#victimes_civiles

Bombing family homes of activists in armed Palestinian groups violates international humanitarian law
▻http://www.btselem.org/press_releases/20140709_bobming_of_houses_in_gaza

#BT'selem rappelle un point du #droit_international que les #MSM « oublient » dès qu’il s’agit d’#Israël, et précise la nature exacte des avertissements (parfois imaginaires) « préalables » (tant vantés par les mêmes MSM) qu’Israël fournit à la population civile avant un bombardement de structures civiles.

Bombing the homes of senior activists in armed groups violates international humanitarian law, which provides a narrow definition of what constitutes a legitimate target and permits aiming attacks only at targets that effectively assist military efforts, when damaging them can provide a military advantage. Treating these homes as legitimate targets is an unlawful, distorted interpretation of the concept, resulting in harm to civilians, whom this body of law is intended to protect.

An IDF Spokesperson’s announcement from yesterday, after the first round of attacks, stated only that “among the targets attacked were four homes of activists in the Hamas terror organization who are involved in terrorist activity and direct and carry out high-trajectory fire towards Israel…”. In other words, the military itself acknowledged that the attacks were illegally aimed at homes that were not military targets. Only later was a new announcement made, in an attempt to retroactively adapt the described activity to the requirements of international law, stating that the targets were “the homes of senior activists that function as command and control headquarters” .

In the case of the Kaware’a home, not only can the house not be considered a legitimate target, but civilians were on the premises at the time of the bombing. Although the military did warn the inhabitants of the impending attack and instruct them to leave, its duty does not end with giving prior warning: it must give the inhabitants enough time to leave and ensure that all civilians have indeed evacuated the spot. Given the military’s sophisticated surveillance equipment, those responsible for the bombing should have known that civilians went back into the building. According to a senior air force officer, the military did not have enough time to divert the missile once civilians were detected re-entering the building. This claim is unreasonable, as many people were already crowded around the house when the warning missile was fired, raising suspicion that not all necessary precautions were taken to prevent harm to civilians. The military must publish the footage of the attack taken by the unmanned aerial vehicle. B’Tselem has also received initial information regarding a home bombed in Beit Hanun as part of a targeted assassination: B’Tselem’s initial investigation indicates that on 8 July 2014, at approximately 11:40 P.M., the military bombed the home of Hafez Hamad, an activist in the military wing of the Islamic Jihad. According to the investigation, none of the inhabitants received prior warning from the military and the house was bombed mere moments after the family went to bed for the night. The bombing killed six persons, including a 16-year-old girl.

#crimes_de_guerre #civils #victimes_civiles #Gaza #impunité #complicité

The NSA’s Secret Role in the U.S. Assassination Program
▻https://firstlook.org/theintercept/article/2014/02/10/the-nsas-secret-role

According to a former drone operator for the military’s Joint Special Operations Command (#JSOC) who also worked with the #NSA, the agency often identifies targets based on controversial #metadata analysis and cell-phone tracking technologies. Rather than confirming a target’s identity with operatives or informants on the ground, the #CIA or the U.S. military then orders a strike based on the activity and location of the #mobile phone a person is believed to be using.

The #drone operator, who agreed to discuss the top-secret programs on the condition of anonymity, was a member of JSOC’s High Value Targeting task force, which is charged with identifying, capturing or killing terrorist suspects in Yemen, Somalia, Afghanistan and elsewhere.

His account is bolstered by top-secret NSA documents previously provided by whistleblower Edward #Snowden. It is also supported by a former drone sensor operator with the U.S. Air Force, Brandon Bryant, who has become an outspoken critic of the lethal operations in which he was directly involved in #Iraq, #Afghanistan and #Yemen.

(...)

One problem, he explains, is that targets are increasingly aware of the NSA’s reliance on geolocating, and have moved to thwart the tactic. Some have as many as 16 different #SIM_cards associated with their identity within the High Value Target system. Others, unaware that their mobile phone is being targeted, lend their phone, with the SIM card in it, to friends, children, spouses and family members.

