The human cost of drone warfare: A look at some of the world’s biggest drone attacks

That apart, the Houthi rebels – a US-designated terror group -- have claimed regular attacks on Saudi Arabia in the recent past, including the September 2019 strike on Aramco’s Abqaiq oil-processing plant and Khurais field. The attack had caused disruption in the supply of nearly 5.7 million barrels of oil per day from Saudi Arabia and is considered one of the worst drone attacks to date.

Given drone warfare is well on its path to emerge as one of the most important international security developments of this century, it is important to understand the death and destruction a weapon-laden UAV can cause. To provide more insight, here is a list of some of the biggest and most noteworthy drone attacks till date:

In 2020, a Turkish-made explosive-laden drone attacked Khalifa Haftar’s forces in Libya. It was the world’s first recorded case of an autonomous drone attack on humans.

The 2006 Damadola airstrike carried out by the Central Intelligence Agency using unmanned predator drones had killed 18 civilians in Pakistan’s Damadola village located in a tribal zone along the Afghanistan border. The drone attack was supposed to target then al-Qaeda second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahiri.

America’s 2011 Datta Khel airstrike killed 44 people in the North Waziristan area of Pakistan. It was another attempt to kill militant tribal leaders and this time it successfully eliminated Sherabat Khan Wazir, a top commander of Hafiz Gul Bahadur's Taliban faction. Eleven of the persons killed in this US drone attack were reportedly Taliban terrorists; the rest were civilians.

The 2009 Makin airstrike carried out by the US is considered one of the deadliest drone attacks in history. Authorities had pitted the number of deaths between 60 to 80. The drone attack was aimed at killing militants holed up in Pakistan, but the main target -- Baitullah Mehsud – had reportedly escaped unhurt.

A United States Air Force drone aircraft had carried out an airstrike in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) in Pakistan’s Miramshah in September 2008. Three women, two children, and seven militants were killed in the drone attack.

The January 2019 Anad base drone strike was carried out by the Houthis near Yemen’s port city of Aden. Six people attending a military parade were killed in the attack, including the head of Yemeni Intelligence. It left 25 military personnel, including senior officers, Yemen’s chief of staff, and a government official wounded.

The US carried out an airstrike at the Baghdad International Airport in 2020 to assassinate Iranian major general and commander of the Quds Force Qasem Soleimani. Soleimani died in the drone attack alongside five Iraqi nationals and four Iranian nationals.