Explosive drone found near Ukrainian cargo plane at German airport

German authorities are investigating after an explosive drone was discovered near a Ukrainian cargo aircraft at Leipzig/Halle Airport. The incident led to runway closures, flight diversions, and the deployment of bomb disposal experts, while counter-terrorism investigators work to determine who was behind it and whether the device was intended to detonate. German Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt describes the drone incident at Leipzig airport as a "hybrid attack scenario."

 

Drone footage raises questions about Israeli justification for deadly strike on Gaza journalists

 

On Jan. 7, the Israeli military conducted a targeted missile strike on a car carrying four Palestinian journalists outside Khan Younis, in southern Gaza.

Two members of an Al Jazeera crew — Hamza Dahdouh, 27, and drone operator Mustafa Thuraya, 30 — were killed, along with their driver. Two freelance journalists were seriously wounded.

They were returning from the scene of an earlier Israeli strike on a building, where they had used a drone to capture the aftermath. The drone — a consumer model available at Best Buy — would be central to the Israeli justification for the strike.

Italy: Drone spots suspected wildfire arsonist

 

A man has been detained after he was spotted by a drone near a recently started wildfire in Calabria, Italy.

The footage was released by authorities in the region, who said a number of recent wildfires were a result of arson.

US drone: The hidden world beneath the Black Sea

 Russia says it plans to retrieve the unmanned US drone downed over the Black Sea last Tuesday.

The US has said a recovery operation would be “very difficult” due to the significant depth of the Black Sea. But how deep is it? And what can be found down there?

What are the implications of US drone crashing in the Black Sea?

 Accounts conflict on what caused a spy drone to crash near Crimea.

A United States drone crashed into the Black Sea on Tuesday after being pursued by Russian fighter jets.

It is the most serious incident involving the two superpowers directly since the Ukraine war began last year.

Russia shoots down Ukrainian drone over Crimea

 

Russian officials in occupied Crimea say they've shot down a drone, headed for a key military base. It was targeting the headquarters of Russia's Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol.

Lithuania donates crowdfunded drone to Ukraine

 

Lithuania has donated a Turkish drone to Ukraine, to assist with its defence against the Russian invasion.

A Lithuanian broadcaster, Laisves TV initially crowdfunded 6m euros (£5.1M) to buy the aircraft from Turkish manufacturer Baykar, who later decided to donate the drone for free.

The Lithuanian government has said that the funds that were raised will go towards arming the drone and supporting humanitarian aid in Ukraine.

The drone was unveiled at a military airfield near the north Lithuanian town of Siauliai. Large crowds came to watch, with some of the attendees being people who donated to the cause.

Russia releases drone footage shows Mariupol damage

 

The Russian Ministry of Defence has released drone footage showing the extent of damage in Mariupol.

The Russians are sadly impressed with how much damage, misery and death they've caused. All in the name of a little man who wants to reclaim the Russian empire. 

This Is A Drone's View Of Sakura In Tokyo

Tokyo-based filmmaker Yasunori Iwamoto has traveled as far as New Guinea in plying his craft, but this project took place closer to home. Over the past decade or so, the Megurogawa River, especially the stretch that flows right by Nakameguro Station, has become one of Tokyo’s most popular spots for cherry blossom viewing (called “hanami” in Japanese). With 800 cherry blossom trees straddling a four-kilometer (2.5-mile) section of the river, the twin tunnels of pink flowers are interrupted only by the occasional cross street.

Who Better To Conduct America's Drone War: Than Private Contractors

During the second Iraq war the American Defense Department came to the utterly brilliant conclusion that it would be just wonderful if they outsourced large portions of the war effort to private security firms.  It didn't workout so well.  But, instead of learning anything from that disaster the Pentagon has once again become reliant on private security firms to help it prosecute its drone wars.  You, know those little undeclared   conflicts in such places as Yemen, Somalia and  Pakistan.  Of course it'll be the perfect symbiotic relationship.  Until the usual f-up and innocent people are killed. Wait, that's already happening.  

Corporate staff are reviewing top-secret data and helping uniformed colleagues decide whether people under surveillance are enemies or civilians

Contracts unearthed by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism reveal a secretive industry worth hundreds of millions of dollars, placing a corporate workforce alongside uniformed personnel analysing intelligence from areas of interest.

While it has long been known that US defence firms supply billions of dollars’ worth of equipment for drone operations, the role of the private sector in supplying analysts for combing through intelligence material has remained almost entirely unknown until now.

