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Drone Papers ‘no surprise to Yemenis,’ says man who lost family

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“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.

"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," said Faisal bin Ali Jaber. (Photo: Reprieve)

“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,” said Faisal bin Ali Jaber. (Photo: Reprieve)

by Sarah Lazare, Common Dreams

One man who lost family members to the covert U.S. drone war in Yemen responded Friday to The Intercept‘s explosive new exposé 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.”

In public challenge to Obama, family of drone victim asks: 'What is the value of an innocent life?'

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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.’

In April, U.S. President Barack Obama, pictured with director of the CIA John Brennan, publicly apologized for the killing of two western hostages. (Photo: file)

In April, U.S. President Barack Obama, pictured with director of the CIA John Brennan, publicly apologized for the killing of two western hostages. (Photo: file)

by Lauren McCauley, Common Dreams

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.”

Leaked internal CIA document admits U.S drone program "counterproductive"

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Document published by Wikileaks reveals agency’s own internal review found key counter-terrorism strategy “may increase support” for the groups it targets

Wikileaks has released a 2009 internal CIA review of its clandestine "targeted killing" operations. (Image: Screenshot with overlay)

Wikileaks has released a 2009 internal CIA review of its clandestine “targeted killing” operations. (Image: Screenshot with overlay)

by Jon Queally, Common Dreams

Wikileaks on Thursday has made public a never-before-seen internal review conducted by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency that looked at the agency’s drone and targeted assassination programs in places like Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, and elsewhere.

The agency’s own analysis, conducted in 2009, found that its clandestine drone and assassination program was likely to produce counterproductive outcomes, including strengthening the very “extremist groups” it was allegedly designed to destroy.

Here’s a link to the document, titled Best Practices in Counterinsurgency: Making High-Value Targeting Operations an Effective Counterinsurgency Toolocument (pdf).

In one of the key findings contained in the CIA report, agency analysts warn of the negative consequences of assassinating so-called High Level Targets (HLT).

“The potential negative effect of HLT operations,” the report states, “include increasing the level of insurgent support […], strengthening an armed group’s bonds with the population, radicalizing an insurgent group’s remaining leaders, creating a vacuum into which more radical groups can enter, and escalating or de-escalating a conflict in ways that favor the insurgents.”

Wikileaks points out that this internal prediction “has been proven right” in the years since the internal review was conducted near the outset of President Obama’s first term. And despite those internal warnings—which have been loudly shared by human rights and foreign policy experts critical of the CIA’s drone and assassination programs—Wikileaks also notes that after the internal review was prepared, “US drone strike killings rose to an all-time high.”

Reached by the Washington Post on Thursday for response, CIA spokesperson Kali J. Caldwell said the agency would not comment “on the authenticity or content of purported stolen intelligence documents.”

According to a statement released by Wikileaks:

The report discusses assassination operations (by various states) against the Taliban, al-Qa’ida, the FARC, Hizbullah, the PLO, HAMAS, Peru’s Shining Path, the Tamil’s LTTE, the IRA and Algeria’s FLN. Case studies are drawn from Chechnya, Libya, Pakistan and Thailand.

The assessment was prepared by the CIA’s Office of Transnational Issues (OTI). Its role is to provide “the most senior US policymakers, military planners, and law enforcement with analysis, warning, and crisis support”. The report is dated 7 July 2009, six months into Leon Panetta’s term as CIA chief, and not long after CIA analyst John Kiriakou blew the whistle on the torture of CIA detainees. Kiriakou is still in prison for shedding light on the CIA torture programme.

Following the politically embarrassing exposure of the CIA’s torture practices and the growing cost of keeping people in detention indefinitely, the Obama administration faced a crucial choice in its counter-insurgency strategy: should it kill, capture, or do something else entirely?

