Over the past few years States, international organisations and civil society groups have expressed concern about the increasing proliferation and use of armed drones. To illustrate what is happening, Drone Wars has compiled details of the use of armed drones in the first three months of 2018. Due to both the lack of transparency by operators and the difficulty of reporting strikes from the remote locations where they often occur, this survey is undoubtedly incomplete. [ 1,704 more word ]

http://dronewars.net/…/three-month-snapshot-shows-expandin…/

Analysis of figures released in response to Freedom of Information requests by Drone Wars UK indicate that the UK has spent £1.75bn on armed air missions against ISIS in Iraq and Syria since August 2014. It should be noted that the overall cost of UK military operations in Iraq and Syria will be much higher. Strikingly, the data shows that at £268 million, the cost alone of the weapons fired over the last 3½ years is more than the total amount the… [ 453 more words ]

http://dronewars.net/…/cost-of-uk-air-and-drone-strikes-in…/

lAfter a lengthy delay in responding to our FoI requests, the MOD has now provided data on UK air operations in Iraq and Syria for the second half of 2017. For our updated complete set of figures for UK air operations in Iraq and Syria since 2014 see here. As ISIS collapses in Iraq, Syria becomes UK focus The newly released figures show just how much the focus of UK air operations switched from Iraq to Syria during 2017. [ 757 more words ]

http://dronewars.net/…/new-foi-data-release-on-uk-air-and-…/

Details of discussions between the Ministry of Defence (MoD) and the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) on plans to allow the RAF’s upgraded version of the US Predator drone to be flown within the UK have been released following a Freedom of Information request by Drone Wars UK. More than 200 pages of internal documents including emails, minutes of meetings, discussion papers and copies of slide presentations have been released… [ 1,918 more word ]

http://dronewars.net/…/revealed-internal-discussions-betwe…/

Air Marshall Greg Bagwell is a recently retired senior Royal Air Force officer who served as Deputy Commander Operations at RAF Air Command. While being a vocal supporter of the use of armed drones, in his role of President of the Air Power Association he has also argued for greater openness and engagement with the public on air power issues. Following on from our interview with former… [ 866 more words ]

http://dronewars.net/…/thinking-war-is-bloodless-is-a-mist…/

In December 2017 the RAF announced that British Reaper drones had reached the significant milestone of flying 100,000 hours of combat operations. First deployed in Afghanistan in 2007 and, on operations against ISIS in Iraq and Syria since 2014, the UK’s Reapers have been continuously engaged in surveillance and strike operations for a decade. However, with the collapse of ISIS in Iraq and Syria, ten years of continuous drone operations should be coming to an end. [ 1,206 more word ]

http://dronewars.net/…/2018-british-armed-drone-operations…/

A Ministry of Defence press conference has revealed that as the war against ISIS ends, British Reaper drones are to stay deployed in the Middle East after other UK aircraft return home . As The Times reported 'Air Commodore Johnny Stringer, who led the British air campaign against the terrorist group until last month, said that drones and other surveillance aircraft would continue to fly over Iraq and Syria to help local forces guard against the militants returning., [ 443 more words ]

http://dronewars.net/…/perpetual-war-uks-armed-drones-to-s…/

Over the past last couple of months there has been several reports in the defence and international press that the United States is looking to ‘renegotiate’ the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) in order to allow it to increase the export of its unmanned drones. Alongside the US-led initiative to put in place a new international political agreement on the proliferation and use of armed UAVs… [ 538 more words ]

http://dronewars.net/…/drones-proliferation-and-the-mtcr-u…/

The imminent defeat of ISIS in Iraq should see British drones grounded. But will they continue to launch strikes in what is becoming a perpetual war? This month (October 2017) marks ten years of British Reaper drone operations. Acquired on a temporary basis as an ‘Urgent Operational Capability’, the UK began operating armed drones in Afghanistan in October 2007 after having three delivered directly to Kandahar airport. [ 1,135 more word ]

http://dronewars.net/…/after-ten-years-time-to-ground-brit…/

Two Watchkeeper drones crashed into sea after takeoff from Aberporth in West Wales and MoD kept it secret
Jill Gough Drone Campaign Network Cymru / Rhwydwaith Ymgyrch Dronau Cymru

After a long delay the UK MoD has produced its new doctrine publication on the use of Unmanned Aircraft Systems (commonly known as drones). Its predecessor, ‘The UK Approach to Unmanned Aircraft Systems’ (JDN 2/11), caused a stir in 2011 as it acknowledged real ethical and legal issues with the growing use of these systems. The subsequent press coverage… [ 1,311 more word ]

http://dronewars.net/…/new-mod-document-on-use-of-drones-s…/

Regular readers of the Drone Wars blog will be aware that in 2016 a US State department initiative led to a political declaration endorsed by 53 states on the export and use of armed drones. However as we detailed at time, this process had a number of problematic aspects, including the weakness and vagueness of the principles it articulated. [ 987 more words ]

http://dronewars.net/…/joint-civil-society-statement-on-us…/

New figures released to Drone Wars UK in response to Freedom of Information requests shows a dramatic increase in the number of RAF operations in Syria in the first six months of 2017. According to the figures, UK armed air missions in Syria rose by 480% in the first half of 2017 compared with the previous six months. However, rather surprisingly in the light of the huge increase in missions in Syria, the vast majority of UK air strikes continues to occur in Iraq, with 81% of UK missile and bombs dropped there in the first half of the year (see table below). [ 1,203 more word ]

http://dronewars.net/…/new-foi-figures-on-uk-air-and-drone…/

An information tribunal has upheld the MoD’s decision to refuse to release the number of British armed drones deployed against ISIS and their location, despite such information being released by the UK about its ‘manned’ aircraft. In the just released open judgement (a closed judgement has also been produced but will not been made available to us), the tribunal accepted that there was clear public interest in the information Drone Wars sought as both parliament and the public could then ascertain if the UK’s armed drones were being used outside of Iraq and Syria, or if some were in storage due to personnel shortages. [ 889 more words ]

http://dronewars.net/…/information-tribunal-dismisses-dron…/