U.S. Drone Strike Said to Have Killed Ayman al-Zawahri, Top Qaeda Leader

[☑︎#VoteDemocrat]

If you don’t support drones do you support boots on the ground?

This is the same argument they used when Russia started buttfukking Ukraine.

They were against sending troops (obviously, guns/bombs, or even SANCTIONS.

Hell, they were afraid even raising their voice against Russia would "cause WW3"

If you stand up to any other nuclear country they start sweating bullets

 

[☑︎#VoteDemocrat]

On the topic of justice, and laws, drone strikes are considered violations of international law, along with extrajudicial killings and many other practices done by the US:

ECCHR: Drones

ECCHR works on cases and projects worldwide. Here you find an overview of our topics.

www.ecchr.eu

Amnesty International USA Statement for the Record for February 9th hearing on “‘Targeted Killing’ and the Rule of Law: The Legal and Human Costs of 20 Years of U.S. Drone Strikes”

On behalf of Amnesty International USA and our members and supporters in the United States, we hereby submit this statement for the record to address our concerns that the United States has at times failed to abide by international humanitarian law and international human rights law in its use...

www.amnestyusa.org

The US obviously doesn't follow international law.

When I say things move to the right so easily, stuff like drone strikes being accepted by Americans is an example.

ok.

I guess we should have slapped the cuffs on him

 

[ADevilYouKhow]

This is the same argument they used when Russia started buttfukking Ukraine.

They were against sending troops (obviously, guns/bombs, or even SANCTIONS.

Hell, they were afraid even raising their voice against Russia would "cause WW3"

If you stand up to any other nuclear country they start sweating bullets

I’ll never forget

 

[ADevilYouKhow]

 

[☑︎#VoteDemocrat]

cutting up in here

 

[88m3]

How The CIA's Hit On Terror Kingpin Zawahiri Went Down

The knowns and unknowns about the successful strike operation that killed Ayman Al Zawahiri.

www.thedrive.com

The decision to strike was made because Zawahiri "continued to pose an active threat to U.S. persons, interests, and national security," according to the senior administration official. "As President Biden has consistently said, we will not allow Afghanistan to become a safe haven for terrorists who might bring harm to Americans. We met that commitment on Saturday night."

"And in doing so we showed that without American forces on the ground in Afghanistan and in harm's way we remain able to identify and locate even the world's most wanted terrorists, and then take action to remove him from the battlefield," they added.

"We also investigated the construction and nature of the safe house in which he was located so that we could confidently conduct an operation to kill Zawahiri without threatening the structural integrity of the building, while minimizing the risk to civilians, including Zawahiri's family," the senior administration official said. "We convened a team of independent analysts to review all data surrounding the identity of the occupants of the safe house."
"The President was, as always, deeply engaged in the briefing [on a proposed strike targeting Zawahiri on July 1] and immersed in the intelligence.

He asked detailed questions about what we knew and how we knew it," that official continued. "Importantly, he examined closely the model of Zawahiri's house that the intelligence community had built and brought into the White House Situation Room for briefings on this issue. He sought explanations of lighting, of weather, of construction material, and other factors that could influence the success of this operation and reduce the risk of civilian casualties. He was particularly focused on ensuring that every step had been taken to ensure the operation would minimize that risk. And he wanted to understand the basis upon which we had confidence in our assessment."


At a later briefing, "he asked again about any other options that would reduce collateral or civilian casualties. He wanted to understand more about the layout of rooms behind the door and windows on the third floor of the building," they added.

It's not surprising that civilian casualties were a major concern for Biden. In August 2021, at the tail-end of the U.S. evacuation and withdrawal efforts, another botched U.S. drone strike completely misidentified a target in Kabul, killing a local employee of a U.S. aid group and nine other civilians, including seven children. In December 2021, The New York Times then published a major investigative report detailing symmetric failures by American officials to accurately assess civilian casualties caused by other airstrikes in Afghanistan, as well as Iraq and Syria. This has prompted calls to investigate instances of civilian casualties that U.S. forces have reportedly caused in other conflict zones, as well.


good read, rest in link



edit: article is really something

However, the senior administration official only said during the briefing that Haqqani-affiliated Taliban members were actively involved in sheltering Zawahiri. In addition, while this remains unconfirmed, Haibatullah Alizai, effectively the last general officer in command of the now-defunct Afghan Army, who now lives in Maryland, told The War Zone that his sources in Afghanistan had informed him that it was actually a faction within the Taliban that tipped off the U.S. government about the Al Qaeda leader. There have been reports since the Taliban's return to power about internal disputes, some of which may have turned violent, between sub-groups, including the Haqqanis.

