US, Pak officials deliberately overlook the deaths of civilians in CIA’s drone attacks

Outside a house, with bloodstained walls, after a U.S. drone attack in Mohammadkhel village in north Waziristan along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, in October 2008. The strike killed about 20 people in two villages.

ISLAMABAD - The United States and Pakistani officials are deliberately overlooking the deaths of civilians that outnumber the militants’ killings in CIA’s drone attacks and last November was the third deadliest month regarding drone hits, says a report.

The monthly report of Conflict Monitoring Centre (CMC) released last week reveals that November saw 15 drone strikes in North Waziristan, killing 84 people including a high number of civilians. Despite these massive-scale drone strikes, no top ranked militant was targeted. The months of September and October had witnessed 23 and 21 drone strikes respectively. Over 400 casualties have been reported during the last three months, the report says. Of these 84 casualties, 15 were reportedly foreigners and 69 were locals. The foreigners included 5 Uzbek nationals.

The nationalities of other foreigners are not known. Also, it could not be ascertained if the Uzbek nationals killed in the drone hits were members of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan.

Exposing the covert collusion of US and Pakistan’s top brass regarding the reckless drone attacks in NWA, the document underscores that civilian deaths were greater in number compared to those of militants. "Our research observed that intelligence officials of US and Pakistan deliberately overlook civilian fatalities and relay only censored accounts to Western media organisations. However, study reports suggest that the civilian casualties generally outnumber the killings of militants in drone attacks."

The Brooking Institute revealed last year that drones killed an average of ten civilians to one militant.

"No high-value target was either killed or injured in drone attacks during the month, only a local militant commander, namely Mustafa, was killed in the attack on November 21," the document reports.

Uruknet