Drones & autonomous weapons

1 February 2016News

Supporters pay drone campaigners' fine

In September last year, Anna Jane Evans, Awel Irene, Angharad Tomos and Sian ap Gwynfor were convicted of criminal damage for painting ‘DIM ADAR ANGAU – NO DEATH DRONES’ on Llanbedr Airfield runway and ordered to pay £565 for cleaning the runway.

By the time of the deadline for the payment, contributions had poured in, as explained by Evans: ‘It is with great reluctance I am paying my share of what it cost to clean the runway. I have been overwhelmed by the number of people who…

1 December 2015News

Four anti-drones campaigners convicted of criminal damage

On 20 October, after two days of evidence and legal argument, a judge in Lincoln magistrates court found four anti-drone protesters (Gary ‘Eagle Spits’ Eagling, Katha Karcher, Penny Walker and myself) guilty of criminal damage.

In January 2015, we entered RAF Waddington in order to disrupt ongoing British drone operations in Iraq and Syria. We knew that our presence would trigger a security alert that would put the base on ‘lockdown’ which (in the words of an RAF witness at our…

1 December 2015Review

Verso, 2015; 368pp; £20 and Zed Books, 2015; 416pp; £16.99

We Kill Because We Can is a 300-page rant on drones by cultural critic Laurie Calhoun. Focusing on the use of drones for targeted killing, each chapter is an angry polemical essay, with titles like ‘Strike First, Suppress Questions Later’ and ‘The New Banality of Killing’.

Calhoun argues that ‘both the practise of and propensity towards institutional killing has been transformed by this new technology.’ I agree. However I also have to admit that the tone of this book –…

1 October 2015News

British drones kill British citizens

The British defence secretary has given up on ‘innocent until proven guilty by a jury of peers’, and introduced a new legal principle: ‘innocent until the government believes you are likely to commit a crime’.

In an interview on Radio 4’s Today programme on 8 September 2015, Michael Fallon justified the killing by a British drone of two British citizens (Reyaad Khan and Ruhul Amin), and another unidentified man, by referring three times to the risk of a ‘likely’ terrorist attack:…

1 October 2015Comment

The UK Defence Secretary appears to have created his own new legal principle

The British defence secretary has given up on ‘innocent until proven guilty by a jury of peers’, and introduced a new legal principle: ‘innocent until the government believes you are likely to commit a crime’.

In an interview on Radio 4’s Today programme on 8 September 2015, Michael Fallon justified the killing by a British drone of two British citizens (Reyaad Khan and Ruhul Amin), and another unidentified man, by referring three times to the risk of a ‘likely’ terrorist…

1 August 2015News

UK set to escalate unmanned attacks

Rooftop protestors shut down Instro Precision an Elbit weapons factory in Broadstairs Photo: East Kent Campaign Against Arms Trade

A year after the UK doubled its drone fleet, David Cameron visited RAF Waddington in Lincolnshire on 13 July to signal further commitment to – and spending on – military drone aircraft. The prime minister told the media that he had asked the military to look at how to do more to counter the threat posed by the jihadist group ISIS, including spending more…

1 August 2015News

New education pack to be released

The keynote speaker at ‘Drones and Forever War: Sharing information, building the campaign’ on 11 July was Chris Woods, author of Sudden Justice: America’s Secret Drone Wars.

The gathering, organised by the Drone Campaign Network, was a great opportunity for campaigners to update themselves on drone issues, to network and to plan campaigns.

Chris Woods charted the increase in the use of drones by the US, aided by US president Barack Obama’s enthusiasm for them…

1 August 2015Review

C Hurst & Co, 2015; 400pp; £19.99

This dense, complex history interweaves the political, legal and technical background to America’s use of lethal armed drones with the details of how drone operations work in practice.

It begins with the invention of modern drones, first used for surveillance during the (1991) Iraq war, and then fitted with armaments during the hunt for Osama bin Laden in 2001.

Since then, US targeted killings by armed drones have become more and more frequent not only in Afghanistan…

1 June 2015News

Britain carries out 100 armed drone attacks against ISIS insurgency

The British ministry of defence has concealed the details of one in five UK drone strikes in Iraq over the last six months, and held back all location information for two out of five drone strikes there.

Responding to a Freedom of Information (FoI) request from Drone Wars UK, the MoD reported that 202 British air strikes (by drones and by Tornado aircraft) targeted the ISIS insurgency in Iraq up until the end of March 2015. At least a further 32 strikes have taken place in April…

31 March 2015News in Brief

On 19 March, giant books shut the main gate of the Hancock drone base in New York state, USA.

Seven members of the Upstate Coalition to Ground the Drones and End the Wars put up eight-foot-high copies of the UN Charter, Dirty Wars by Jeremy Scahill, Living Under Drones, and You Never Die Twice, the Reprieve report on drone warfare.

The seven were arrested and charged with trespass, disorderly conduct and obstructing governmental administration…

31 March 2015News

Defendants' lawyers say move prompted by desire to conceal UK arms exports info

At the end of January, the prosecution dropped criminal charges against against nine London Palestine Action (LPA) activists who shut down a drones factory for two days last summer (see PN 2574–2575).

The Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (‘drone’) engine factory in Shenstone near Birmingham is owned by Israeli military technology firm Elbit Systems.

Lawyers for the defendants told Electronic Intifada that either Elbit or the UK government decided to withdraw…

31 March 2015News in Brief

21 March was ‘Fly Kites not drones’, organised by Voices for Creative Nonviolence UK. In Britain, kites were flown in Argyle, Axbridge, Bournemouth, Brighton, Dunblane, Edinburgh, Findhorn, Hastings, Liverpool, London, Loughborough, Manchester, Sheffield, Southampton, and Stockport.

1 February 2015News

As air war continues, secrecy over UK drone leads to speculation re. possible Mali deployment

On 12 January, the secretary of state for defence, Michael Fallon, told the house of commons that there had been 99 UK airstrikes in Iraq since the beginning of the air campaign on 22 October. The following day, the ministry of defence (MoD) reported a further strike bringing the total to 100. By our calculations, using reports published by the MoD on their website, approximately one-third of the airstrikes have been carried out by the UK’s armed Reaper drones.

However, it appears…

1 February 2015News

Activists break into UK drone base

Four peace activists, Chris Cole, Penny Walker, Gary Eagling and Katharina Karcher, were arrested inside RAF Waddington, in Lincolnshire, on 5 January, while protesting against the use of armed drones.

The four cut a ‘New Year Gateway for Peace’ into the base and walked towards the Reaper ground control station from which RAF ‘pilots’ operate armed drones. The activists carried banners and reports of civilian casualties from recent UK, NATO and coalition airstrikes in Afghanistan and…

1 February 2015News

US peace campaigner jailed for drones action

On 23 January, US peace activist Kathy Kelly handed herself in to authorities in Kentucky to start a three-month prison sentence (see p8), one part of the US movement against drone warfare.

On 26 November, on the west coast of the US, Chris Nelson and Shirley Osgood deliberately ‘crossed the line’ outside Beale air force base in California. They handed in a letter asking the base commander to end his role in ‘the kill chain which uses the Global Hawk drone to identify human…