 

[Professor Emeritus]

On the topic of justice, and laws, drone strikes are considered violations of international law, along with extrajudicial killings and many other practices done by the US:

ECCHR: Drones

ECCHR works on cases and projects worldwide. Here you find an overview of our topics.

www.ecchr.eu

Amnesty International USA Statement for the Record for February 9th hearing on “‘Targeted Killing’ and the Rule of Law: The Legal and Human Costs of 20 Years of U.S. Drone Strikes”

On behalf of Amnesty International USA and our members and supporters in the United States, we hereby submit this statement for the record to address our concerns that the United States has at times failed to abide by international humanitarian law and international human rights law in its use...

www.amnestyusa.org

The US obviously doesn't follow international law.

When I say things move to the right so easily, stuff like drone strikes being accepted by Americans is an example.

Yup - they have no objective standard for "justice", to them it just means, "whatever America wants it to mean for the purposes of the current discussion."


Even the White House itself still doesn't have an agreed-upon legal standard for when to use drone strikes. When Obama first rapidly expanded the drone strike program, we were already starting by doing things we had previously condemned out own allies for, and then rapidly escalated to shyt that is wildly illegal and unethical by any accepted measure. The actual "rules" for making a drone strike are kept secret from the American public, are almost certainly illegal according to international law, and aren't even followed anyway.

Election Spurred a Move to Codify U.S. Drone Policy (Published 2012)

An internal debate in Washington concerns when unmanned strikes are justified and whether they should be a last resort or a more flexible tool.

www.nytimes.com

Bombing Kant's test

If Obama's drone-war rules are dangerous in the hands Republican presidents, or other countries' leaders, they're wrong

www.economist.com

https://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/world/article24747826.html

And I have to lol at people posting US government spokespeople justifications and claims about drone strikes as if they haven't been blatantly lying for 20 years about that shyt. Why would they stop lying about drone strikes if it's worked for the last 3 administrations and they haven't had to pay any repercussions for it yet?

 

[☑︎#VoteDemocrat]

Is @Rhakim shedding tears over this dude? Fam, international law allows this. Says who? The people who make international law.

 

[Pressure]

Right. Was the window to kill him in 2001?

He rehabilitated himself.

 

[Professor Emeritus]

The decision to strike was made because Zawahiri "continued to pose an active threat to U.S. persons, interests, and national security," according to the senior administration official.

"We also investigated the construction and nature of the safe house in which he was located so that we could confidently conduct an operation to kill Zawahiri without threatening the structural integrity of the building, while minimizing the risk to civilians, including Zawahiri's family," the senior administration official said. "We convened a team of independent analysts to review all data surrounding the identity of the occupants of the safe house."

Do you believe them? Why should we take this seriously when they've made similar claims in the past that turned out to be falsehoods? I mean, as your own article even says:

"In August 2021, at the tail-end of the U.S. evacuation and withdrawal efforts, another botched U.S. drone strike completely misidentified a target in Kabul, killing a local employee of a U.S. aid group and nine other civilians, including seven children. In December 2021, The New York Times then published a major investigative report detailing symmetric failures by American officials to accurately assess civilian casualties caused by other airstrikes in Afghanistan, as well as Iraq and Syria. "




Let me just grab some examples from the previous Obama-Biden administration, just a few we know about publicly:

https://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/world/article24747826.html

New Evidence That Team Obama Misled Us About the Drone War

Official speeches are crafted to give the impression that we're mostly targeting al-Qaeda members. We're not.

www.theatlantic.com

Contrary to assurances it has deployed U.S. drones only against known senior leaders of al Qaida and allied groups, the Obama administration has targeted and killed hundreds of suspected lower-level Afghan, Pakistani and unidentified “other” militants in scores of strikes in Pakistan’s rugged tribal area, classified U.S. intelligence reports show.

