Overview:
February and March 2013 saw a considerable abatement in drone attacks in Waziristan and in the Yemen. The topic continues to gather media attention throughout the world, reports Elaybe Jude for Great North News Services.
The New York Times reported in early March that the two February strikes in Waziristan were not carried out by the US. The report was based on interviews with "three American officials with knowledge of the program." The officials claimed one of the strikes was likely a Pakistani operation, and that the other may have been infighting within the Taliban. US intelligence officials involved with the drone programme in Pakistan told The Long War Journal that the two February strikes were US operations. Pakistan's Inter-Services Public Relations claimed The New York Times report was a "distortion of the facts and seems to be aimed at diluting Pakistan's stance on drone strikes."
A report released 26th March by Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) indicated that 55 per cent of the British public would support the UK Government assisting in a drone missile strike to kill a known terrorist overseas. Support drops substantially if innocent casualties are likely. The joint study was carried out by University of Surrey’s Centre for International Intervention and RUSI, in collaboration with YouGov. The report is here: http://www.rusi.org/downloads/assets/Hitting_the_Target.pdf.
Stanford Law School’s report, ‘Living Under Drones’, details the psychological damage to those people living in the regions most subject to UAV surveillance and strikes. The report’s co-author, Jennifer Gibson, stressed at a meeting in the UK Parliament in March 2013 that the study had not expected or set out to explore specifically any psychological impact, but that the evidence of trauma they had been presented with, and its implications for the future health and cultural integrity of its subjects, was extremely strong and disturbing. Read the executive summary and download the full report here: http://www.livingunderdrones.org/
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