Approximately one in 10 people involved in the effort to process data captured by drones and spy planes are non-military. And as the rise of Islamic State prompts what one commander termed “insatiable” demand for aerial surveillance, the Pentagon is considering further expanding its use of contractors, an air force official said.

The problem is the ratio of contractors to government personnel

Laura Dickinson

Companies that stand to reap the benefits include BAE Systems and Edward Snowden’s former employer Booz Allen Hamilton.

Pakistan Is It's Own Worst Enemy Where The Taliban Are Concerned

Following the withdrawal of Soviet Forces from Afghanistan in 1988 a political and military vacuum was created Pakistan which shares a long border with that country saw opportunity to influence and perhaps control (from the background) any future government in Afghanistan.  Pakistan's Inter Service Intelligence (ISI) sought to create a proxy movement which could, with ISI's  oversight, funding and training achieve a political and military victory in a country torn apart by war.  Further assistance was provided by Nasrullah Barbar the Pakistan's Minister of the Interior under Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.

Pakistan founded the Taliban.  

  "In 1994, with the failure of [Gulbuddin Hekmatyar's alliance] attempt to oust [the Afghan] Rabbani [administration], Pakistan found itself in an awkward position. Hekmatyar had proved incapable of seizing and controlling defended territory: in this respect he was a bitter disappointment to his patrons. ... In October 1994, [Pakistani interior minister] Babar [took] a group of Western ambassadors (including the US Ambassador to Pakistan John C. Monjo) to Kandahar, without even bothering to inform the Kabul government, even though it manned an embassy in Islamabad. ... On 29 October 1994, a convoy of trucks, including a notorious ISI officer, Sultan Amir ... and two figures who were later to become prominent Taliban leaders, entered Afghanistan."^[9]    

Following the attacks of 11 September 2001 Pakistan's government claimed they were no longer providing logistical, military training or funding to the Taliban.  It just wasn't true.

It's believed that Pakistan during the rule of General Pervez Musharraf was complicit in providing safe harbor for Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.  General Musharraf at one point signed a peace treaty with the Taliban which they promptly broke with attacks in the Swat valley.  

Thus when stories spread of Pakistani military barbarity in the campaign against the Taliban in Pakistan – reports which included the execution of Taliban prisoners in Waziristan, whose bodies were left to lie upon the roads to be eaten by animals – the more certain became the revenge of the Taliban. The children of the military officers, educated at the army school just down the road from the famous Edwardes College in Peshawar – were the softest and most obvious of targets. For many years, the ISI and the Pakistani army helped to fund and arm the mujahedin and then the Taliban in Afghanistan. 

For years, the Pakistani authorities have insisted that the old loyalties of individual military and security police officers to the Taliban have been broken – and that the Pakistani military forces are now fully dedicated to what the Americans used to call the “war on terror”.

"Wounds of Waziristan": Broadcast of New Film on Pakistanis Haunted by U.S. Drone War

The Pakistani government is warning of a new rift with the United States after a CIA drone strike that killed the head of the Pakistani Taliban. Hakimullah Mehsud and six other militants died on Friday when U.S. missiles hit their vehicle in North Waziristan. Mehsud had a $5 million bounty on his head and was accused of responsibility for thousands of deaths.

Civilians are dying. Campaigners are being kidnapped. The world cannot turn a blind eye to America’s drone attacks in Pakistan

Why was Karim Khan prevented from speaking out against drone warfare?

Karim Khan is a lucky man. When you’re picked up by 20 armed thugs, some in police uniform – aka the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) – you can be “disappeared” forever. A mass grave in Balochistan, in the south-west of the country, has just been found, filled with the “missing” from previous arrests.

In Madiha Tahir’s recent documentary film Wounds of Waziristan, Mr Khan had talked about his family loss. His son Hafiz was a security guard at a local girls’ school, and also studying for Grade 10. Asif, who had a Master’s in English, was a government employee. Karim Khan saw what was left of their bodies, “covered in wounds”. He found some of their fingers in the rubble of his home.

Thanks to constant reports of his kidnapping in the courageous Pakistani media and to the Rawalpindi bench of the Lahore High Court who ordered the Pakistani government to produce Karim Khan by next Thursday, the anti-drone campaigner is safe. For the moment.

Drone dialogue: Flying in circles?

Transparency and accountability remain out of sight after four major reports question the legality of US drone strikes.

