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	1	+Drones and target killing are vital to counterterrorism
	2	+Kenneth Anderson 13, Professor of International Law at American University, June 2013, “The Case for Drones,” Commentary, Vol. 135, No. 6
	3	+Targeted killing of high-value terrorist targets, by contrast, is the end result of a long, independent intelligence process. What the drone adds to that intelligence might be considerable, through its surveillance capabilities ~-~- but much of the drone's contribution will be tactical, providing intelligence that assists in the planning and execution of the strike itself, in order to pick the moment when there might be the fewest civilian casualties. Nonetheless, in conjunction with high-quality intelligence, drone warfare offers an unparalleled means to strike directly at terrorist organizations without needing a conventional or counterinsurgency approach to reach terrorist groups in their safe havens. It offers an offensive capability, rather than simply defensive measures, such as homeland security alone. Drone warfare offers a raiding strategy directly against the terrorists and their leadership. If one believes, as many of the critics of drone warfare do, that the proper strategies of counterterrorism are essentially defensive ~-~- including those that eschew the paradigm of armed conflict in favor of law enforcement and criminal law ~-~- then the strategic virtue of an offensive capability against the terrorists themselves will seem small. But that has not been American policy since 9/11, not under the Bush administration, not under the Obama administration ~-~- and not by the Congress of the United States, which has authorized hundreds of billions of dollars to fight the war on terror aggressively. The United States has used many offensive methods in the past dozen years: Regime change of states offering safe havens, counter-insurgency war, special operations, military and intelligence assistance to regimes battling our common enemies are examples of the methods that are just of military nature. Drone warfare today is integrated with a much larger strategic counterterrorism target ~-~- one in which, as in Afghanistan in the late 1990s, radical Islamist groups seize governance of whole populations and territories and provide not only safe haven, but also an honored central role to transnational terrorist groups. This is what current conflicts in Yemen and Mali threaten, in counterterrorism terms, and why the United States, along with France and even the UN, has moved to intervene militarily. Drone warfare is just one element of overall strategy, but it has a clear utility in disrupting terrorist leadership. It makes the planning and execution of complex plots difficult if only because it is hard to plan for years down the road if you have some reason to think you will be struck down by a drone but have no idea when. The unpredictability and terrifying anticipation of sudden attack, which terrorists have acknowledged in communications, have a significant impact on planning and organizational effectiveness.
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	7	+Withdrawing drone presence decimates counter-terror operations – discreet intelligence surveillance is an essential tool. Attuquayefio 14
	8	+Philip Attuquayefio, Doctor of Philosophy in Political Science and a Master of Philosophy in International Affairs from the University of Ghana, Legon, currently a Research Fellow at the Legon Centre for International Affairs and Diplomacy, University of Ghana, 2014 (“Drones, the US and the New Wars in Africa,” Journal of Terrorism Research, September 2014, The Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence, http://ojs.st-andrews.ac.uk/index.php/jtr/article/view/942/757)
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	10	+Terrorist organizations include AQIM, AQAP, Al-Shabaab, and Boko Haram
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	12	+Just like the terrorist threats, the approaches for US interventions on matters of national security have also evolved. From conspicuous full-scale military actions in the Bush and Clinton years to the “light footprints” favored by the Obama administration. The latter has involved the use of Special Forces, and other relatively more discreet approaches. A critical element of the Obama administration’s counterterrorism approaches is the use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) popularly known as Drones. UAVs are remotely controlled aircrafts designed with a capacity to carry a wide variety of accessories for both civilian and military use. These include long range and wide angled cameras, communication and target detection sensors and military hardware such as missiles. Added to this is the stealth ability of some drones. Consequently, they are typical for reconnaissance, surveillance and target engagement missions (Washburn and Kress, 2009). Although, it’s been suggested that experimentation with drones have been ongoing since the early 1990s, its first deployment in a context of war was in the former Yugoslavia in the mid–1990s where they were reportedly used as surveillance equipment (Turse and Engelhardt, 2012). Subsequent evolution of drones saw its emergence as armaments for target engagement particularly in post 9/11counterterrorism activities of the US. One of the early cases in this regard was reported in Yemen in 2002, where six alleged Al Qaeda operatives were killed by drone fire (Kretzmer, 2005). Since then, it is fast gaining notoriety as the armament of choice from the options available to the US. The use of drones has however not been without controversy both in host countries where it has, for instance, garnered political fallouts generally deemed as unfavorable to US moral leverage in global affairs, and within the domestic politics of the US, where the administration has been accused of arbitrarily authorising execution of people including some US citizens. The latter has constituted a legal conundrum that continues to attract negative publicity to the use of drones. The tactical fallouts have been suggested as far direr, namely, an increase in volunteers ready to launch a global jihad against the US and its western allies following the fabrication of drone casualties in countries such as Pakistan, Afghanistan and Yemen. (Taj, 2011) The readiness of the US to deploy drones towards prosecuting the war on terror in Africa has long gone beyond the assumptive phase. In 2001, the US acquired and renovated Camp Lemonnier from the armed forces