The US drone strikes provide a reason for radicalisation of vulnerable Pakistani youth in Swat valley, where militants use implications of the unilateral drone operations to provoke boys into joining their violent ways, according to a report on Sunday.
The report comes as the Obama administration, which has exponentially increased the use of drones against suspected militant targets, struggles to bring transparency and oversight to the covert program, which has come under growing international criticism.
In its Swat-datelined report, the CNN looks at the SabaoonSchool, where boys aged 8 to 18, who were involved in militant activities, are de-radicalised.
Ninety-nine percent of the boys, the channel is informed, have never heard of Osama bin Laden, despite the fact that he was killed by US Navy SEALs in the next valley over from Swat.
What has radicalised these boys instead, the school’s director says, is what turns teenagers the world over to crime – poverty, poor education, limited prospects and often lack of parental control.
“It is in this setting that the boys have made ready recruits for Taliban scouts who wean them on tales of the US drone strikes that have killed scores of Pakistani women and children over the past few years.”
The channel also cites the UN Special Rapporteur on drones, British lawyer Ben Emmerson, who recently visited Pakistan, “The consequence of drone strikes has been to radicalise an entirely new generation.”
The New America Foundation estimates that in Pakistan, drones have killed between 1,953 and 3,279 people since 2004 – and that between 18 percent and 23 percent of them were not militants. Pakistan has had 365 drone strikes.
US President Barack Obama has maintained the strikes are necessary for defeating al Qaeda and the Taliban, but others including Emmerson have their doubts.
According to the channel, Emmerson said, “Through the use of drones you may win the immediate battle you are waging against this particular faction or that particular faction… but you are losing the war in the longer term.”
“Emmerson’s legal insights will form the basis of his report to the UN, expected later this year. For the United States, at least, it could make for a damning read,” the channel says.
The British lawyer says the drone strikes are illegal under international law as they violate Pakistan’s sovereignty and fly in the face of Pakistani government calls for them to desist – and that they also legalise al Qaeda’s fight against America.
“The boys of SabaoonSchool are at the sharp end of the drone debate and are living with its consequences. And in the relative safety of these classrooms, there’s little doubt change is long overdue,” the report concludes.