Given exclusive access to the CIA document ahead of its public release, theSydney Morning Herald’s Philip Dorling reported earlier on Thursday:

According to a leaked document by the CIA’s Directorate of Intelligence, “high value targeting” (HVT) involving air strikes and special forces operations against insurgent leaders can be effective, but can also havenegative effects including increasing violence and greater popular support for extremist groups.

The leaked document is classified secret and “NoForn” (meaning not to be distributed to non-US nationals) and reviews attacks by the United States and other countries engaged in counter-insurgency operations over the past 50 years.

The CIA assessment is the first leaked secret intelligence document published by WikiLeaks since 2011. Led by Australian publisher Julian Assange, the anti-secrecy group says the CIA assessment is the first in what will be a new series of leaked documents relating to the US agency.

The 2009 CIA study lends support to critics of US drone strikes in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen by warning that such operations “may increase support for the insurgents, particularly if these strikes enhance insurgent leaders’ lore, if non-combatants are killed in the attacks, if legitimate or semi-legitimate politicians aligned with the insurgents are targeted, or if the government is already seen as overly repressive or violent”.

Drone strikes have been a key element of the Obama administration’s attacks on Islamic extremist terrorist and insurgent groups in the Middle East and south Asia. Australia has directly supported these strikes through the electronic espionage operations of the US-Australian Joint Defence Facility at Pine Gap near Alice Springs in the Northern Territory.

Revealed: Europe’s "discreet" cooperation with Israel’s nuclear industry

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José Manuel Barroso (left), the European Commission president, has a “discreet” chat with Benjamin Netanyahu. (European External Action Service)

José Manuel Barroso (left), the European Commission president, has a “discreet” chat with Benjamin Netanyahu. (European External Action Service)

– by David Cronin, Electronic Intifada

The European Union has been cooperating furtively with Israel’s nuclear industry for at least six years.

An internal document that I recently obtained states that an accord on “joint and cooperative initiatives relevant for the peaceful use of nuclear energy” was signed between the EU and Israel in 2008. “This is a discreet agreement that has not been given publicity,” the paper adds.

The document (published below) was drawn up ahead of an October 2013 visit to Israel by Antonio Tajani, then Italy’s member of the European Commission.

It is not hard to understand why the Union wishes to keep this cooperation “discreet.” The agreement was reached with Israel’s Atomic Energy Commission — the body that runs the Dimona reactor, where Israel’s nuclear weapons were developed.

Israel introduced nuclear weapons to the Middle East and has refused to sign the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). It has refused to permit international inspection of all its nuclear activities.

In 2006, Ehud Olmert, then Israel’s prime minister, acknowledged that Israel possessed nuclear weapons. The US Defense Intelligence Agency estimated in 1999 that Israel had between 60 and 80 nuclear warheads.

Hypocrisy

These facts put Israel in a very different category to Iran, supposedly a major threat to world peace.

Unlike Israel, Iran has no nuclear weapons. The National Intelligence Council — a group advising the US president — expressed “high confidence” in 2007 that Iran had halted its weapons development program a few years earlier.

Despite that explicit statement, both the EU and the US have slapped punitive sanctions on Iran (after some sanctions had been relaxed, America imposed new restrictions on business with Iran last week). The official narrative behind these sanctions is that everything must be done to stop Iran acquiring the bomb.

Yet the European Union is happy to cooperate with Israel, a nation that actually has the bomb. Is it any wonder that Brussels officials don’t want attention drawn to this hypocrisy?

Military links

I asked the EU’s Joint Research Centre (JRC) — which is tasked with implementing the “discreet” agreement — why it is cooperating with Israel, a known threat to world peace. A JRC spokesperson tried to present the “scientific collaboration” involved here as benign.

The research with Israel concerns the “medical application of radionuclides, radiation protection, as well as nuclear security related to the detection and identification of nuclear and radioactive materials,” according to the spokesperson. “It does not cover any activities related to reprocessing and enrichment.”

I asked the spokesperson if any guarantees have been provided that Israel will not use the fruits of its research with the Union for military purposes. Not surprisingly, I didn’t receive a reply to that question.

