London: Imran Khan's Pakistan Movt. for Justice protests against US drone strikes. Demotix/Mark Kerrison. All rights reserved.This week marks 11 years since the first reported US drone strike in Pakistan. Since 2004, the US has launched more than 419 strikes in the Federally Administrated Tribal Areas (FATA) as part of its global war on terror. Whilst much debate has focused on the ethics, legality and civilian costs of this new technology, little attention has been given to the broader repercussions drones have had on Pakistan as a whole and how they have shaped the country in the past decade.
New research into the impact of drone strikes on terrorist behaviour, published this week, shows that drones are having a far wider and more damaging impact on civilian populations beyond those directly killed in the drone strikes themselves. The report, by Dr Paul Gill (UCL) commissioned by the Remote Control project, analyses data on drone strikes and terrorist attacks in Pakistan between 2004 and 2013 at the monthly, weekly and daily levels, finding that terrorist reprisals following a drone strike are disproportionally more likely to target civilians.
This is because, although terror groups slow down their activities in the immediate aftermath of a drone strike for basic security reasons, when they do re-emerge the attack that follows will likely be one that doesn’t necessitate the lengthy planning of high value targets, due to the damage done to the terrorist group by a drone strike. The focus instead will be on “softer targets”, i.e. civilians, leading to an increase in fatality rates. When assessing the human costs of drone warfare it is these indirect victims – those who die in terrorist reprisals – that must be factored in.
