Middle East, U.s. Drone | featured news

CIA drone strikes on Pakistani targets violate Pakistan’s national sovereignty and have resulted in far more civilian casualties than the U.S. government has recognized, a special U.N. human rights envoy reported after a secret investigation in Pakistan this week.

Iran has captured two miniature U.S.-made surveillance drones over the past 17 months, Iranian media reported on Wednesday.

Tribal sources from Pakistan's northwest said on Saturday a U.S. drone attack had killed a senior al Qaeda commander in the latest blow to the militant Islamist group that has been targeted in many similar attacks.

Two Iranian jets fired on a U.S. military drone, Pentagon officials said Thursday -- the first time such an action has been acknowledged by the United States.

White House reportedly weighing retaliation for deadly consulate attack if al-Qaeda militants are identified.

Hundreds of Pakistanis, joined by dozens of American activists, took off Saturday on a motorcade "march" against US drone strikes, hoping to reach a militant-riddled Afghan border region that has been the focus of many such attacks.

Far more civilians have been killed by U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan's tribal areas than U.S. counter-terrorism officials have acknowledged, a new study by human rights researchers at Stanford University and New York University contends.

Iran claimed Sunday that it had recovered data from an American spy drone that went down in Iran last year including that it was used to spy on Osama bin Laden's house weeks before he was killed by U.S. forces. Iran also said it was building a copy of the surveillance aircraft.

A U.S. official confirms that the aircraft is an RQ-170 drone, which Iran says it brought down. Iran protests what it says was a violation of its airspace. Iranian television aired video Thursday of what it said is an American surveillance drone that the country's armed forces claimed to have brought down during the weekend.

The United States is assembling a series of secret drone bases for an aggressive campaign against al-Qaida-linked groups in Somalia and Yemen, the Washingon Post reports.