Hidden History: America’s Secret Drone War in Africa
More secret bases. More and better unmanned warplanes. More frequent and deadly robotic attacks. Some five years after a U.S. Predator Unmanned Aerial Vehicle flew the type’s first mission over lawless Somalia, the shadowy American-led drone campaign in the Horn of Africa is targeting Islamic militants more ruthlessly than ever.
Thanks to media accounts, indirect official statements, fragmentary crash reports and one complaint by a U.N. monitoring group, we can finally begin to define — however vaguely — the scope and scale of the secret African drone war.
The details that follow are in part conjecture, albeit informed conjecture. They outline of just one of America’s ongoing shadow wars — and one possible model for the future U.S. way of war. Along with the counterterrorism campaigns in Pakistan, Yemen and the Philippines, the Somalia drone war demonstrates how high-tech U.S. forces can inflict major damage on America’s enemies at relatively low cost … and without most U.S. citizens having any idea it’s even happening.
Since 2007, Predator drones and the larger, more powerful Reapers — reinforced by Ravens and Scan Eagle UAVs and Fire Scout robot helicopters plus a small number of huge, high-flying Global Hawks — have hunted Somali jihadists on scores of occasions. It’s part of a broader campaign of jet bombing runs, naval gun bombardment, cruise-missile attacks, raids by Special Operations Forces and assistance to regional armies such as Uganda’s.
In all, air raids by manned and unmanned U.S. aircraft have killed at least 112 Somali militants, according to a count by the London-based Bureau of Investigative Journalism. Fifty-seven innocent civilians also died in the raids, the nonprofit Bureau found. The dead jihadists have included several senior members of al-Qaeda or the affiliated al-Shabaab extremist group. In January, a drone launched three Hellfire missiles at a convoy near Mogadishu and killed Bilaal al-Barjawi, the mastermind of the 2010 bombing in Kampala, Uganda, that claimed the lives of 74 soccer fans.
In an escalating secret war, drones are doing an ever-greater proportion of the American fighting.
Source: anarcho-queer
76 Notes/ Hide
-
laoguy-42 likes this
-
skhaan likes this
-
princesspetasse reblogged this from anarcho-queer
-
devilinmyhead likes this
-
hypergiants reblogged this from beatyourselfup
-
westwaveworks reblogged this from anarcho-queer and added:
oh when the mother has been sick for so long.
-
equalitywatch reblogged this from beatyourselfup
-
insanebrilliance likes this
-
joeydaytona likes this
-
realworldnews reblogged this from anarcho-queer
-
unosixo likes this
-
can-enginerd reblogged this from anarcho-queer
-
cloud-birth likes this
-
ekternine777 likes this
-
blasphlegme reblogged this from exposingthetruths
-
exposingthetruths reblogged this from antinwo
-
jivanti likes this
-
kaiamar likes this
-
theyalwayswantyoutoproveit reblogged this from anarcho-queer
-
astrochelonian reblogged this from jayaprada
-
whenimreallyathundacat likes this
-
equalitywatch likes this
-
marker07 reblogged this from themesfin
-
themesfin reblogged this from anarcho-queer
-
existentialistmumbojumbo reblogged this from anarcho-queer
-
the-sonia reblogged this from anarcho-queer
-
kaliem reblogged this from anarcho-queer
-
psychomexican likes this
-
watsonwatsonwats likes this
-
thesecondtimeasfarce reblogged this from jayaprada
-
someassemblyrequiredd likes this
-
nodamncatnodamncradle reblogged this from jayaprada
-
exposingthetruths likes this
-
halifirien reblogged this from beatyourselfup
-
gueravonlok reblogged this from beatyourselfup
-
basedspooner reblogged this from beatyourselfup
-
beatyourselfup reblogged this from antinwo
-
cosmicebb likes this
-
libertariancontrarian likes this
-
ditchdemon likes this
-
frowny--pepperonis reblogged this from jayaprada
-
antinwo reblogged this from m-a-y-hem
-
antinwo likes this
-
stray-horn likes this
-
ezlncheerleader reblogged this from anarcho-queer
-
fromstarstostarfish likes this
-
rockforhope reblogged this from anarcho-queer
-
rockforhope likes this
-
f-luxx likes this
-
pfowolf likes this
- Show more notes

