The Obama administration has admitted for the first time to killing four U.S. citizens in drone strikes overseas. Three died in Yemen: the Muslim cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, his 16-year-old son Abdulrahman al-Awlaki and Samir Khan. A fourth, Jude Kenan Mohammad — whose death was not previously reported — was killed in Pakistan. In a letter to Congress, Attorney General Eric Holder suggested that all but the attack on the elder al-Awlaki were accidental, saying the other three "were not specifically targeted." The admission came on the eve of a major address on counter-terrorism by President Obama, who defended the use of drones and announced modified guidelines for carrying out secret targeted killings.

Jeremy Scahill, author of the new book, "Dirty Wars: The World Is a Battlefield," and co-producer of the upcoming documentary film by the same name, joins Juan Gonzales and Amy Goodman of DemocracyNow! to discuss the targeted killing of Americans with drones.

Jeremy Scahill:

On the issue of the other Americans that were killed, you know, Jude Mohammad was a suspect who had been indicted, and his family was contesting those charges. And we don’t know the circumstances over how he was killed. Samir Khan, who was a Pakistani American from North Carolina, was killed alongside Anwar Awlaki. My understanding is that there was a grand jury convened, and they’d failed to return an indictment against him, so he was actually someone where they looked at trying to charge him with a crime and failed to get an indictment against him. His family, in fact, was told by the FBI before his death that there were no criminal charges pending against him. So he was another American killed. And perhaps the most disturbing is the killing of Abdulrahman Awlaki’s, Anwar Awlaki’s 16-year-old son, who was killed two weeks after his father while he was sitting having dinner with his teenage cousins.

And in the letter, Eric Holder says that besides Anwar al-Awlaki, the other three Americans were—and he used an interesting phrase—"not specifically targeted." You know, what does that phrase mean? It’s almost like an Orwellian statement, "not specifically targeted." Well, it could mean that these individuals were killed in the signature strikes that you mentioned, which is a sort of form of precrime, where the U.S. determines that any military-aged males in a targeted area are in fact terrorists, and their deaths will be registered as having killed terrorists or militants. So, it’s possible that the other Americans that were killed were killed were killed in these so-called signature strikes.

But in the case of this 16-year-old boy, it’s almost impossible to believe that it’s a coincidence that two weeks after his father is killed, he just happens to be killed in a U.S. drone strike. And there were leaks at the time from U.S. officials telling journalists that, oh, he actually was 21 years old, he was at an al-Qaeda meeting. But they’ve never been able to identify who they killed in that strike. And the Obama administration has never publicly taken on the fact that they killed one of their own citizens who was a teenage boy. There are no answers to that question. So, I think that there has to be a far more intense scrutiny of the statements of the attorney general and also what we understand the president is going to say later.

Full transcript of the discussion available here.

The Obama administration acknowledged for the first time Wednesday that four American citizens have been killed in drone strikes since 2009 in Pakistan and Yemen. The disclosure, in a letter from Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. to members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, comes on the eve of a major national security speech by President Barack Obama.

Al-Awlaki, a radical Muslim cleric, was killed in a drone strike in September 2011 in Yemen. Holder said three other Americans were killed by drones in counterterrorism operations since 2009 but were not targeted.

The three are Samir Khan, who was killed in the same drone strike as al-Awlaki; al-Awlaki's 16-year-old son, Abdulrahman, who also was killed in Yemen two weeks later; and Jude Kennan Mohammed, who was killed in a drone strike in Pakistan.

WaPo:

Holder said that only Anwar al-Awlaki was “specifically targeted.” Khan was known to have been killed by the strike that targeted Awlaki, while the 16-year-old was killed in what senior administration officials described as a “mistake,” when he was in the company of another targeted individual shortly after his father’s death.

Mohammad was indicted in 2009 by a federal grand jury in North Carolina, where he had lived near Raleigh. The indictment said he was believed to have left the United States for Pakistan in 2008 to “engage in violent jihad.”
...

Reached in North Carolina Wednesday, Mohammad’s mother, Elena Mohammad, said she had been aware for some time that her son had been killed in a drone strike, but was told by people in Pakistan, not by U.S. authorities. Her ex-husband is Pakistani.

Mohammad said she had no details on when or where her son was killed. She also said she had no interest in discussing her son’s past.

