CIA resumes drone killings in Pakistan after Bergdahl’s release

The US Central Intelligence Agency resumed its deadly drone attacks in Pakistan this week after a US soldier was freed following a secret prisoner-exchange deal between the White House and the Taliban.

US drone strikes hit houses in Dande Darpa Khel village in Pakistan’s North Waziristan on Wednesday and early Thursday, leaving at least 16 people dead, local media sources said.

The attacks are the first US drone strikes in Pakistan in nearly six months and come less than two weeks after US Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl was released in exchange for five Afghan prisoners held at the notorious US-run prison at Guantanamo Bay following a secret deal between the Obama administration and the Taliban.

Bergdahl was believed to be taken into Pakistan shortly after his unit at a US Army outpost in eastern Afghanistan discovered he was missing early on June 30, 2009.

Earlier this month, a Wall Street Journal report said that during secret negotiations over the release of Bergdahl, the Taliban warned Washington that its drone attacks had come close to killing Bergdahl on several occasions.

The report said it was unclear whether the Taliban’s warning played a role in the “apparent pause in drone strikes since the end of December.”

However, what is clear is that the CIA resumed its deadly drone strikes less than two weeks after Bergdahl was released.

US drone strikes have killed hundreds of civilians in several Muslim countries including Yemen, Somalia, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.

Last year, the United Nations called on Washington to become transparent about the number of civilians killed by CIA drone attacks.

A 22-page UN expert report – released on October 18, 2013 – said the CIA’s involvement in US drone attacks in Pakistan and Yemen “has created an almost insurmountable obstacle to transparency.”

Earlier this year, Ben Emmerson, a UN human rights investigator, also said that the death toll of civilians in US drone strikes in Afghanistan and Yemen continues to rise.