Mamana Bibi was tending her crops in northern Pakistan one day in late October 2012. The 68-year-old grandmother was picking okra not far from the family home, when a missile was fired from a remotely piloted aircraft. Bibi was killed instantly, her body torn to pieces just metres away from her young granddaughter, according to a recent report published by Amnesty International.

Four recent major reports have questioned the legality of the United States' drone programme, which has struck targets in several countries, including Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen and Somalia - but it remains unclear how the US will respond to the concerns.

But the reports - two by UN Special Rapporteurs and two by human rights groups - say some of the drone strikes constituted unjustifiable attacks on civilians. So far, the US government has released no official number of civilian casualties from its drone programme. The UN, however, has recorded at least 450 civilians killed by US drone strikes in Pakistan, Yemen and Afghanistan since 2004. The Bureau of Investigative Journalism has estimated almost double that figure were killed.

The US denies that it indiscriminately targets civilians and defends the drone strikes, saying they are "necessary, legal and just". Yet some legislators have called on the Obama administration to abide by the recommendations put forth in the reports.

While the U.S. denies targeting civilians isn't it interesting that people have been killed by drones while attending weddings and funerals and that the press will report verbatim that all those who have died in these drone attacks are "militants" yet there is no way to verify that claim.  You must rely upon the press briefings given by officials  speaking for the American  government.

Documentary: Fear and stress define life under drones

A new documentary, ."Wounds of Waziristan," reveals the story of drones as told by the people who live under them.

"There is an entire generation that has grown up under the eye of the drones," director Madiha Tahir said in a recent interview. "People tell me there are multiple drones that hover during the day, but they tend to usually strike at night. You never know when they are going to strike, and that has created an incredible amount of psychological stress."


And Tahir says many Pakistani civilians resent the United States for that reason. Of all the families she spoke to for the film, "There is not a single one that is for the drone attacks."

"There is no bigger terrorist than Obama or Bush," Karim Khan, whose brother and son were killed in a drone strike, says in the film. "Those who have weaponry like drones, who drop bombs on us while we are in our own homes, there are no greater terrorists than them."

US has killed far more civilians with drones than it admits says UN

By Michael Isikoff
NBC News National Investigative Correspondent


A new report from a special U.N. investigator says drone strikes have killed far more civilians than U.S. officials have publicly acknowledged – at least 400 in Pakistan and as many as 58 in Yemen – and chides the U.S. for failing to aid the investigation by disclosing its own figures.

U.N. Special Rapporteur Ben Emmerson, who issued the "interim" report, said the U.S. had created "an almost insurmountable obstacle to transparency."

"The Special Rapporteur does not accept that considerations of national security justify withholding statistical and basic methodological data of this kind," wrote Emmerson in the report, which is due to be presented to the U.N. General Assembly next Friday.

Read the report on drone casualties here.

The highest level of civilian casualties, Emmerson said, occurred when the CIA ramped up drone strikes in Pakistan between 2008 and 2010. Since then, he said, drone strikes in Pakistan have steadily declined and "the number of civilian deaths has dropped dramatically."

US confirms four American citizens killed by drones

The US attorney general has acknowledged four US citizens were killed in drone strikes since 2011.

The US specifically targeted and killed Anwar al-Awlaki, Eric Holder wrote in a letter to the Senate judiciary panel.

Awlaki's 16-year-old son Abdulrahman, Samir Khan and Jude Mohammad were "not specifically targeted by the US".

The disclosure of the killings in Yemen and Pakistan marks the first formal public acknowledgement of the US citizen deaths in drone strikes.

"The president has directed me to disclose certain information that until now has been properly classified," Mr Holder wrote.

Awlaki, an al-Qaeda suspect born in the US state of New Mexico, was killed by an unmanned plane in Yemen September 2011. US officials announced his death but did not officially reveal he was killed by a drone.

Samir Khan, a naturalised US citizen who produced an online magazine promoting al-Qaeda's ideology, died in the same missile strike.

Awlaki's 16-year-old son, Abdulrahman, who was born in Colorado, was killed in Yemen a month later.

Mohammad, a North Carolina resident with a Pakistani father and American-born mother, was arrested in Pakistan in 2008 after trying to enter a part of the country that is dominated by militants and off-limits to foreigners.

Isn't funny how the country which likes to wave its Constitution as a badge of honor continuously violates the tenits of that Constitution when it involves the due process of the citizens the document was designed to protect.  Like the 16 year old son of Anwar al-Awlaki.    