“I dealt with that and I don’t have to deal with it anymore because it’s already over with,” she said in the phone interview. “So whatever transpired I don’t want it back in my life anymore. It’s gone. There are no questions. I don’t have to hear any authorities; the FBI has finished coming to my house. It’s over. That’s it.”

During Obama's scheduled counterterrorism policy speech on Thursday, he will discuss his belief that it's in the best interests of the nation to close the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

It is not clear whether or not the President will discuss the transfer of detainees, or the repatriation of those cleared for release during Thursday's speech.

Holder said in his letter, that Obama “has made clear his commitment to providing Congress and the American people with as much information as possible about our sensitive counterterrorism operations.”

You can read Holder's letter here.

As the Senate holds its first-ever public hearing on drones and targeted killings, we turn the second part of our interview with Jeremy Scahill, author of the new book, "Dirty Wars: The World Is a Battlefield." Scahill charts the expanding covert wars operated by the CIA and JSOC, the Joint Special Operations Command, in countries from Somalia to Pakistan. "I called it 'Dirty Wars' because, particularly in this administration, in the Obama administration, I think a lot of people are being led to believe that there is such a thing as a clean war," Scahill says. He goes on to discuss secret operations in Africa, the targeting of U.S. citizens in Yemen and the key role WikiLeaks played in researching the book. He also reveals imprisoned whistleblower Bradley Manning once tipped him off to a story about the private security company Blackwater. Scahill is the national security correspondent for The Nation magazine and longtime Democracy Now! correspondent. For the past several years, Scahill has been working on the "Dirty Wars" film and book project, which was published on Tuesday. The film, directed by Rick Rowley, will be released in theaters in June.

Full transcript of the discussion available here.

By Cora Currier, ProPublica

Earlier this week, we wrote about a significant but often overlooked aspect of the drone wars in Pakistan and Yemen: so-called signature strikes, in which the U.S. kills people whose identities aren't confirmed. While President Obama and administration officials have framed the drone program as targeting particular members of Al Qaeda, attacks against unknown militants reportedly may account for the majority of strikes.

The government apparently calls such attacks signature strikes because the targets are identified based on intelligence "signatures" that suggest involvement in terror plots or militant activity.

So what signatures does the U.S. look for and how much evidence is needed to justify a strike?

The Obama administration has never spoken publicly about signature strikes. Instead, generally anonymous officials have offered often vague examples of signatures. The resulting fragmentary picture leaves many questions unanswered.

In Pakistan, a signature might include:

Training camps…

• Convoys of vehicles that bear the characteristics of Qaeda or Taliban leaders on the run. – Senior American and Pakistani officials,New York Times, February 2008.
• "Terrorist training camps." – U.S.Diplomatic Cable released by Wikileaks, October 2009.
• Gatherings of militant groups or training complexes. – Current and former officials, Los Angeles Times, January 2010.
• Bomb-making or fighters training for possible operations in Afghanistan…. a compound where unknown individuals were seen assembling a car bomb. – Officials, Los Angeles Times, May 2010.
• Travel in or out of a known al-Qaeda compound or possession of explosives. – U.S. officials, Washington Post, February 2011.
• Operating a training camp… consorting with known militants. – High-level American official, The New Yorker, September 2011.

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Malala Yousafzai, the 15-year-old schoolgirl from Pakistan shot by the Taliban in October because she believed girls should have the right to go to school, released her first video statement following the attempt on her life in October as she rode a bus to school.

In the video, which was taped before she underwent two major surgeries on Saturday to repair her skull and restore her hearing, Malala said she would continue to fight for girls' education. "Today you can see that I'm alive."

"I can speak, I can see you, I can see everyone and today I can speak and I'm getting better day by day. It's just because of the prayers of people, and because of these prayers, God has given me this new life, and this is a second life. This is the new life and I want to serve the people."

"I want every girl, every child to be educated," she said in her video statement. "And for that reason, we have organized the Malala Fund."

Vital Voices – a global non-governmental organization advancing girls' and women's leadership through training and mentoring – established the fund on behalf of Malala and her family.

The group worked together with supporters of the cause including The United Nations Foundation, Girl Up, and several other organizations and individuals, and the fund is intended to provide grants to organizations and individuals focused on education.

Malala and her father are on the board of the Malala Fund and she will help guide and direct projects the fund supports.

A message on the organization's website said: "We established the Malala Fund on behalf of Malala and her family, working together with supporters of the cause, including the United Nations Foundation and Girl Up, and within a community of supportive organizations and individuals, to realize Malala's vision of education for all girls."