When I asked how much had been spent on nuclear cooperation with Israel, the JRC would only say that the research in question is “not jointly funded as each institution covers its related activities.”

As well as overseeing the development of nuclear weapons, Israel’s Atomic Energy Commission has strong links to the conventional arms industry.

Apart from Dimona, the commission also runs the Soreq research center. Soreq’s own website says that it develops equipment with “homeland security” applications — a euphemism for surveillance technology and weaponry. When journalists have been given guided tours of that center, its scientists have bragged of inventing lasers to assist snipers.

The JRC — the European Commission’s in-house science service — has been cooperating more directly with Israel’s weapons industry, too.

In December 2010, it teamed up with Elbit, the Israeli arms company, for what it called a “small boat detection campaign” in Haifa. The purpose of this exercise was to see how drones can be used for maritime surveillance, principally to stop asylum-seekers from entering Europe.

Elbit is one of the leading suppliers of warplanes to the Israeli military. This means that it is providing some of the key tools that Israel used to inflict death and destruction on Gaza this summer (and in previous attacks). By hosting the “boat detection” exercise, the EU indicated its eagerness to deploy Israel’s tools of mass murder against refugees.

Greenwashing

Although the EU has tried to keep the nuclear research “discreet,” it has openly celebrated more palatable forms of engagement with Israel.

José Manuel Barroso, the outgoing European Commission chief, posed for photos with Benjamin Netanyahu, when the two men approved an energy and water cooperation agreement in 2012. The JRC tried to sell that accord as ecologically sound by stressing that it concerned renewable energy and resource conservation.

Environmental campaigners have a name for tactics designed to rebrand a villain as a tree-hugger: “greenwashing.”

Cooperation on “clean” energy provides scant comfort to Gaza’s people, whose only power plant was bombed by Israel this summer. Nor should it be forgotten that Israel attacked a center for autistic children that had solar panels on its roof. So much for Israel’s commitment to renewable energy.

Israel is a nuclear-armed rogue state. I’m sure that many decent people would be horrified to learn that the EU is liaising with the very agencies that developed Israel’s nuclear weapons — even if this cooperation is “discreet.”

IHC moved for registration of murder case against Pervez Musharraf on killings in drone strikes

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pervez-musharraf

– by The Nation

Islamabad: Islamabad High Court (IHC) has been moved for registration of murder case against Pervez Musharraf in respect of the innocent citizens who have been killed in drone strikes in tribal areas of the country.

A constitutional petition was filed by Mian Zahid Ghani a citizen of Islamabad in IHC Wednesday in this respect. The petitioner has requested the court former president Pervez Musharraf had signed a written agreement with US government and allowed the latter to conduct drone attacks in tribal areas wherein hundreds of the citizens were martyred. At least 1600 Pakistanis were martyred and hundreds were injured in 379 drone attacks during the period from 2004 to 2013. The injured are living the life of disabled persons. Former president violated constitution of Pakistan. Protecting the life and property of the citizens is responsibility of the government. Therefore, court should order for registration of murder case in respect of innocent Pakistanis martyred in drone strikes, he prayed.

America's deadly double tap drone attacks are 'killing 49 people for every known terrorist in Pakistan'

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The site of a missile attack in Tappi, a village 12 miles east of Miranshah, near the Afghan border after a U.S. missile attack by a pilotless drone aircraft in 2008. At least six people were killed

The site of a missile attack in Tappi, a village 12 miles east of Miranshah, near the Afghan border after a U.S. missile attack by a pilotless drone aircraft in 2008. At least six people were killed

– by Leon Watson, Daily Mail

Just one in 50 victims of America’s deadly drone strikes in Pakistan are terrorists – while the rest are innocent civilians, a new report claimed today.

The authoritative joint study, by Stanford and New York Universities, concludes that men, women and children are being terrorised by the operations ’24 hours-a-day’.

