US
government admits to killing four American citizens with drones
United
States Attorney General Eric Holder has informed Congress that four
American citizens have been killed in Yemen and Pakistan by US drones
since 2009.
RT,
22
May, 2013
It
has been widely reported but rarely acknowledged in Washington that
three US citizens — Samir Khan, Anwar al-Awlaki and his teenage
son, Abdulrahman al-Awlaki — were executed in Yemen by
missile-equipped drones in 2011. With Holder’s latest admission,
however, a fourth American — Jude Kenan Mohammed — has also been
officially named as another casualty in America’s continuing drone
war.
“Since
2009, the United States, in the conduct of US counterterrorism
operations against al-Qaeda and its associated forces outside of
areas of active hostilities, has specifically targeted and killed one
US citizen, Anwar al-Awlaki,”
the letter
reads in part. “The
United States is further aware of three other US citizens who have
been killed in such US counterterrorism operations over that same
time period,”
Holder said before naming the other victims.
“These
individuals were not specifically targeted by the United States,”
the attorney general wrote.
The
news of the admission broke Wednesday afternoon when New York Times
reporter Charlie Savage published the letter sent from Holder to
congressional leaders in a clear attempt to counter critics who have
challenged the White House for falling short of US President Barack
Obama’s campaign plans of utmost transparency. Upon a growing
number of executive branch scandals worsened by the Department of
Justice’s recently disclosed investigation of Associated Press
journalists, Holder wrote that coming clean is an effort to include
the American public in a discussion all too often conducted in the
shadows cast by the US intelligence community.
MQ-1
Predator unmanned aircraft (Reuters / Lt Col Leslie Pratt)
“The
administration is determined to continue these extensive outreach
efforts to communicate with the American people,”
continued Holder. “To
this end, the president has directed me to disclose certain
information that until now has been properly classified. You and
other members of your committee have on numerous occasions expressed
a particular interest in the administration’s use of lethal force
against US citizens. In light of this face, I am writing to disclose
to you certain information about the number of US citizens who have
been killed by US counterterrorism operations outside of areas of
active hostilities.”
The
letter, dated Wednesday, May 22, was addressed to Sen. Patrick Leahy
(D-Vermont) and the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Drone
strikes have become a signature counterterrorism tool used by the
Obama administration and his predecessor, President George W. Bush,
and have been attributed with killing
roughly 5,000 persons
abroad, according to Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina). But
under the covert and protective umbrella of the Central Intelligence
Agency, little has been formally acknowledged from Washington as to
the details of these strikes.
As
part of the vaguely defined ‘War on Terror,’ the US has
reportedly waged drone strikes outside of Afghanistan where the
Taliban once harbored al-Qaeda. In recent years, those strikes have
targeted towns in neighboring Pakistan, as well as Yemen, Somalia and
perhaps elsewhere.
But
despite growing criticism over escalating use of drones, the
president and his office has remained adamant about defending the
operations.
“It’s
important for everybody to understand that this thing is kept on a
very tight leash,”
Obama said last January, adding that his administration does not
conduct "a
whole bunch of strikes willy-nilly.”
Others
have argued quite the opposite, though, and have opposed these drone
strikes over the lack of due process involved and the habit of
accidently executing civilians in the strikes. When researchers at
Stanford University and New York University published their ‘Living
Under Drones’ report last September, they found that roughly 2
percent of drone casualties are of top militant leaders. The
Pakistani Interior Minister has said that around 80 percent of drone
deaths in his country were suffered by civilians.
Earlier
this year, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Kentucky) led a marathon filibuster
on the floor of Congress to oppose the CIA’s drone program and
demand the administration explain to elected lawmakers why the use of
unmanned aerial vehicles is warranted in executing suspects, often
killing innocent civilians as a result.
U.S.
Senator Rand Paul (Reuters / Jason Reed)
Of
particular concern, Paul said, was whether or not the Obama
administration would use the 2011 Yemen strike as justification to
kill American citizens within the US. For 13 hours, he demanded the
White House respond.
“I
rise today to begin to filibuster John Brennan’s nomination for the
CIA,”
Sen. Paul said. “I
will speak until I can no longer speak. I will speak as long as it
takes, until the alarm is sounded from coast to coast that our
Constitution is important, that your rights to trial by jury are
precious, that no American should be killed by a drone on American
soil without first being charged with a crime, without first being
found to be guilty by a court.”
One
day after the filibuster, both Attorney General Holder and White
House Press Secretary Jay Carney reached out to Sen. Paul to say the
president lacks the authority to issue such a strike within the US.
With this week’s letter, however, Holder admits that at least four
Americans have met their demise due to US drones. He also explains
why the administration felt justified in using UAVs to execute its
own people.
“Al-Awlaki
repeatedly made clear his intent to attack US persons and his hope
that these attacks would take American lives,”
wrote Holder. “Based
on this information, high-level US government officials appropriately
concluded that al-Awlaki posed a continuing and imminent threat of
violent attack against the United States.”
Later,
Holder says the decision to strike al-Awlaki was “not
taken lightly”
and was first put into plan in early 2010. Additionally, Holder said
the plan was “subjected
to exceptionally rigorous interagency legal review”
and that Justice Department lawyers and attorneys for other agencies
agreed that it was the appropriate action to take.
According
to Holder, the senior al-Awlaki and Mr. Khan were killed in the same
September 2011 drone strike in Yemen. The following month,
16-year-old Abdulrahman Anwar Al-Awlaki was killed in a strike in the
same country. Mohammed, a North Carolina resident born in 1988, was
killed by a drone likely in November 2011 within a tribal area of
Pakistan. Mohammed was indicted by a federal grand jury in 2009 for
conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists and conspiracy
to murder, kidnap, maim and injure persons in a foreign country, and
was considered armed and dangerous by the Federal Bureau of
Investigation. Both Khan and the older al-Awlaki were suspected
members of al-Qaeda and were affiliated with the group’s magazine,
Inspire.
Last
February, friends of Mohammad told a North Carolina newspaper that
they believed he was dead.
“Farhan
Mohammed says he heard in November that his friend was killed in a
drone strike,”
Raleigh’s WRAL News reported in 2012. “Jude
Mohammad’s pregnant wife was hysterical about her husband's death
and called her mother-in-law in the Triangle to break the news,
according to Sabra. The US government hasn't confirmed Mohammad’s
death, but the people who knew him in North Carolina say it's
probably true.”
Holder
declined to explain why either Mohammad or the teenage al-Awlaki were
killed. President Obama is expected to discuss America’s drone
program at an address in Washington on Thursday.
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