The administration has said that strikes by the CIA’s missile-firing Predator and Reaper drones are authorized only against “specific senior operational leaders of al Qaida and associated forces” involved in the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks who are plotting “imminent” violent attacks on Americans.

“It has to be a threat that is serious and not speculative,” President Barack Obama said in a Sept. 6, 2012, interview with CNN. “It has to be a situation in which we can’t capture the individual before they move forward on some sort of operational plot against the United States.”

Copies of the top-secret U.S. intelligence reports reviewed by McClatchy, however, show that drone strikes in Pakistan over a four-year period didn’t adhere to those standards.

The intelligence reports list killings of alleged Afghan insurgents whose organization wasn’t on the U.S. list of terrorist groups at the time of the 9/11 strikes; of suspected members of a Pakistani extremist group that didn’t exist at the time of 9/11; and of unidentified individuals described as “other militants” and “foreign fighters.”

Micah Zenko, an expert with the Council on Foreign Relations, a bipartisan foreign policy think tank, who closely follows the target killing program, said McClatchy’s findings indicate that the administration is “misleading the public about the scope of who can legitimately be targeted.”

The documents also show that drone operators weren’t always certain who they were killing despite the administration’s guarantees of the accuracy of the CIA’s targeting intelligence and its assertions that civilian casualties have been “exceedingly rare.”

To date, the Obama administration has not disclosed the secret legal opinions and the detailed procedures buttressing drone killings, and it has never acknowledged the use of so-called “signature strikes,” in which unidentified individuals are killed after surveillance shows behavior the U.S. government associates with terrorists, such as visiting compounds linked to al Qaida leaders or carrying weapons. Nor has it disclosed an explicit list of al Qaida’s “associated forces” beyond the Afghan Taliban.

The little that is known about the opinions comes from a leaked Justice Department white paper, a half-dozen or so speeches, some public comments by Obama and several top lieutenants, and limited open testimony before Congress.

“The United States has gone far beyond what the U.S. public – and perhaps even Congress – understands the government has been doing and claiming they have a legal right to do,” said Mary Ellen O’Connell, a Notre Dame Law School professor who contends that CIA drone operations in Pakistan violate international law.

“I have never seen nor am I aware of any rules of engagement that have been made public that govern the conduct of drone operations in Pakistan, or the identification of individuals and groups other than al Qaida and the Afghan Taliban,” said Christopher Swift, a national security law expert who teaches national security affairs at Georgetown University and closely follows the targeted killing issue. “We are doing this on a case-by-case, ad hoc basis, rather than a systematic or strategic basis.”

The administration has declined to reveal other details of the program, such as the intelligence used to select targets and how much evidence is required for an individual to be placed on a CIA “kill list.” The administration also hasn’t even acknowledged the existence of so-called signature strikes, let alone discussed the legal and procedural foundations of the attacks.

Even when we use the "highest possible standards" to make our drone strikes, we still fukk up repeatedly, and then lie about the outcome.

Consider one attack on Feb. 18, 2010.

Information, according to one U.S. intelligence account, indicated that Badruddin Haqqani, the then-No. 2 leader of the Haqqani network, would be at a relative's funeral that day in North Waziristan. Watching the video feed from a drone high above the mourners, CIA operators in the United States identified a man they believed could be Badruddin Haqqani from the deference and numerous greetings he received. The man also supervised a private family viewing of the body.

Yet despite a targeting process that the administration says meets "the highest possible standards," it wasn't Badruddin Haqqani who died when one of the drone's missiles ripped apart the target's car after he'd left the funeral.

It was his younger brother, Mohammad.

Friends later told reporters that Mohammad Haqqani was a religious student in his 20s uninvolved in terrorism; the U.S. intelligence report called him an active member -- but not a leader -- of the Haqqani network. At least one other unidentified occupant of his vehicle perished, according to the report.

In its drone-strike database, the New America Foundation scores that drone strike as having killed three to four "militants," zero unknown persons, and zero civilians. I've argued that the New America data very likely undercounts the number of civilians that are killed in drone strikes.

