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Wednesday, October 23, 2013

Amnesty International Report - Drone deaths tantamount to war crimes Tuesday Oct 22,2013


The Amnesty International Report titled “‘Will I be next?’ U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan,”states that the human cost of drone deaths in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia may amount to extrajudicial executions or war crimes

The London based Right's Group's Report released on Tuesday Oct 22,2013 documents nine strikes that occurred in 2012 and 2013 and the deaths resulting from these in Pakistan's northwestern areas, including the killing of Mamana Bibi who was a 68-year-old grandmother, and 14-year-old boy and comes close on the heels of similar findings by Human Rights Watch and two United Nations Special Rapporteurs


Amnesty International argued that the circumstances of civilian deaths from drone strikes in northwest Pakistan were “disputed,” and claims by the Obama administration that individual assassinations were based on “reliable intelligence, are extremely accurate,” did not appear convincing in the face of a slew of on-the-ground witness reports, including from families of victims




Among them a prominent case cited was that of 68-year-old Mamana Bibi, who was killed on a sunny afternoon in October 2012 in “a drone strike that appears to have been aimed directly at her”. The report detailed that incident, which her grandchildren were said to have “recounted in painful detail… moment when Mamana Bibi, who was gathering vegetables in the family fields in Ghundi Kala village, northwest Pakistan, was blasted into pieces before their eyes”.

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