Stark reality behind CIA drone operations as innocent die

CIA surveillance aircraft monitored the compound in Pakistan's Shawal valley, close to the Afghan border, for several weeks before concluding with "high certainty" that the building housed al-Qaeda operatives. And, shortly before a US drone strike destroyed the compound in January, they believed it had four occupants.

The first indication they were mistaken came when images of the operation showed six bodies being pulled from the rubble. On Thursday, US officials confirmed the uncomfortable truth: the other two corpses were western hostages: Warren Weinstein, an American, and Giovanni Lo Porto, an Italian.

Their deaths have created the biggest crisis yet for the Obama administration's controversial programme, which has become a central part of US counter-terrorism strategy but has provoked a strong backlash in the countries where the drones have been used, from Pakistan to Yemen.

Critics say the incident highlights the troubling reality behind an operation which continues to be shrouded in secrecy. As Jameel Jaffer, deputy legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union, put it: "The US, quite literally, didn't know who it was killing."

As well as the fate of the two hostages, the administration also revealed that two US citizens believed to be senior al-Qaeda operatives had been killed in separate drone strikes, even though officials did not know they were present at the targeted locations.

The deaths, announced by a taciturn Barack Obama in the White House press room, have focused attention on two of the most questionable aspects of the president's drone programme - the targeting of individuals whose identities are unknown and the killing of US citizens.

Although they do not use the phrase, US officials acknowledged that the January bombing that killed the hostages was a "signature strike", when intelligence officials choose a target based not on the confirmed identity of the individuals but because the behaviour which has been observed at the site fits a pattern of terrorist activity.

Critics say signature strikes are bound to result in more civilian casualties because of the uncertainties about who is being targeted. The Bureau of Investigative Journalism has calculated that 421 to 960 civilians have been killed by drone strikes in Pakistan since 2002.

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Speaking last month John Brennan, CIA director, said: "A lot of these stories you hear about - in terms of 'Oh, my God, there are hundreds of civilians killed'- a lot of that is propaganda that is put out by those elements that are very much opposed to the US coming in and helping."

But aware that signature strikes were feeding the backlash against the use of drones in countries such as Pakistan, Mr Obama indicated in 2013 that the strikes would be curtailed once combat operations in Afghanistan ended in 2014. Thursday's revelations, however, indicate that such strikes still continue.

The deaths of the pair believed to be al-Qaeda leaders, Ahmed Farouq and Adam Gadahn, takes to eight the number of Americans killed in drone strikes, according to researchers - although only one, the cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, was actually targeted by the US authorities.

This highlights a Catch-22 element to the administration's guidelines for targeted killings. Officials are only allowed to order a strike on US terror suspects if they perceive an "imminent threat" of an attack. Yet, as the CIA did not know that the two Americans were present at the sites which were bombed, these restrictions did not apply.

While the legal reasoning for targeting Americans has been published, the opinions that underpin the rest of the drone programme remain classified.

Josh Earnest, a White House spokesman, says US protocols allowed them to "carry out operations against al-Qaeda compounds". He also defends drone strikes on the basis that other methods of targeting al-Qaeda operatives involve greater risks for civilians. Sending US forces to capture suspects, for example, risks "a fire fight with local civilians".

<>"The truth is that narrowly tailored counter-terrorism actions are actually the least likely to result in civilian or innocent loss of life," he adds.

While Thursday's announcement is likely to provoke tough questions within the Obama administration about the use of drones, as some officials have long questioned both the legality and political consequences, the White House has so far received largely bipartisan support from Capitol Hill.

Dianne Feinstein, the leading Democrat on the Senate intelligence committee, said on Thursday that Congress should look again at the guidelines surrounding drone strikes, but she also added that "the collateral damage [from drones] has been extraordinarily low".

Lindsey Graham, a Republican senator, said: "I have been a big critic of President Obama [but] I am not going to blame him for this. I blame al-Qaeda."

Even Senator Rand Paul, a potential Republican presidential candidate whose 2013 filibuster on drones brought him national political attention, declined to criticise the Obama administration. "It is a tragedy that these . . . hostages lost their lives," he said. "My prayers and thoughts are with their families."

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