no one knew it at the time. But this was a hallmark.
new weapon being used by the US. The A.G.M. 114 R nine
X hellfire missile. This is in the loop. I'm christian
Bryant. Even as the US finally pulls out of Afghanista
that doesn't mean it's done with its so called forever
wars that have kept the US tied up in the Middle East
for decades. That's mainly because of these things. The
us fleet of Drones isn't going anywhere and that means
neither are reports of civilian casualties from those
drone strikes. A count from the Bureau of Investigativ
Journalism estimates between 910 and 2200 civilians
have been killed from 2010 to 2020. This includes drone
strikes on things like wedding processions in Yemen or
farmers tending their fields in Afghanistan. The number
of drone strikes conducted ballooned under Presi
Obama's first term in his second term. He started
scaling that back a bit, setting up restrictions on how
they were conducted. My hope is that by the time I
leave office there is a not only an internal structure
in place that governs these standards that we've said
but there is also a institutionalized process whe
uh the actions that the U.S. Government takes throu
drone technology are consistent reported on on an
annualized basis. But those restrictions including
reports on casualties from strikes were eventually
scrapped or loosened under president trump. So now the
question is in what direction does president biden
to take the U.S. Drone program. Major changes se
likely in his early days of office Jake Sullivan
National Security Advisor for Biden issued a temporary
order that clamp down on the military's ability to take
drone strikes right off the bat on January 20. That
order pretty much prevents any strikes without first
getting the go ahead from the White House. In the
months since we've seen far fewer drone strikes than
from the previous administration. In fact, watchd
groups say strikes have been at historically low rates
at least so far. Still, the biden White House hasn't
brought the added transparency. Human rights moni
were hoping for. It's an open question whether
President biden is going to do the right thing and
increased transparency and accountability for this
program and restore and ideally strengthen uh the uh
the rules that the the Obama administration uh
implemented. Um and we've seen some signs that suggest
that that President biden is is not going to not going
to do the right thing. One theory from experts the hol
on added transparency and the overall lack of
airstrikes may simply be a reconfiguring period for
biden while the White House figures out how exactly to
shake up trump era drone policies. So us drone warfare
has gone through a lot of changes over the last few
years. One change has largely flown under the radar.
That's the addition of a new weapon in the U.S. Drone
arsenal sometimes called the flying ginsu The hellfire
are nine x missile is an uncommon missile that's been
used mostly in Syria since 2017. Newsy's jake garden
and our Emmy nominated Newsy Belling Cat series took an
in depth look On a late February morning in 2017 and al
Qaeda deputy leader was traveling through a small
village in Syria's Idlib province. Suddenly his car was
hit with a drone strike but there was no explosion.
Instead, the roof of the vehicle was caved in with
parts of it sheared like a razor blade went through it.
The strike was a success killing the deputy leader. No
one knew it at the time. But this was a hallmark. A new
weapon being used by the US, the A.G.M. 114 R nine X.
Hellfire missile. Since then, t R nine X. Has been
used multiple times throughout Syria and at least once
in Libya and Afghanistan. It's also reportedly been
used in other nations like Somalia and Yemen. It's a
bold and bizarre new weapon in the U.S. Arsenal finding
and analyzing images and video with our partners at
Bell in Cat shows us how the weapon has been used and
how it could impact the future of America's drone
warfare. The R nine X. Is rarely used since 2017. Ther
have only been 11 incidents where it is thought to have
been utilized. Most of these strikes, targeted leaders
of Al Qaeda or Al Qaeda affiliated groups. Accord
a 2019 report from the Wall Street Journal. both the
CIA and Department of Defense u the R nine X and it
has been used in countries where the US has active
counterterrorism operations in while non explosive or
inert munitions aren't new. The R nine X is, it uses
six extending blades to increase the likelihood of
killing its intended target. The fact that it's inert
is meant to minimize civilian casualties. The U.S.
Drone program has a well documented history of civi
casualties, even the highest US government estimates
are significantly lower than death totals compiled by
watchdog groups. One estimates a maximum of 801
civilian deaths. But while this idea of a non explosive
missile may seem good on its face, There's been a
steady stream of criticism abou the R- nine X. Human
Rights Watch was quick to point out that the issue with
many strikes is that they have the wrong targets. The R
nine X is only going to be as good as the intelligence
used to guide it. Even if the US determines it wants to
kill a particular person, That doesn't mean that it can
legally do so. Under international law, you can't ju
go out And and kill somebody because you think they
might be a security threat. Though, it's worth noti
of the incidents that we've identified. There's been
relatively little collateral damage shown in pictures
and video from the area in the earliest strike
identified the one from Februar 2017, only the car and
some bits of the roadway were damaged and the target
was killed. Other strikes follow a similar pattern.
