22/10/2013 10:42
US drone strike killings in Pakistan and Yemen 'unlawful'
CIA drone attacks in Pakistan are responsible for unlawful killings, some of which could amount to war crimes, Amnesty International says, according to the BBC.
Amnesty said it reviewed nine recent drone strikes in North Waziristan and found a number of victims were unarmed.
In a separate report looking at six US attacks in Yemen, Human Rights Watch says two of them killed civilians at random, violating international law.
Drone warfare has become common in the US pursuit of al-Qaeda and the Taliban.
Few details are known about the covert US drone operation.
Senior al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders have been killed in drone strikes in Pakistan, but civilians have also died.
These attacks cause outrage in Pakistan, where many assert that the strikes cause indiscriminate deaths and injuries.
Last week, a UN investigation found that US drone strikes had killed at least 400 civilians in Pakistan, far more than the US has ever acknowledged.
UN special rapporteur Ben Emmerson accused the US of challenging international legal norms by advocating the use of lethal force outside war zones.
Establishing precise casualty figures and identifying the dead in such attacks is virtually impossible as independent media are barred from tribal areas near the Afghan border.