There has long been evidence indicating the Obama Administration was misleading the country about the nature of its drone war in Pakistan. This latest report only confirms the suspicions that critics of the program have articulated. And there is reason to believe that even it understates the magnitude of executive branch deception. Says Marcy Wheeler, "This report is perhaps most interesting for the fact that CIA, in its own documents, claims that none of the 40-some people killed at Datta Khel on May 17, 2011 were civilians. In other words, the CIA is lying -- even internally -- about drone strikes as blatantly as it did about torture." The New York Times report on that strike stated that "missiles fired from American drone aircraft struck a meeting of local people in northwest Pakistan who had gathered with Taliban mediators to settle a dispute over a chromite mine. The attack, a Pakistani intelligence official said, killed 26 of 32 people present, some of them Taliban fighters, but the majority elders and local people not attached to the militants. The civilian death toll appeared to be among the worst in the scores of strikes carried out recently in Pakistan's tribal areas by the C.I.A., which runs the drones."

 

[Professor Emeritus]

Unintended consequences:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/in-yemen-us-airstrikes-breed-anger-and-sympathy-for-al-qaeda/2012/05/29/gJQAUmKI0U_story.html

In Yemen, U.S. airstrikes breed anger, and sympathy for al-Qaeda

Across the vast, rugged terrain of southern Yemen, an escalating campaign of U.S. drone strikes is stirring increasing sympathy for al-Qaeda-linked militants and driving tribesmen to join a network linked to terrorist plots against the United States.

After recent U.S. missile strikes, mostly from unmanned aircraft, the Yemeni government and the United States have reported that the attacks killed only suspected al-Qaeda members. But civilians have also died in the attacks, said tribal leaders, victims’ relatives and human rights activists.

“These attacks are making people say, ‘We believe now that al-Qaeda is on the right side,’ ” said businessman Salim al-Barakani, adding that his two brothers — one a teacher, the other a cellphone repairman — were killed in a U.S. strike in March.

Since January, as many as 21 missile attacks have targeted suspected al-Qaeda operatives in southern Yemen, reflecting a sharp shift in a secret war carried out by the CIA and the Joint Special Operations Command that had focused on Pakistan.

But as in the tribal areas of Pakistan, where U.S. drone strikes have significantly weakened al-Qaeda’s capabilities, an unintended consequence of the attacks has been a marked radicalization of the local population.

“Every time the American attacks increase, they increase the rage of the Yemeni people, especially in al-Qaeda-controlled areas,” said Mohammed al-Ahmadi, legal coordinator for Karama, a local human rights group. “The drones are killing al-Qaeda leaders, but they are also turning them into heroes.”

In May 6, a U.S. drone strike killed Fahd al-Quso, a senior al-Qaeda leader who was on the FBI’s most-wanted list for his role in the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole in Aden, an attack that killed 17 American sailors. The drone strike in Shabwa province also killed a second man, whom U.S. and Yemeni officials described as another al-Qaeda militant.

But according to his relatives, the man was a 19-year-old named Nasser Salim who was tending to his farm when Quso arrived in his vehicle. Quso knew Salim’s family and was greeting him when the missiles landed.

“He was torn to pieces,” said Salim’s uncle, Abu Baker Aidaroos, 30, a Yemeni soldier. “He was not part of al-Qaeda. But by America’s standards, just because he knew Fahd al-Quso, he deserved to die with him.”

Out of anger, Aidaroos said, he left his unit in Abyan province, the nexus of the fight against the militants. Today, instead of fighting al-Qaeda, he sympathizes with the group — not out of support for its ideology, he insists, but out of hatred for the United States.

The U.S. strikes, tribal leaders and Yemeni officials say, are also angering powerful tribes that could prevent AQAP from gaining strength. The group has seized control of large swaths of southern Yemen in the past year, while the government has had to counter growing perceptions that it is no more than an American puppet.

“There is more hostility against America because the attacks have not stopped al-Qaeda, but rather they have expanded, and the tribes feel this is a violation of the country’s sovereignty,” said Anssaf Ali Mayo, Aden head of al-Islah, Yemen’s most influential Islamist party, which is now part of the coalition government. “There is a psychological acceptance of al-Qaeda because of the U.S. strikes.”