And the authors lay much of the blame on the use of the ‘double-tap’ strike where a drone fires one missile – and then a second as rescuers try to drag victims from the rubble. One aid agency said they had a six-hour delay before going to the scene.

The tactic has cast such a shadow of fear over strike zones that people often wait for hours before daring to visit the scene of an attack. Investigators also discovered that communities living in fear of the drones were suffering severe stress and related illnesses. Many parents had taken their children out of school because they were so afraid of a missile-strike.

Bombardment: More than 345 strikes have hit Pakistan’s tribal areas near the border with Afghanistan in the past eight years

Today campaigners savaged the use of drones, claiming that they were destroying a way of life.

Clive Stafford Smith, director of the charity Reprieve which helped interview people for the report, said: ‘This shows that drone strikes go much further than simply killing innocent civilians. An entire region is being terrorised by the constant threat of death from the skies.’

There have been at least 345 strikes in Pakistan’s tribal areas near the border with Afghanistan in the past eight years.

‘These strikes are becoming much more common,’ Mirza Shahzad Akbar, a Pakistani lawyer who represents victims of drone strikes, told The Independent.

‘In the past it used to be a one-off, every now and then. Now almost every other attack is a double tap. There is no justification for it.’

The study is the product of nine months’ research and more than 130 interviews, it is one of the most exhaustive attempts by academics to understand – and evaluate – Washington’s drone wars.

Tribesmen gather near a damaged car outside a house after a missile struck in Dandi Darpakheil village on the outskirts of Miranshah, the main town in the North Waziristan tribal region

Despite assurances the attacks are ‘surgical’, researchers found barely two per cent of their victims are known militants and that the idea that the strikes make the world a safer place for the U.S. is ‘ambiguous at best’.

Researchers added that traumatic effects of the strikes go far beyond fatalities, psychologically battering a population which lives under the daily threat of annihilation from the air, and ruining the local economy.

They conclude by calling on Washington completely to reassess its drone-strike programme or risk alienating the very people they hope to win over.

They also observe that the strikes set worrying precedents for extra-judicial killings at a time when many nations are building up their unmanned weapon arsenals.

The Obama administration is unlikely to heed their demands given the zeal with which America has expanded its drone programme over the past two years.

Washington says the drone program is vital to combating militants that threaten the U.S. and who use Pakistan’s tribal regions as a safe haven.

The number of attacks have fallen since a Nato strike in 2011 killed 24 Pakistani soldiers and strained U.S.-Pakistan relations.

Pakistan wants the drone strikes stopped – or it wants to control the drones directly – something the U.S. refuses.

Reapers and Predators are now active over the skies of Somalia and Yemen as well as Pakistan and – less covertly – Afghanistan.

But campaigners like Mr Akbar hope the Stanford/New York University research may start to make an impact on the American public.

‘It’s an important piece of work,’ he told The Independent. ‘No one in the U.S. wants to listen to a Pakistani lawyer saying these strikes are wrong. But they might listen to American academics.’

Today, Pakistani intelligence officials revealed a pair of missiles fired from an unmanned American spy aircraft slammed into a militant hideout in northwestern Pakistan last night.

The two officials said missiles from the drone aircraft hit the village of Dawar Musaki in the North Waziristan region, which borders Afghanistan to the west.

Some of the dead were believed to be foreign fighters but the officials did not know how many or where they were from.

The Monday strike was the second in three days. On Saturday a U.S. drone fired two missiles at a vehicle in northwest Pakistan, killing four suspected militants.

That attack took place in the village of Mohammed Khel, also in North Waziristan.

North Waziristan is the last tribal region in which the Pakistan military has not launched an operation against militants, although the U.S. has been continually pushing for such a move.

The Pakistanis contend that their military is already overstretched fighting operations in other areas but many in the U.S. believe they are reluctant to carry out an operation because of their longstanding ties to some of the militants operating there such as the Haqqani network.

