Drones

UK drones or Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) operating in Afghanistan are now remotely controlled from RAF Waddington near Lincoln alongside a British Squadron at Creech air force base in Nevada. Armed drones operated by the United States have killed thousands in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen. British drones have killed an unknown number in Afghanistan. At a time when drones are seen by the government as the “low cost” option to intervene abroad, opposition to their use, as an extension of the unpopular War on Terror, is becoming increasingly important.

According to the Bureaux of Investigative Journalists, up to 3,581 people have been killed in Pakistan by 366 US drone airstrikes. The UK has launched a similar number of Reaper strikes in Afghanistan using the same tactics, making it highly likely that thousands of people have already been killed by our drones.

The UK government has announced a timetable for military from Afghanistan withdrawal in 2014, but after more than 12 years of war in Afghanistan, in which tens of thousands of civilians have been killed, the US Pentagon has announced that drones could be used to extend the war until at least 2015. It is therefore likely that the UK’s use of drones in Afghanistan will continue while the government presents its “planned” withdrawal as a success.

Stop the War Coalition is part of a broad campaign against the British government's use of drones as a weapon of war. Alongside CND, the Drone Campaign Network and War On Want we launched the Ground the Drones campaign in 2012 with a march to RAF Waddington. We continue to campaign to bring an end to the use of drones.