Airwars broadens their focus by releasing their new Somalia monitoring of US counter-terrorism operations and the associated civilian harm. With the new monitor, Airwars shows that the US conducts airstrikes in Somalia since 2007. From 2009, however, there has been a significant increase in airstrikes in Somalia under the Obama administration. Airways has found far higher levels of both declared US...
Arthur Holland Michel, author of ‘Eyes In The Sky’, is one of the co-founders of the Centre for the Study of the Drone at Bard College in New York State. The Centre for the Study of the Drone has done extraordinary work in monitoring the spread in the use of drones, including publication of ‘The Drone Databook’, a detailed country-by-county study of...
In our monthly press review, we translate, analyze and summarize news from various European publications on the issues of drones. In January 2020 the most frequent topics discussed in drone news were the use of drones in Middle East and Africa and the widening of the drone race. You can find the publication here....
Though the European Parliament has long been aware of problematic use, development, and proliferation of armed drones, a host of new developments has necessitated an update on where we are. To inform both current and newly elected Members of the European Parliament, a lunch meeting was organised by the Greens/European Free Alliance on December 5th, 2019, to discuss recent developments...
The Netherlands is expected to receive four unarmed MQ-9 Reaper drones near the end of 2020, but already some parliamentarians are keen to open the debate about arming them. In November 2019, the Dutch Parliament voted in favour of a motion directing the Ministry of Defence to start investigating whether these drones should carry weapons. The motion, proposed by the...
The latest report of Drone Wars UK, ‘In the Frame: UK Media Coverage of Drone Targeted Killing‘, looks at UK involvement in drone targeted killing and in particular at media coverage of British citizens killed in such strikes. It argues that the government’s refusal to discuss key details or policy issues around these operations has helped to curtail coverage, creating...
In our monthly press review, we translate, analyze and summarize news from various European publications on the issues of drones. In December 2019 the most frequent topics discussed included the use of drones by Turkey in Cyprus and Libya, the first French drone strike taking place in Mali, and the US' continued use of drone strikes. You can find the publication...
n the first half of the Trump administration, the United States demonstrated its continued reliance on lethal drones to respond to perceived terrorist threats, yet with no overarching strategy to guide such use. The Trump administration has placed a primacy on immediate military action, resulting in a U.S. drone policy that appears less restrained, less transparent, and less accountable. As the...