According to media reports and figures compiled by officials in Pakistan, the illegal serial strikes by the pilotless CIA-operated drones significantly soared in 2010 to at least 118 such attacks — nearly double the number of strikes in 2009, which left 420 dead, AFP reported on Saturday.
Since 2004, the unauthorized US drone strikes have killed 1,400 to 2,000 people — several of whom were civilians — in Pakistan’s tribal regions bordering Afghanistan.
Nearly all of the attacks have been focused in North Waziristan in northwest Pakistan, where Taliban militants are widely perceived to have found a safe haven.
The ongoing non-UN-sanctioned US drone attacks in northwestern Pakistan are mostly carried out by unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) operated remotely from a military base located in the western US state of Nevada.
The figures also show that in 2004, only one strike was launched in the areas. In 2005 and 2006 there were two strikes while in 2007 at least four aerial attacks were carried out by the unmanned drone aircraft.
Earlier on Saturday, at least 15 people were killed in the latest spate of non-UN-sanctioned US drone attacks in Pakistan’s North Waziristan region.
The unsanctioned US air raids have increased since US President Barack Obama took office in 2009.
Washington claims its airstrikes target militants who cross the Pakistani border into neighboring Afghanistan to help the Taliban fight US-led foreign forces.
The Pakistani government, however, believes such attacks have proved counterproductive in the US-led war against terrorism, condemning the strikes as an infringement on its sovereignty.
In late October, the United Nations’ special rapporteur on extrajudicial killings, Philip Alston, said in a biting report that the US government has not made clear what legal basis it has for carrying out the strikes, or what rules — if any — are in place to govern these CIA operations.
“Unless the US government moves to answer these questions, it will increasingly be perceived as carrying out indiscriminate killings in violation of international law,” he asserted.
In a previous report in June, Alston’s team harshly criticized the United States for being, “the most prolific user of targeted killings” in the world.
A recent report by the Brookings Institution also brought the issue of controversial drone attacks under harsher scrutiny, saying the illegal strikes have claimed the lives of 10 civilians for every militant killed in tribal areas bordering Afghanistan.
Source: Press TV