NATO airstrike in Khost leaves 4 civilians dead

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One civilian was killed during a US-led coalition forces operation in Masmo village of Ali-shing district of eastern Laghman province. (Photos: Najibulrahman Enqalabi/PAN)

One civilian was killed during a US-led coalition forces operation in Masmo village of Ali-shing district of eastern Laghman province. (Photos: Najibulrahman Enqalabi/PAN)

– by Javed Hamim Kahar & Muhammad Haroon, RAWA News

Khost: A district development council head was killed in a militant attack in southeastern Paktia province while four people — believed to be civilians — lost their lives in a NATO drone strike in southern Khost on Tuesday.

Paktia police chief, Brig. Gen. Mohammad Zaman told Pajhwok Afghan News the development council head for Syed Karam district Mirza Mohammad was shot dead by militants in the morning.

He said the militants were in a car and managed to flee after the attack. An Investigation into the incident is underway. No one has so far claimed responsibility for the assassination.

According to another report, four people believed to be civilians were killed in a drone strike in Ali Sher district of Khost province, the governor’s spokesman said. Mubarez Mohammad added the four people were traveling in a car when they came under attack.

The car destroyed in the airstrike, he said, adding it was unclear who the victims were.“We have ordered police to investigate the incident,” Mubarez added.

A resident of Khost City, Ismail Khan said the victims included his uncle and other relatives.“My uncle and three others traveling in the car had no links with militants and they were not equipped with weapons.”

Why do Americans hate beheadings but love Drone killings?

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drone-strike

– by Coleen Rowley, Huffington Post

The answer lies in human psychology. And probably like the old observation about history, people who refuse to understand human psychology are doomed to be victims of psychological manipulation. How is it that even members of peace groups have now come to support US bombing? One lady framed the issue like this: “I request that we discuss and examine why the videotaped beheading of a human being is understood to be more egregious than the explosion (almost totally invisible to the public) of a human being by a missile or bomb fired from a drone.”

There are at least four main reasons that explain why Americans care far more about the beheadings (thus far) of two Americans and one U.K citizen, than they care — here’s the polling — about the thousands of foreign victims of US drone bombing. Here’s how people are likely being manipulated into believing that more US bombing is the answer to such terroristic killings even when almost all military experts have admitted that it won’t work and “there’s no military solution”:

1) “Us versus them” mentality, the group bonding also known as tribalism, nationalism, group elitism, etc. seems partially learned behavior but also hard-wired into humans (like other animals) to enable group survival. The worst, most excessive forms of group bonding are also known as racism. Yet it’s an innate part of human psychological makeup to identify most closely with those whom we are close to and with whom we share group affinity, so Americans are always going to care more about Americans/Westerners as opposed to more distant foreigners;

2) The gruesome beheadings were deliberately and dramatically videotaped to ensure that US media brought the scenes into all US living rooms whereas the drone bombings of citizens of foreign countries are almost never filmed nor covered at all by US media. Thus to the majority of Americans, drone killings seem sterile, sanitized and surgical even though drone pilots who see the results up close know differently and some are even committing suicide.

3) It’s apparent that even a large segment of the “peace” community does not understand that US wars and US-orchestrated regime changes indirectly created Islamic State (and other Al Qaeda type terrorist groups) and that US drone (and other aerial) bombing is giving rise to MORE terrorism, rather than working to reduce it. These two articles “How the West Created the Islamic State” and “How ISIS Is Using Us to Get What It Wants” describe the dynamic. As in all wars, the leaders of both sides are opportunistically using each other to empower each other. Robert Greenwald’s video (below) puts it most succinctly: “How Perpetual War Fuels Terrorism.” (But the opposite is also true: terrorism fuels war). This is well-known by Western intelligence analysts and foreign policy experts, and it’s garden variety war manipulation for everyone except the duped US public. (Borowitz isn’t really joking when he reports: “Americans Who Have Not Read a Single Article About Syria Strongly Support Bombing It.”) It’s depressing otherwise to learn how many uninformed people there are that still think “bombing the village to save it” somehow can work. Such “war on terror” propaganda is actually effective on the liberal-minded who are more vulnerable to having their emotional buttons — fear, hate, greed, false pride and blind loyalty — pressed than it is on more pragmatic, cool-headed realists. It’s being reported that a number of US journalists who should know better have even fallen for hyped terror threats used to justify the launching of bombing upon Syria.