Some top Taliban leaders, knowing of the NSA’s targeting method, have purposely and randomly distributed SIM cards among their units in order to elude their trackers. “They would do things like go to meetings, take all their SIM cards out, put them in a bag, mix them up, and everybody gets a different SIM card when they leave,” the former drone operator says. “That’s how they confuse us.”

As a result, even when the agency correctly identifies and targets a SIM card belonging to a terror suspect, the phone may actually be carried by someone else, who is then killed in a strike. According to the former drone operator, the geolocation cells at the NSA that run the tracking program – known as Geo Cell –sometimes facilitate strikes without knowing whether the individual in possession of a tracked cell phone or SIM card is in fact the intended target of the strike.

“Once the bomb lands or a night raid happens, you know that phone is there,” he says. “But we don’t know who’s behind it, who’s holding it. It’s of course assumed that the phone belongs to a human being who is nefarious and considered an ‘unlawful enemy combatant.’ This is where it gets very shady.”

(...)

What’s more, he adds, the NSA often locates drone targets by analyzing the activity of a SIM card, rather than the actual content of the calls. Based on his experience, he has come to believe that the drone program amounts to little more than death by unreliable metadata.

“People get hung up that there’s a targeted list of people,” he says. “It’s really like we’re targeting a cell phone. We’re not going after people – we’re going after their phones , in the hopes that the person on the other end of that missile is the bad guy.”

#métadonnées

Air strike kills 15 civilians in Yemen by mistake : officials
▻http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/12/12/us-yemen-strike-idUSBRE9BB10O20131212

(Reuters) - Fifteen people on their way to a wedding in #Yemen were killed in an air strike after their party was mistaken for an al Qaeda convoy, local security officials said on Thursday.

The officials did not identify the plane in the strike in central al-Bayda province, but tribal and local media sources said that it was a #drone.

Yémen : un drone tire sur une cérémonie de mariage
▻http://french.ruvr.ru/news/2013_12_12/Yemen-un-drone-tire-sur-une-ceremonie-de-mariage-6335

#victimes_civiles

Afghans: September US #Drone Strikes Killed 14 Civilians — News from Antiwar.com
▻http://news.antiwar.com/2013/12/01/afghans-september-us-drone-strikes-killed-14-civilians

NATO would admit to only three civilian casualties in the incident, saying that they counted 11 dead overall, and that eight are “suspected insurgents.” Maj. Gen. Ken Wilsbach blamed the Taliban for the civilian deaths, accusing them of living “intermixed with the civilian population.”

#victimes_civiles #violation_du_droit_international #leadership

Afghanistan : plusieurs civils, dont 3 enfants, tués dans une frappe de l’OTAN - Le Monde

▻http://www.lemonde.fr/asie-pacifique/article/2013/10/05/plusieurs-civils-afghans-tues-dans-une-frappe-de-l-otan_3490506_3216.html

Au moins cinq civils afghans, dont trois enfants, ont été tués dans la nuit de vendredi à samedi 5 octobre par une frappe aérienne de l’OTAN dans la province de Nangarhar, dans l’est de l’Afghanistan, indiquent des responsables locaux.

#Afghanistan #OTAN

Lethal Profiling of Afghan Men
▻http://www.theinvestigativefund.org/dialogs/print/?id=1843

The evidence suggests that US and coalition forces have not been taking “extraordinary care” in Afghanistan and that, as a result, civilian men and boys have paid a grave price. Hard numbers are impossible to come by, and even anecdotal reports are generally limited to cases in which women and children — who can less readily be cast as dead insurgents — were killed alongside males. “We were always disagreeing with ISAF on the number of civilians killed,” a former UN human rights official told The Nation. “There was the whole question of adult males — for [ISAF], they were always insurgents. And we were getting testimony from the families that they were farmers.”

