According to Amnesty International, since 2004 the UK, Germany, the Netherlands and Italy have assisted US in its deadly drone attacks on Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya, Somalia, Yemen, Iraq and Syria.

“US drone strikes have killed up to 1,551 civilians since 2004 in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen and Somalia. Amnesty International and others have exposed how some drone strikes have violated international law, and may amount to extrajudicial executions or war crimes,” Amnesty International quoted the Bureau of Investigative Journalism as saying.

Details of drone strikes are shrouded in secrecy, so you may not be aware that several European states provide crucial assistance to the US drone programme.

“The reality is that the US drone operators rely on a vast, complex network of intelligence-sharing, communications infrastructure and surveillance that extends from the North Sea to the Horn of Africa.”

“Ramstein Air Base is a major US Air Force base in southwest Germany which plays a critical role in the US drone programme, sitting at the heart of a complex network of facilities across the USA and the globe.”

“In March 2014, media reports surfaced revealing that the USA was using data gathered by the Netherlands to target individuals it suspected of being members of the armed group al-Shabaab in Somalia.”

“These reports were based on documents made public by Edward Snowden and a later admission by the Dutch government that it had provided the USA with 1.8 million metadata records of telephone conversations.”

“Sigonella air base in Sicily is of great strategic and military importance to US operations in North Africa. In January 2016 the Italian government granted authorization for the USA to launch armed drones from Sigonella base.”

“The agreement limited this authorization to ‘defensive’ strikes against the armed group calling itself Islamic State (IS) in Libya. But the US uses a highly expansive notion of self-defense to justify drone strikes.”

The US together with its allies, the UK and France targeted the Syrian capital city of Damascus early Saturday.

The US attack on a military base in Homs, western Syria injured 3 civilians, Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) earlier reported.

The media affiliated with the terrorists had claimed that the Syrian jet fighters conducted a chemical attack on Douma last Saturday killing 75 people and injuring scores of others.

This is while Syria had earlier warned against terrorists’ attempts to orchestrate chemical attack scenario in Eastern Ghouta.

Posted by Mohamed Odowa.