New Details About Drone Attacks Reported From Documents Leaked by Snowden

The New York Times on Wednesday reported details about American counterterrorism officials’ use of drone strikes in countries such as Yemen, as well as the working relationship between intelligence agencies in the U.S. and the U.K.

This latest dispatch describes the contents of files shared with The Guardian and The New York Times by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden. Here’s more from the NYT’s account:

The documents, previously undisclosed, include details about how terrorism suspects are targeted in drone strikes and how strikes can go wrong at times. The documents also show how closely the National Security Agency has worked in Pakistan and Yemen with its British counterpart, Government Communications Headquarters, or G.C.H.Q.

Britain has carried out drone strikes only in war zones in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya. The documents raise the possibility that in addition, British intelligence may have helped guide American strikes outside conventional war zones.

[…] An internal newsletter for the British agency identifies the doctor killed in a drone strike in Yemen on March 30, 2012, as Khadim Usamah, whom it describes as “the doctor who pioneered using surgically planted explosives.” The newsletter calls Dr. Usamah, who appears to have never been identified publicly before, a member of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, the branch of the terrorist organization based in Yemen. It says he was killed along with a second Qaeda member.

Unsurprisingly, representatives from American and British intelligence agencies declined to comment to The New York Times on the information covered in the article.

–Posted by Kasia Anderson