From the president of the United States to the troops on the ground in Afghanistan, to the military personnel conducting drone strikes from bases in America, a mindset that equates military-age males with insurgents seems to prevail, making the killing of innocents all but inevitable. Nor is there any evidence that this situation will abate so long as US-led coalition forces remain in the country.

#drones #victimes_civiles

Leaked Pakistani report confirms high civilian death toll in CIA drone strikes: The Bureau of Investigative Journalism
▻http://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/2013/07/22/exclusive-leaked-pakistani-report-confirms-high-civilian-deat

Pakistan officially denied that 81 civilians including children died in this 2006 CIA drone strike – but a leaked document says otherwise.

#drones #victimes_civiles

New Report Documents the Human Cost of U.S. Drone Strikes in Yemen | Politics News | Rolling Stone
▻http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/new-report-documents-the-human-cost-of-u-s-drone-strikes-in-yemen-2013

There are more than 80 names at the end of a human rights report published online this week. Each one is said to belong to a civilian killed or maimed as a result of U.S. missile strikes in Yemen since 2009. They were mothers, fathers, children and grandparents – and they stand in contrast to claims that the United States does not launch missiles into Yemen unless there is a “near-certainty that no civilians will be killed or injured,” as President Obama told the nation in May.

The names are preceded by 25 pages of detailed descriptions of U.S. airstrikes in Yemen and their consequences, offering a rare level of information on specific attacks and their physical, psychological and financial impacts on individual Yemeni civilians.

“For me, its power is in the totality,” says Gregory D. Johnsen, a former Fulbright Fellow in Yemen and author of the book The Last Refuge: Yemen, Al Qaeda, and America’s War in Arabia. “We tend to hear about these strikes in drips and drabs over the course of months and years, but the report is the most comprehensive one I’ve seen on U.S. strikes in Yemen.”

The report has been turned over to Ben Emmerson, the United Nations’ special rapporteur on human rights and counterterrorism, who is in the midst of an investigation into the civilian impacts of U.S. targeted killings and drone strikes abroad. The interviews contained within – collected by Alkarama, a Swiss-based human rights organization, and HOOD, an organization of lawyers and activists in Yemen – paint a violent picture of life on the receiving end of U.S. counterterrorism policy in the Arabian Peninsula.

La guerre des drones au Yémen : Un premier rapport présenté à l’ONU
▻http://fr.alkarama.org/index.php?option=com_content

#victimes_civiles #drones #Yemen #mensonges

US drone strikes more deadly to Afghan civilians than manned aircraft – adviser | World news | guardian.co.uk
▻http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jul/02/us-drone-strikes-afghan-civilians

Larry Lewis, a principal research scientist at the Center for Naval Analyses, a research group with close ties to the US military, studied air strikes in Afghanistan from mid-2010 to mid-2011, using classified military data on the strikes and the civilian casualties they caused. Lewis told the Guardian he found that the missile strikes conducted by remotely piloted aircraft, commonly known as drones, were 10 times more deadly to Afghan civilians than those performed by fighter jets.

(...)

[Sarah] Holewinski [of the non-governmental organization Center for Civilians in Conflict] said the disparity reflected greater training by fighter pilots in avoiding civilian casualties.

“These findings show us that it’s not about the technology, it’s about how the technology is used,” said Holewinski. “Drones aren’t magically better at avoiding civilians than fighter jets. When pilots flying jets were given clear directives and training on civilian protection, they were able to lower civilian casualty rates.”

Yet the demand for additional drone strikes by commanders in the war zone creates pressure to reduce training, Holewinski and Lewis note.

“Adding or improving training on civilian casualty prevention is a resource decision in direct tension with the increasing demand for more UAS [unmanned aerial systems] and more operations, since additional training on civilian protection means time must be taken from somewhere else including the mission itself,” Lewis and Holewinski write in their Prism article.

(...)

#victimes_civiles #drones #mensonges