Quso and Salim are from the Awlak tribe, one of the most influential in southern Yemen. So was Anwar al-Awlaki, the Yemeni American preacher who was thought to be a senior AQAP leader and was killed in September by a U.S. strike. The following month, another U.S. strike killed Awlaki’s 16-year-old son, Abdulrahman, also an American citizen, generating outrage across Yemen.

Awlak tribesmen are businessmen, lawmakers and politicians. But the strikes have pushed more of them to join the militants or to provide AQAP with safe haven in their areas, said tribal leaders and Yemeni officials.

“The Americans are targeting the sons of the Awlak,” Aidaroos said. “I would fight even the devil to exact revenge for my nephew.”

In early March, U.S. missiles struck in Bayda province, 100 miles south of Sanaa, killing at least 30 suspected militants, according to Yemeni security officials. But in interviews, human rights activists and victims’ relatives said many of the dead were civilians, not fighters.

Villagers were too afraid to go to the area. Al-Qaeda militants took advantage and offered to bury the villagers’ relatives. “That made people even more grateful and appreciative of al-Qaeda,” said Barakani, the businessman. “Afterwards, al-Qaeda told the people, ‘We will take revenge on your behalf.’ ”

In asserting responsibility for last week’s bombing in Sanaa, Ansar al-Sharia — the name by which AQAP goes in southern Yemen — declared that the attack was revenge for what it called the U.S. war on its followers.

The previous week, al-Qaeda’s supreme leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, released a video portraying Yemeni President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, who took office in February and vowed to fight AQAP, as an “agent” of the United States.

In some cases, U.S. strikes have forced civilians to flee their homes and have destroyed homes and farmland. Balweed Muhammed Nasser Awad, 57, said he and his family fled the city of Jaar last summer after his son, a fisherman, was killed in a U.S. strike targeting suspected al-Qaeda militants. Today, they live in a classroom in an Aden school, along with hundreds of other refugees from the conflict.

“Ansar al-Sharia had nothing to do with my son’s death. He was killed by the Americans,” Awad said. “He had nothing to do with terrorism. Why him?”

No Yemeni has forgotten the U.S. cruise missile strike in the remote tribal region of al-Majala on Dec. 17, 2009 — the Obama administration’s first known missile strike inside Yemen. The attack killed dozens, including 14 women and 21 children, and whipped up rage at the United States.

Today, the area is a haven for militants, said Abdelaziz Muhammed Hamza, head of the Revolutionary Council in Abyan province, a group that is fighting AQAP. “All the residents of the area have joined al-Qaeda,” he said.

 

[88m3]

I grew up in NYC and I don't think I can truly express the real harm and irreparable damage that 9/11 has caused to tens of millions of people who lived in the region and their way of life. It's an event that really shaped the lives of and has impacted generations of people where I live and not only just here of course but across the world and mostly negatively. Al-Qaeda did that.


I can think about different points/milestones in my life from childhood to now and what the towers looked like at the time.


I assure you that Al-Qaeda has done real harm. I hope that you can accept that.

 

[mastermind]

No one is saying 9/11 didn’t happen or it wasn’t a big deal or traumatic. it was terrible. I went to high school 5 miles from the pentagon and we lived through that.

The issue is the US has inflicted multiple 9/11s a day to regular people in that region and the Middle East who did nothing but happen to live under or around crazy people for over 20 years, and we can’t see that they are people too and have suffered irreparable harm as well.

 

[Professor Emeritus]

I grew up in Iraq and I don't think I can truly express the real harm and irreparable damage that America has caused to tens of millions of people who lived in the region and their way of life. It's an event that really shaped the lives of and has impacted generations of people where I live and not only just here of course but across the world and mostly negatively. America did that.


I can think about different points/milestones in my life from childhood to now and what the nation looked like at the time.


I assure you that America has done real harm. I hope that you can accept that.

I grew up in Libya and I don't think I can truly express the real harm and irreparable damage that America has caused to tens of millions of people who lived in the region and their way of life. It's an event that really shaped the lives of and has impacted generations of people where I live and not only just here of course but across the world and mostly negatively. America did that.


I can think about different points/milestones in my life from childhood to now and what the nation looked like at the time.


I assure you that America has done real harm. I hope that you can accept that.