Struggling to control North Waziristan-video

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The Islamic militants in Waziristan are said to have close affiliations with the Taliban. Waziristan is often mentioned as a haven for al-Qaeda fighters, who will be required to either leave the area or act peacefully as a condition of the negotiated peace accord. Some of these militants call their organization the "Taliban."[2] - "The tribal militants call themselves "Pakistani Taliban," or members of a newly coined and loosely knit entity, the Taliban."[2] Tribal leaders control the area of the North Waziristan Agency and the South Waziristan Agency of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA).[citation needed] In practice they have replaced these two agency-level governments as the political body controlling the area,[citation needed] although formal dissolution of the agencies is not part of the truce agreement. Partisans in North Waziristan declared an "Islamic state" in February 2006.[3] According to anonymous sources, the Pakistan government effectively acknowledged the organization in the Waziristan accord of 5 September 2006 which referred to the organization in the agreement, however the agreement does not recognize the Taliban as an independent state, but only as a security body charged with fulfilling the obligations of the treaty. [4] There is speculation that some al-Qaeda leaders have found refuge in the area controlled by the Emirate, which is a staging ground for militant operations in Afghanistan.[5] A condition of the truce is that no support be given for these operations. Local observers view the truce accord as a prelude to hot pursuit chases of mujahideen into Pakistan by NATO forces in Afghanistan.[6] Details of the agreement may be found under Waziristan accord.

Game of drones

What are the implications of US news outlets concealing the truth about drones in the interest of national security?

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), better known as drones, have crept into modern warfare as quietly as the airborne killing machines themselves and, on the whole, media reporting on them has been just as subdued.

Last week, the veil of silence was finally lifted when two of the most important and influential newspapers in the United States – the New York Times and the Washington Post – ran stories on a secret airbase in Saudi Arabia from which the US military has operated its 'drone war' campaign over Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen for the past two years.

However, as the story broke, it also came to light that reporters at both newspapers had known about the base long before the story went to print. They had agreed to conceal newsworthy information at the request of the US intelligence establishment, on the basis that reporting the truth would have harmed American national security interests.

The complicity of journalists with government officials to keep the base a secret has been justified on grounds of national security but the issue has raised troubling questions of when military secrets – as defined by the government – pull rank on the public duty of the fourth estate to inform.

Japan and China race towards the drone of stupidity over the Senkaku islands

The escalation of the dispute over the Senkaku islands began in February of 2012 when then Tokyo Governor Shintaro Isihara announced that the Tokyo Metropolitan government would seek  donations for a private fund they set-up to purchase the Senkaku islands from their private owner.  Until that moment the diplomatic row had remained a minor blip.  

Shintaro Ishihara isn't just some minor player in Japanese politics as he has served in the Diet and been a member of several cabinets.  So, why did the Chinese government have such an adverse reaction? Shintaro Ishihara is an ultra nationalist, a racist and denier of Japanese war crimes committed during World War II.

Fearing his involvement would cause a breach in relations between the two countries the Japanese government stepped in and began negotiations with the owner of the Senkaku's finally reaching an agreement of purchase followed by the islands being nationalized

As the dispute escalated through the summer of 2012 two groups one Japanese and one Chinese made attempts to land on the disputed islands. In September of last year China erupted in anti Japanese protests which caused business's to close as any company seen in association with Japanese business interests were attacked.

Since then the Chinese navel vessels have made numerous incursions into Japanese waters which has led both sides to develop unmanned drone capabilities.    

Drones have taken centre stage in an escalating arms race betweenChina and Japan as they struggle to assert their dominance over disputed islands in the East China Sea.

China is rapidly expanding its nascent drone programme, while Japan has begun preparations to purchase an advanced model from the US. Both sides claim the drones will be used for surveillance, but experts warn the possibility of future drone skirmishes in the region's airspace is "very high".

Tensions over the islands – called the Diaoyu by China and the Senkaku by Japan – have ratcheted up in past weeks. Chinese surveillance planes flew near the islands four times in the second half of December, according to Chinese state media, but were chased away each time by Japanese F-15 fighter jets. Neither side has shown any signs of backing down.
       
China announced late last month that the People's Liberation Army was preparing to test-fly a domestically developed drone, which analysts say is likely a clone of the US's carrier-based X-47B. "Key attack technologies will be tested," reported the state-owned China Daily, without disclosing further details.