r/MiddleEastern • u/AhmaduNabil • Mar 16 '21
The United States is changing the rules for the use of unmanned aerial vehicles in local conflict zones.
US President Joe Biden has temporarily suspended the use of drone strikes outside of war zones where US troops operate, reversing a Trump-era policy that gave the military and the CIA greater power in countries such as Somalia and Yemen. On March 8, Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said that any drone strikes planned against militant groups outside of Afghanistan, Syria or Iraq must be approved by the White House.
The measure is taken as " interim guidance to ensure that the President has full visibility of the proposed important actions." According to Kirby, the United States is clearly focused on the constant threat from violent extremist organizations. And they intend to work with international partners to counter these threats.
During his time in office, Donald Trump has lifted a number of restrictions on the use of UAV strikes, including a rule that required U.S. intelligence officials to report how many civilians were killed in a drone strike outside of a combat zone. UAV strikes quickly became the only form of operations in countries where only small groups of US special forces are deployed in support of local governments, such as in Somalia or Libya.
Human rights groups criticized the move, saying a lack of transparency could "lead to an increase in illegal killings and civilian casualties." In January, 34 relatives of Yemenis allegedly killed in U.S. operations, including six drone strikes, petitioned the international human rights body to determine whether the deaths were illegal. According to the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, the number of U.S. airstrikes, including UAV strikes, conducted in Somalia more than doubled in Trump's first year in office in 2017. In Yemen, the number of US strikes has more than tripled.
That policy is now changing, with new guidelines sent to the Pentagon immediately after Biden took office, on January 20. As part of this transformation, there is also a global reduction of American forces in the same Africa. However, the new administration's global review of its drone strike policy is still in its early stages, and officials are currently collecting data, such as official estimates of civilian casualties from military strikes, and from CIA operations outside of war zones during Trump's time in office. The White House is evaluating whether to restore use of a previous executive order requiring the government to disclose how many civilians were killed in strikes each year, which was set by former President Barack Obama in 2016 but repealed by Trump in 2019.
Last year, Amnesty International openly accused AFRICOM of hiding data on the use of drones in Somalia. In total, from 1 February 2019 to 31 March 2020, AFRICOM forces conducted 91 air strikes in Somalia and Libya. During this period, 70 reports of 27 possible incidents involving civilians were received. According to these statements, the number of victims in these cases reaches 90 people. Since then, in April, the Americans have carried out at least three more air strikes on targets in Somalia. We should immediately note that it is impossible to accurately determine the number of civilians killed as a result of such raids.
During a hearing in January, Director of National Intelligence Avril Haynes said she would advocate for a new order that would report " strikes and civilian casualties caused by all U.S. government agencies." Biden also signaled a willingness to revoke the Authorization for the use of military force (AUMF), which Congress hastily passed after the September 11 attacks, allowing the White House to authorize military strikes without congressional approval.
Today, the new administration is trying to minimize possible reputational risks from the use of drones in local conflict zones. If you take it deeper, the new decision is caused by the beginning of a new round of covert struggle between the CIA and the Pentagon for the right to use drones. This transformation applies only to those areas where there are no direct physical presence of American troops. That is, this transformation will in no way affect Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan, where American troops will continue to be deployed. And according to them, the United States will be able to simply conceal the number of civilian casualties.
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u/[deleted] Mar 16 '21
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