Infographic: The CIA’s drone war in Pakistan

Every CIA drone strike in Pakistan until the the end of 2015 has been mapped on an infographic to show where the attacks took place and the number of people killed in each strike.

The infographic built by US design studio, CAPTION, uses data collected over five years by the Bureau combined with data collected by the US thinktank New America.

The US has been using drones to hunt terrorists since the year 2000 when an unarmed Predator drone flew across Afghanistan searching for Osama bin Laden. Most of the US’s off-battlefield counter-terrorism strikes have hit in Pakistan – but there have also been strikes in Yemen, Somalia and Libya.

The first attack to hit Pakistan was on June 17 2004, according to data collected by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism. And the Bureau has recorded each of the 423 CIA or US military drone strike reported there ever since. These strikes have killed 2,499-4,001 people, including between 424 and 966 civilians.

Until recently the US has rarely commented on these attacks. But earlier this month the White House released data for the first time claiming that 63-116 non-combatants and 2,372-2,581 combatants have been killed in 473 strikes which have taken place under Obama. No detail about when and where each strike took place was provided making it impossible to reconcile the information with data collected by the Bureau.

The post Infographic: The CIA’s drone war in Pakistan appeared first on The Bureau of Investigative Journalism.