4) A fourth reason why most Americans now go happily along with perpetual war in a kind of blissful stupor, cheering on their favorite war hawk politician comes from the lessons learned so well from the Vietnam War. Getting rid of the military draft and putting the trillions of dollars of mounting war costs on the ever-expanding and perfectly elastic national debt card was a stroke of genius on the part of the military industrial complex to wipe away any remaining “Vietnam Syndrome.” The new “poverty draft” that we’re left with constitutes another layer of “us versus them” type manipulation geared to getting the liberal, intellectual middle class on board as they perceive little or no costs and only benefits to perpetual war. Even when not directly profiting by working for military or national security contractors, many Americans have come to believe war creates jobs and ensures they are supplied with cheap gas and other resources.

Anyway, I may be flat wrong but there has to be some explanation and I would welcome others’ opinions. Without the witty humor of a Borowitz or Jon Stewart, people may also resent being told how they are constantly duped into this perpetual war that makes them less and less safe. But hopefully, more people will wise up to this psychological manipulation.

First U.S drone strike in seven months hits Somalia

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African Union and Somali troops advance on al Shabaab positions (UN Photo/Tobin Jones)

African Union and Somali troops advance on al Shabaab positions (UN Photo/Tobin Jones)

– by Joseph Cox and Jack Serle, The Bureau of Investigative Journalism

A US drone strike hit Somalia, the first in seven months, in an attack aimed at killing al Shabaab leader, Ahmed Abdi Godane.

The attack killed “six al Shabaab officers” but it is not clear if Godane was among them, said Abdullahi Abukar, executive director of the Somali Human Rights Association (SOHRA).

Sohra monitors human rights abuses and records casualties from the ongoing conflict in Lower Shabelle, where the strike hit. It destroyed an encampment and at least one vehicle in an area heavily under al Shabaab control.

A Pentagon spokesman confirmed it was a US military operation, telling reporters: “actionable intelligence led us to that site where we believe [Godane] was” and “we certainly believe that we hit what we were aiming at”. However he would not confirm who, if anyone, had been killed.

The spokesman said drones and conventional aircraft flown by US special forces “destroyed an encampment and a vehicle using several Hellfire missiles and laser-guided missiles”.

An al Shabaab spokesman declined to say whether Godane was among the six militants killed.

An unnamed Somali intelligence source was similarly cautious, telling the Associated Press Godane “might have been killed along with other militants”.

The attack was the sixth confirmed US drone strike reported in Somalia. There have been at least eight other confirmed US operations in the country – including naval bombardments and special forces operations.

Godane, also known as Mukhtar Abu Zubair, originally trained to be an accountantbefore joining Itihad al Islamiya, a now defunct armed group.

After fighting in Afghanistan, he became involved in what would later become al Shabaab becoming its leader in 2007. The US government is offering up to $7m as a reward for information about his whereabouts.

Godane has been targeted at least two other times by US forces, according to figures maintained by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism. Two of these were drone strikes, one in 2011 and another earlier this year.

The US may have tried to capture Godane in October 2013, in a failed amphibious assault on a compound in southern Somalia. However there are several conflicting accounts of this operation, and the true target remains unclear.

The first US operation against Godane was in 2003, according to the Bureau’s data. It was a CIA surveillance operation against several people, including Godane.

Godane was also said to be the target of a January 2014 Kenyan air strike that killed 57 alleged al Shabaab militants.

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