We Still Don't Know How Many Civilians Have Been Killed by Drones

A truck full of 14 people is bumping its way down rural Yemen when, out of nowhere, a missile strikes. And then another. Children are killed, officials argue with local tribesmen over whether or not the 11 killed in the strike were members of al-Qaeda. The US, which doesn't take ownership of the strike for months, refuses to comment further.

That might sound similar to a US drone strike conducted in Yemen yesterday, one which struck a wedding party traveling through the countryside in a convoy, one that killed between 11 and 15 celebrants, depending on reports. But the above incident, in Radda, happened more than a year ago, and was only brought to light thanks to great reporting from the Washington Post.

There have been a number of incidents of drone strikes killing civilians in the months since, and they're all part of the Obama Administration's drone legacy. But now, with yet another tale of innocent people being killed by drones, it's as good a time as ever to revisit a simple fact: We still have no idea how many civilians have been killed by drones.

A pair of Yemeni national security officials told CNN that 14 were killed and 22 injured in the strike, which targeted four of 11 vehicles in the wedding convoy. According to one of the officials, who asked to remain anonymous, "This was a tragic mistake and comes at a very critical time. None of the killed was a wanted suspect by the Yemeni government."

The New York Times says "at least 11" were killed, and notes that the strikes come a week after an al-Qaeda assault on a Yemeni defense compound killed 52. One line in the Times report highlights just how vague the identification of militants can be. "Most of the dead appeared to be people suspected of being militants linked to Al Qaeda, according to tribal leaders in the area," writes Times reporter Robert F. Worth, "but there were also reports that several civilians had been killed."

The Obama Administration has not commented on the most recent strike, as has long been standard practice—one, to be fair, that's common for many specific military actions. Conflicting reports out of Yemen are also common, as TIME explains. Between unreliable local sources and a US administration that's largely stayed mum on the issue, getting a clear picture of drones strikes' effect on civilian populations is unclear.

The US, in the fight against al-Qaeda, has ramped up drone strikes in Yemen for since 2011, following a nine-year hiatus. According to the Post's tracker, there have been about two dozen confirmed drone strikes in Yemen this year, but casualty data is difficult to find, and unreliable as it is. An eyewitness in Radda told CNN that the town has seen at least 50 civilian drone casualties this year. It's an unofficial statistic, but perhaps that's needed; considering the Yemeni government's history of helping cover up civilian drone casualties, official figures have to be taken with a grain of salt.

More data is available from Pakistan, where the US has conducted hundred more drone strikes in the rural region of Waziristan. Last month, Amnesty International released a report that found the US has killed as many as 900 civilians in the region in the last nine years. The reported hammered the US for not being more forthcoming about civilian deaths.

One month prior, Pakistan claimed that only 3 percent of drone strike deaths were civilians, which supported the ongoing narrative that drone strikes are precise, and only kill the bad guys. While even the total number of people killed in drone strikes in Pakistan is hard to pin down, estimates generally place the number at between 2,100 and 2,600 since 2008. During that time, independent reports, including Amnesty International's, put the civilian death toll in the hundreds, far higher than the Pakistani official line.

The Yemeni strike yesterday comes at a time when criticism of drone strikes is peaking. Last month, civilian victims of drone strikes in Pakistan testified before Congress for the first time ever, which sparked harsh criticism of the drone program from the congressmen in attendance. "No other country in the world does this," Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fl.), who organized the hearing, said. "At this point, sending militaries to other countries is very unusual, unless we're talking about the United States."

Whether the strikes are in Yemen, Pakistan, Somalia, or wherever, they're based on a narrow intepretation of international law allowing use of force, which has allowed the US to largely avoid legal backlash for civilian deaths. But as international support sours, the UN has signaled that it may take a harder look at the killings.

There's another troublesome angle, too: Killing people in wedding with drones doesn't make locals sympathetic to the US. "Every time we take out one militant, we seemingly give rise to thousands, through the acts of this program itself," Grayson said at last month's hearing.

It's a problem that runs deep in Yemen, according to a timely report published by Reuters today looking at the effect of drones on al-Qaeda in the Arab Peninsula (AQAP), the faction active in the county.. "The drones have limited AQAP's movements but it makes their ideology more attractive to people. When a Yemeni is killed, it doesn't matter whether or not he's al Qaeda," Abdulrazzaq al-Jamal, a local journalist who has interviewed AQAP members, told Reuters.

Whether it was 11 or 15 killed, hitting a wedding party with a drone strike won't help. But the obfuscation of drone data, both by the US and allies, makes assessing the scope of the problem impossible, which is a major reason the White House has been able to hold onto the narrative of drones being precision machines for so long.

@derektmead