I grew up in Vietnam and I don't think I can truly express the real harm and irreparable damage that America has caused to tens of millions of people who lived in the region and their way of life. It's an event that really shaped the lives of and has impacted generations of people where I live and not only just here of course but across the world and mostly negatively. America did that.


I can think about different points/milestones in my life from childhood to now and what the nation looked like at the time.


I assure you that America has done real harm. I hope that you can accept that.

I grew up in Yemen and I don't think I can truly express the real harm and irreparable damage that America has caused to tens of millions of people who lived in the region and their way of life. It's an event that really shaped the lives of and has impacted generations of people where I live and not only just here of course but across the world and mostly negatively. America did that.


I can think about different points/milestones in my life from childhood to now and what the nation looked like at the time.


I assure you that America has done real harm. I hope that you can accept that.

I grew up in Nicaragua and I don't think I can truly express the real harm and irreparable damage that America has caused to tens of millions of people who lived in the region and their way of life. It's an event that really shaped the lives of and has impacted generations of people where I live and not only just here of course but across the world and mostly negatively. America did that.


I can think about different points/milestones in my life from childhood to now and what the nation looked like at the time.


I assure you that America has done real harm. I hope that you can accept that.

I grew up in Pakistan and I don't think I can truly express the real harm and irreparable damage that America has caused to tens of millions of people who lived in the region and their way of life. It's an event that really shaped the lives of and has impacted generations of people where I live and not only just here of course but across the world and mostly negatively. America did that.


I can think about different points/milestones in my life from childhood to now and what the nation looked like at the time.


I assure you that America has done real harm. I hope that you can accept that.

I grew up in Cambodia and I don't think I can truly express the real harm and irreparable damage that America has caused to tens of millions of people who lived in the region and their way of life. It's an event that really shaped the lives of and has impacted generations of people where I live and not only just here of course but across the world and mostly negatively. America did that.


I can think about different points/milestones in my life from childhood to now and what the nation looked like at the time.


I assure you that America has done real harm. I hope that you can accept that.

I grew up in Iran and I don't think I can truly express the real harm and irreparable damage that America has caused to tens of millions of people who lived in the region and their way of life. It's an event that really shaped the lives of and has impacted generations of people where I live and not only just here of course but across the world and mostly negatively. America did that.


I can think about different points/milestones in my life from childhood to now and what the nation looked like at the time.


I assure you that America has done real harm. I hope that you can accept that.

I grew up in Laos and I don't think I can truly express the real harm and irreparable damage that America has caused to tens of millions of people who lived in the region and their way of life. It's an event that really shaped the lives of and has impacted generations of people where I live and not only just here of course but across the world and mostly negatively. America did that.


I can think about different points/milestones in my life from childhood to now and what the nation looked like at the time.


I assure you that America has done real harm. I hope that you can accept that.

I absolutely, 100% agree with you that Al-Queda has done tremendous, irreparable damage to numerous lives. That doesn't somehow make the tremendous, irreparable damage that the US military does to numerous lives any less devastating, or the people impacted by it any less human.



If the goal of our response to 9/11 was to reduce the # of people impacted by terrorism, it's not working.

 

[88m3]

No one is saying 9/11 didn’t happen or it wasn’t a big deal or traumatic. it was terrible. I went to high school 5 miles from the pentagon and we lived through that.

The issue is the US has inflicted multiple 9/11s a day to regular people in that region and the Middle East who did nothing but happen to live under or around crazy people for over 20 years, and we can’t see that they are people too and have suffered irreparable harm as well.

Not from the posts I'm reading through and we've got guys going to extraordinary lengths to eulogize one of the masterminds of 9/11 and make him out to be this victim

Not for nothing but Zawahri and the hardcode Jihadists of yesteryear didn't start or spend most of their careers killing Westerners which people here are seemingly justifying but Arabs, Africans, and Asians so all these highbrow arguments and the sarcasm rings very hollow. Where's their justice and peace? How did they harm Al Qaeda? Existing?


I've never read so much bloviating about an alternate history before.


Where is it being denied that regular people suffered in the Middle East because of the US? No shyt. You guys twist yourselves into pretzels to argue about shyt that no sane person would deny.