3,500 Pakistani Shiites flooded the streets of a southwestern city for a second day on Saturday, this time with a new protest technique: blocking the roads with around 50 coffins of relatives killed in recent explosions. The unconventional protest also marks a break with Islamic custom, which dictates that the dead be buried as soon as possible. In refusing to bury their dead, the protestors hope to make a statement to the government about its lack of protection following the twin bombings of a billiards hall on Thursday that left 86 dead. “My son went to a billiards hall to play, but now I am sitting with his body here,” said Begum Dilawar Shah. “I want to know what was the fault of my son and who killed him and why?”

WaPo:

The dead included police, rescuers and journalists who rushed there in response to the first attack on the billiards hall, which was located in a predominantly Shiite area.

Mohsina Hissaini, who was sobbing near the coffins, said one of her cousins was among those who responded to the first attack.

“Every month, our people are killed in gun attacks or with bombs,” she said. “We need security.”

On Friday, Shiites laid about 50 of their dead on the street, saying they would not bury them until the government improved security. Islamic custom dictates that the dead be buried as soon possible.

Hazara said their protest would continue until their demands were accepted.

In a move aimed at accepting the Shiite demands for security, Prime Minister Raja Pervaiz Ashraf ordered authorities on Saturday to give policing powers to paramilitary forces in Quetta to improve law and order.

Many of the attacks against the Shiites in Pakistan are carried out by Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, a militant group allied with al-Qaida and the Taliban.

Activists: Air raid on Petrol Station in Damascus Suburb Kills 30

At least 30 civilians were killed on Wednesday when Syrian warplanes bombed a petrol station in a rebellious suburb on the eastern edge of Damascus, two opposition campaigners on the scene said. A new video(Above) shows the extent of the damage in the town of Maaret al-Numan in Syria's northern Idlib governorate, following attacks by government forces.

Seven Charity Workers Killed in Pakistan

Seven charity workers, six of whom were women, have been shot to death in northwest Pakistan on Tuesday. A male colleague was also killed when their vehicle was hit by gunfire near a center run by Pakistani charity Ujala in the Swabi district. The vehicle’s driver was also injured in the attack. The district police chief said, “Four men came on two motorbikes. They attacked their van. They opened fire to the right and left of the van and fled on their motorbikes.” No one has claimed responsibility for the killings. Last month, nine health workers were killed while participating in a national polio-vaccination drive.

60 Killed in Ivory Coast Stampede

At least 60 people were killed and more than 200 were wounded in a stampede during a fireworks display early Tuesday morning at a stadium in Abidjan, the main city of the Ivory Coast. The stampede occurred near the entrance of the 65,000 seat Felix Houphouet Boigny Stadium when thousands tried to leave the stadium after the fireworks as another crowd was still trying to get in. Most of the dead were children between the ages of 8 and 15, but the death toll is expected to rise. Singer Chris Brown performed at the venue the night before the stampede occurred.

Greek debt crisis 'far from over'

Politicians predict backlash from austerity-weary Greeks as unemployment reaches record 26%.

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Pakistani officials confirmed that more than 280 people died after a fire broke out in a garment factory in Karachi on Tuesday—the same day that at least 25 people died in a shoe factory fire in Lahore. Witnesses said the Karachi building was still smoldering on Wednesday as officials said 40 firefighting vehicles were needed to tackle the fire. The Karachi fire chief said the victims died from smoke inhalation and suffocation, while others were injured after attempting to escape the fire by jumping from the building. Officials said the windows of the factory were blocked by metal grilles and were also full of combustible materials, including chemicals and piles of clothing. The cause of the fire is still under investigation.

Besides the metal grilles on the windows, doors were locked shut, there were no fire exits, no fire alarms, no sprinklers, and workers who complained were terminated.

This brings to mind the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire in New York City in 1911 when 146 garment workers, died from the fire, smoke inhalation, or falling to their deaths. The youngest was just 11 years old.

The impacts of that tragedy are still felt to this day, as it led to legislation requiring improved factory safety standards and helped spur the growth of the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union, which fought for better working conditions for sweatshop workers.

Last year marked the 100th anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire, and with it a century of reforms thanks to labor pioneers and safety advocates.

When you trail Pakistan in a women's rights issue, you have a problem. Huge problem. Enormous...

[Via]

[H/T to Think Progress]