remained faceless, and the damage caused by the bombings has remained unseen.” 50Several well-known civilian victims, however, have provided us faces and names to represent all the innocents who have died in the drone attacks. Chief among them was a young antidrone activist named Tariq Khan. Following is a BBC account of his death:

When tribal elders from the remote Pakistani region of North Waziristan travelled to Islamabad last week to protest against CIA drone strikes, a teenager called Tariq Khan was among them. A BBC team caught him on camera, sitting near the front of a tribal assembly, or jirga, listening carefully.

Four days later the 16-year-old was dead—killed by one of the drones he was protesting against. In his final days, Tariq was living in fear, according to Neil Williams from the British legal charity, Reprieve, who met him at the Jirga. “He was really petrified,” said Mr Williams, “and so were his friends. He didn’t want to go home because of the drones. They were all scared.”

Tariq carried with him the identity card of his teenage cousin, Asmar Ullah, who was killed by a drone. On Monday he shared his fate. Tariq’s family says he was hit by two missiles as he was driving near Miranshah, the main town in North Waziristan. The shy teenager, who was good with computers, was decapitated in the strike. His 12-year-old cousin Wahid was killed alongside him.

The boys were on their way to see a relative, according to Tariq’s uncle, Noor Kalam, who we reached by phone. He denied that Tariq had any link to militant groups. “We condemn this very strongly,” he said. “He was just a normal boy who loved football.” 51

In the aftermath of the deaths of Tariq Khan and his twelve-year-old cousin, an unnamed U.S. official said of the strike that killed him, “On that day no child was killed; in fact, the adult males were supporting al-Qaeda’s facilitation network and their vehicle was following a pattern of activity used by al-Qaeda facilitators.” 52

Another civilian casualty of the drone campaign was Saadullah, whose death was reported as follows:

Many senior commanders from the Taliban and al-Qaeda are among the dead. But campaigners claim there have been hundreds of civilian victims, whose stories are seldom told. A shy teenage boy called Saadullah is one of them. He survived a drone strike that killed three of his relatives, but he lost both legs, one eye and his hope for the future. “I wanted to be a doctor,” he told me, “but I can’t walk to school anymore. When I see others going, I wish I could join them.”

Like Tariq, Saadullah travelled to Islamabad for last week’s jirga. Seated alongside him was Haji Zardullah, a white-bearded man who said he lost four nephews in a separate attack. “None of these were harmful people,” he said. “Two were still in school and one was in college.” Asghar Khan, a tribal elder in a cream turban, said three of his relatives paid with their lives for visiting a sick neighbor. “My brother, my nephew and another relative were killed by a drone in 2008,” he said. “They were sitting with this sick man when the attack took place. There were no Taliban.” 53

Another similar civilian death was featured in Salon.comin 2010:

Gul Nawaz, from North Waziristan, was watering his fields when he heard the explosion of drone missiles: “I rushed to my house when I heard the blast. When I arrived I saw my house and my brother’s house completely destroyed and all at home were dead.” Eleven members of Gul Nawaz’s family were killed, including his wife, two sons and two daughters as well as his elder brother, his wife, and his four children. “Yes, the drone strikes hurt the Taliban. Most of the strikes are effective against the Taliban but sometimes innocent people also become the victim of such attacks. Take my case,” said Gul Nawaz.

“I blame the government of Pakistan and the USA, they are responsible for destroying my family. We were living a happy life and I didn’t have any links with the Taliban. My family members were innocent…. I wonder, why was I victimized. 54

Other civilian victims of drone strikes have been covered in the media. For example, Noor Behram, a resident of North Waziristan, has spent years photographing the civilian aftermath of drone strikes in his native region. He has organized an exhibit of his photographs in London and a similar one, titled “Bugsplat,” was held in Lahore. Following are some of the captions that accompanied photographs Behram published:

Dande Darpa Khel (North Waziristan), Aug. 21, 2009

The stench that Behram smelled when he arrived at Dande Darpa Khel came from the charred bodies of Bismullah Khan and his wife. Near the bombed-out remains of their house, Behram found the Khans’ three living children. The children—the younger two girls on the left, their older brother on the right—were in shock, and clutched the ruins of their neighbor’s house as if the rubble could comfort them. “These kids had no idea where their parents were. They didn’t know their parents were killed,” Behram says. Also killed in the blast: their brother, Syed Wali Shah, age 7. Behram later heard that the children were taken in by their uncle. “There’s no government here, no social network or security,” he explains. “People have to look after each other.”

Dande Darpa Khel, Aug. 21, 2009

By the time Behram reached Bismullah Khan’s mud house, partially destroyed in the strike, Khan’s youngest son, Syed Wali Shah, had already died. Behram watched as the boy’s body was laid out on a prayer rug, a “very small” one, in preparation for his funeral. “The body was whole,” Behram recalls. “He was found dead.” The villagers wrapped a bandage around the boy’s head, even though they had no chance to save his life. Behram doesn’t know who the target of the Dande Darpa Khel attack was. (“You’d have to ask the CIA that,” he says.) But he observed people’s anger as they prepared bodies for burial and cleared the wreckage. “The people were extremely angry. They were talking and shouting against the U.S. for the attack,” Behram says.

Datta Khel, Oct. 18, 2010

Pakistan’s Express Tribune reported a drone attacked “two suspected militant hideouts” in Datta Khel near Mirin Shah. Behram never saw the scene. He headed instead to a Mirin Shah hospital, where he heard residents had frantically driven one of the strike’s victims: Naeemullah, a boy of about 10 or 11. Naeemullah was said to be injured in the strike after a missile struck the house next door. Shrapnel and debris travelled into Naeemullah’s house, wounding him in his “various parts of his body,” Behram says. “You can’t see his back, but his back was wounded by missile pieces and burns.” An hour after Behram took this picture, Naeemullah died of his injuries. 55