An Analysis of U.S. Drone Strikes in Pakistan, 2004-2012
View all U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan in a larger map. Note: strikes reported after November 19, 2010 appear on page 2 of the Google map.
Click each pin to see the details of a reported strike. Red pin=2004-2007; Pink pin=2008; Dark blue pin=2009; (Green pin=Bush in 2009); Light blue pin=2010; Purple pin=2011
This research was last updated on November 16, 2011. For a full analysis of the repercussions and results of U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan, please click here for "The Year of the Drone," by Peter Bergen and Katherine Tiedemann, February 24, 2010, click here for "The Hidden War," December 21, 2010 or click here for "Washington's Phantom War," July 2011.
The research on these pages, which we have created in a good faith effort to be as transparent as possible with our sources and analysis and will be updated regularly, draws only on accounts from reliable media organizations with deep reporting capabilities in Pakistan, including the New York Times, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal, accounts by major news services and networks—the Associated Press, Reuters, Agence France-Presse, CNN, and the BBC—and reports in the leading English-language newspapers in Pakistan—the Daily Times, Dawn, the Express Tribune, and the News—as well as those from Geo TV, the largest independent Pakistani television network.
Our study shows that the 283 reported drone strikes in northwest Pakistan, including 70 in 2011, from 2004 to the present have killed approximately between 1,717 and 2,680 individuals, of whom around 1,424 to 2,209 were described as militants in reliable press accounts. Thus, the true non-militant fatality rate since 2004 according to our analysis is approximately 17 percent. In 2010, it was more like five percent.*
We have also constructed a map, based on the same reliable press accounts and publicly available maps, of the estimated location of each drone strike. Click each pin in the online version to see the details of a reported strike. And while we are not professional cartographers, and Google Maps is at times incomplete or imperfect, this map gives our best approximations of the locations and details of each reported drone strike since 2004.
This study carries a Creative Commons license, which permits re-use of New America content when proper attribution is provided. Please click here for conditions of use, and when citing please attribute to the New America Foundation's drones database.
Estimated Total Deaths from U.S. Drone Strikes in Pakistan, 2004 - 2012
| | Deaths (low) | Deaths (high) |
| 2012* |
|
|
| 2011 |
378 | 536 |
| 2010 | 607 | 993 |
| 2009 | 369 | 725 |
| 2008 | 274 | 314 |
| 2004-2007 | 89 | 112 |
| Total | 1,717 | 2,680 |
*Through November 16, 2011
Estimated Militant Deaths from U.S. Drone Strikes in Pakistan 2004 - 2012
| | Deaths (low) | Deaths (high) |
| 2012* |
|
|
| 2011 | 362 | 500 |
| 2010 | 581 | 939 |
| 2009 | 266 | 502 |
| 2008 | 134 | 165 |
| 2004-2007 | 81 | 103 |
| Total | 1,424 | 2,209 |
*Through November 16, 2011
Estimated Militant Leader Deaths from US Drone Strikes in Pakistan, 2004-2012
| 2012 |
|
| 2011 | 6 |
| 2010 | 12 |
| 2009 | 7 |
| 2008 | 11 |
| 2004-2007 | 3 |
| Total | 38 |
*Through November 16, 2011. Included in estimated militants and estimated totals, above.
Militant leaders killed
2012
Strikes by Target
| Target | 2004-2007 | 2008 | 2009 | 2010 | 2011 |
2012 |
Total |
| Taliban | 6 | 12 | 27 | 42 | 29 |
|
116 |
| Baitullah Mehsud (not Taliban generally) | 0 | 1 | 16 | n/a | n/a |
|
17 |
| Al Qaeda | 5 | 10 | 9** | 8 | 4*** |
|
36 |
| Haqqani | 1 | 2 | 4 | 16 | 5 |
|
28 |
| Unclear/Other | 0 | 12 | 4 | 68 | 33 |
|
117 |
*Count is more than the number of strikes in some cases because some targets fell into multiple categories.
** Saad bin Laden, one of Osama bin Laden's sons, was killed by a drone in 2009 sometime before July 22, but it's unknown exactly when, so he is included in the targeting as al Qaeda but not in one of the individual entries listed below. [Author note: Saad bin Laden was reported alive in December 2009 by his brother, Omar.]
***Atiyah Abd al-Rahman, al-Qaeda's no. 2 leader, was reported killed in a drone strike August 22, 2011. However, sources dispute where he was killed, and it is unclear if he was killed in a drone strike on a vehicle previously reported to have occurred to same day. He is included in the targeting as al-Qaeda but not in one of the individual entries listed below.
In cases where a media report described a specific target such as Baitullah Mehsud or the Haqqani network, the target is counted as such. If a target was both al Qaeda and Taliban commanders, it is counted once under each category. Strikes against Baitullah Mehsud are not included in the overall Taliban count. We assume that strikes which kill a leader in a given group were targeted at that group.
2012
*All of this research was reviewed and updated on January 10, 2011.