Typically a vehicles photograph with its roof caved
in with distinctive cut marks in it. Sometimes there
are one or two small craters in the road showing whe
the missile or missiles impacted before the vehicle
rolled to a stop or crashed. Large remnants from th
missile are rare. In one case, after an incident
outside the Syrian city of Idlib, a large remnant was
salvaged and filmed on it. You can see the label of the
missile A GM 114 R nine X. The orange ball is another
clue something that the drives war zone has identified
as a pneumatic accumulator or the part of the missile
that controls the fins. It is featured in other
hellfire variants as well. No blade has been fully
intact after the impact. But what is thought to be
partial blades have been pictured among the remnants
from other strikes, such as this one from december 3rd
in 2019. Outside of a small city in Syria's Idlib
province. The R nine X has yet to be used in 2021 at
least from what visual media is available online. It
may have something to do with President joe biden's
administration's attempts to ta down on forever wars,
but drone strikes are still happening, albeit more
slowly than in previous years. As recently as july, the
US conducted a more conventional drone strike in
Somalia against Al Qaeda's affiliate there, there are
nine x could bring a new dimension to the debate ove
US drone warfare and whether it can ever truly be free
of collateral damage and human rights concerns. Mm. Mhm.
Here to talk to us a little bit more about that stor
is Jake Garden. Jake. One of the things we learned
about this particular drone is how it was designed to
sort of uh, minimize the number of casualties when it's
actually being launched. Uh, an I'm kind of curious to
know what is the history of civilian casualties when it
comes to US drone strikes. I mean, it's not a great
track record. Um, there's a lot of kind of watchdog
groups that um kind of count these instances or these
incidents where there's, you know, reported civilian
casualties and you know, it's number and numbers in the
thousands at that. Like at the high end and even in the
conservative as they have like thousands of civilians
killed throughout the, you know, well, you know, two
decades of using drones that the US has done. And I
mean, well, it kind of got started under Bush, It
really kind of ballooned under Obama. And he even tried
to kind of implement some more restrictive rules on how
drones are used, kind of like kind of try to funnel
more of the decision making into the White House or at
least the last call would be made at the White House.
So it wasn't necessarily kind of like the CIA or the
pentagon acting in this autonomous way where they're
just able to launch drone strikes however they want
And um, whereas those systems weren't perfect, they
weren't uh super transparent, w is what kind of one
of the biggest things that a lot of watchdog groups and
a lot of activists would like, but it still was there
and it kind of gave some small window into what the
what was going on with these kinds of strikes. Um,
trump kind of kind of relax those restrictions. He ki
of gave the military more room to make their own
decisions on these things. And because of that, there
were more strikes and a lot of uh, you know, civilian
casualties kind of went up again. Um, at least in some
places. Uh, and then six apparently biden so far in his
administration is kind of moving back towards what
Obama had where he's kind of putting more bureaucrac
in the way of conducting these strikes. It's
official policy yet, but so far that seems to be where
they're sitting with it, making sure that if there is
going to be a drone strike in any of the areas where
the US does them. Uh, it has to the White House will
have final say on it. One of the things that I've
learned from your reporting is that, You know, we
haven't seen a strike using this particular piece of
technology so far in 2021. Um Why is that I mean, so
there are nine X. Which is like you know, hellfire with
blades. Uh it wasn't being used a ton anyways. I mean
we've only accounted 11 instances that are possibly are
nine X. They have kind of like the trademarks of it but
And the last one that we counted was in December 2020
So Why we haven't seen them yet in 2021, it could be
that maybe, you know, there hasn't been a target that
they've wanted to hit yet. Or maybe it has to do with
this kind of restrictions that the Bush administration
has put on some kind of these drone strikes, where i
just kind of making it harder to do them because
there's kind of like a holding pattern going on with
conducting these kinds of strik in order to kind of
recalibrate the previous administration's policies on
how they were done. Jake. Good thanks so much. I
appreciate you. Oh of course anytime we're gonna come
back to the U.S. Presence in the Middle East and
developments in Afghanistan a little later. But first
the fight against Covid and how some people are trying
to meet the unvaccinated where they are. Mhm