The US Govt has made hundreds of attacks on targets in Northwest Pakistan since 2004 using drones controlled by the American CIA's Special Activities Division
Most of these attacks are on targets in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas
along the Afghan Border in Northwest Pakistan.
These strikes were begun by President George W Bush and have increased substantially under President Barack Obama
George W Bush vastly accelerated the drone strikes during the final year of his presidency. A list of the high-ranking victims of the drones was provided to Pakistan in 2009.
Barack Obama has broadened these attacks to include targets seeking to destabilize Pakistani civilian government and the attacks of 14 and 16 February 2009 were against training camps run by Baitullah Mehsud
On 25 February 2009Leon Panetta , the director of the CIA, indicated the strikes will continue
US officials stated in March 2009 that the Predator strikes had killed nine of al Qaeda's 20 top commanders. The officials added that many top Taliban and al Qaeda leaders, as a result of the strikes, had fled to Quetta or even further to Karachi
Barack Obama was reported in March 2009 as considering expanding these strikes to include Balochistan
On 28 April 2011, President Barack Obama appointed General David Petraeus as director of the CIA overseeing the drone attacks.
US President Obama admitted on 30 January 2012 that the US was conducting drone strikes in Pakistan. He stressed that civilian casualties in the strikes were low.
In 2013, the sustained and growing criticism of his drone policy forced Obama to announce stricter conditions on executing drone strikes abroad, including an unspoken plan to partly shift the program from the CIA to the ostensibly more accountable Pentagon
US Drone Strike Statistics
| Year | Number of Attacks |
Casualties | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Militants | Civilians | Unknown | Total | ||
| 2004 | 1 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 7 |
| 2005 | 3 | 5 | 6 | 4 | 15 |
| 2006 | 2 | 1 | 93 | 0 | 94 |
| 2007 | 4 | 51 | 0 | 12 | 63 |
| 2008 | 36 | 223 | 28 | 47 | 298 |
| 2009 | 54 | 387 | 70 | 92 | 549 |
| 2010 | 122 | 788 | 16 | 45 | 849 |
| 2011 | 73 | 420 | 62 | 35 | 517 |
| 2012 | 48 | 268 | 5 | 33 | 306 |
| 2013 | 21 | 128 | 4 | 0 | 132 |
| Total | 364 | 2,274 | 286 | 270 | 2,830 |
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