Machi Khel (N. Waziristan) Drone Attack II – Dec 2009
Date: 31/12/2009
Location: North Waziristan Agency, FATA, Pakistan
Perpetrators: United States
Victims: 3 Killed, 1 Injured
What Happened?
31 December 2009: A U.S. drone strike targeted a house in the Machi Khel area of North Waziristan Agency. The house belonged to a local journalist named Karim Khan. The CIA alleged that it had killed Al Qaeda militants, however the casualties were civilians and children including Khan’s 17-year-old son, Khan’s schoolteacher brother, and a family friend who worked as a local stonemason.
The CIA Station Chief in Islamabad, Jonathan Banks, was compelled to leave Pakistan in the political and legal aftermath of this attack after the lawyer Shahzad Akbar lodged a legal case against the CIA in Islamabad. This drone attack was one of the cases presented to the United Nations Human Rights Council in 2012.
OMM-PK142