of Djibouti and subsequently, in May 2003, designated the facility as the base for the Combined Joint Task Force – Horn of Africa (CJTF-HOA). Since then, Camp Lemonnier has earned the reputation as a critical base for drone operations around the Horn of Africa and Yemen. In March 2013, President Obama announced further plans to set up another base in the West African country of Niger. Djibouti and Niger have been officially confirmed, yet, reports suggest that the US has access to a lot more operational ranges for drones than publicly acknowledged (Whitlock and Miller, 2011). In terms of operability however, the first reported use of drones within the continent was a 2007 incident in which drones guided antitank missile gunships to blow down a convoy carrying one of Al Qaeda’s top operatives and suspected hideout in Somalia (Axe, 2012). Since then, the US is reported to have operated drones from a number of sites in Africa including Djibouti, and Burkina Faso. This paper utilises open source data to interrogate the state of terrorism in Africa (conceptualised as new wars) and the options applicable to the African context. It is argued that one of the ways the US can make game-changing interventions through surveillance and intelligence-gathering in several hotspots in Africa, without compromising its own national security is through the use of drones. The paper begins by briefly discussing the ‘new wars’ in Africa before making a case for the complementary utility of drones in fighting terrorism in Africa. It concludes by suggesting policy options to counter balance the utility-blighting publicity currently surrounding the use of drones in Africa. A caveat underpinning this paper is an admission by the author that the causal and sustaining factors of terrorism in Africa are multi-faceted and in most cases derive from threats to aspects of human security palpable in terrorists-generating communities. Consequently, the phenomenon can only be addressed through a multidimensional approach – one in which drones can actively feature mainly through surveillance and intelligence-gathering. TERRORISM: THE NEW WARS IN AFRICA In the aftermath of the independence wars, the second major wave of conflicts on the continent - the civil wars of the post-Cold War era between the late 1980s and early 1990s saw countries like Liberia, Sierra Leone, Rwanda and Cote D’Ivoire among others witnessing a succession of violent conflicts. The consequence of these conflicts were abductions, systematic rape, genocide and a host of actions that fall within the generic description of terrorism. These acts were mainly domestic in nature and perpetrated by ethnic and political groups. It was therefore not surprising that the US maintained a general disinterest in activities in Africa during that period. The latter part of the 1990s witnessed a marginal rise in terrorist incidents on the continent of Africa. Unlike the previous period, an overwhelming majority of these acts were attributed to the activities of Islamic extremists. The manifestations of these acts were undoubtedly ruthless yet somewhat limited to relatively few countries in East and the Horn of Africa. In the 1998 attacks on the US Embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam, for instance, two hundred people are on record to have been killed and over a thousand injured. Yet in comparison to the global numbers, it was insignificant. In fact during that period, Africa placed a mere fifth, behind Latin America, Western Europe, Asia and the Middle East, as the most targeted regions for international acts of terrorism (Botha and Solomon, 2005). In the 21st century, acts of terrorism in Africa have gone up exponentially (Hough, 2002). This is attributable to a number of events. One of these has had to do with the post–9/11 War on terror, and the military actions in Iraq and Afghanistan by the US and its allies. Statistics have, for instance, shown dislocation and relocation of suicide terrorist cells and training camps as well as the death or detention of several top operatives of Al Qaeda following the commencement of the US led War on terror (Cronin, 2003). With the disruption of its activities, Al Qaeda has adopted a more diffused approach, one that has seen the centralised command and control previously held by Osama bin Laden diffuse to other parts of the world in line with the objective to strike soft targets of the US and its western allies. With Africa playing host to monumental commercial and state interests of the US and a number of Western countries, strikes against these targets have sought to demonstrate that al Qaeda and its affiliates still retain the will and the capacity to operate around the world (Crenshaw, 2011). Relatedly, the diffusion indirectly caused by the war on terror has made the identification and neutralising of terrorist cells more difficult. The post-independence narrative of a host of African countries has also been dominated by human insecurity arising out of the multivariate effects of poverty and general economic insecurity, environmental degradation, inadequate management of health related threats to survival as well as erosion in the significance of jealously guarded indigenous culture primarily through modernisation. These effects have been attributed to political instability occasioned mainly by the politics of coup d’états as well as the tradition of woeful governance and corruption that defines leadership in many of these countries. Consequently, elements of human security have traditionally not been accorded superlative positions in the thought processes of African States relative to the desire by successive regimes to hold on to power; and where they have, in such lopsided proportions that parts of the polity are palpable left out of development. Responses to these local dynamics have evolved from largely tame protests to outright militancy and terrorism. The surge towards the terrorism end of the continuum have within the last two decades obtained motivation from the relative successes of militant groups such as the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) in locking down national and sometimes global attention to their causes. It is therefore not surprising that Somalia, Mali and Nigeria, three of the countries in Africa severely challenged by the activities of organised terror groups have had infamous records of human insecurity in specific parts of their territories. In Nigeria for instance, Uzodike and Maiangwa (2012) describe the governance challenges as “a cocktail of widespread failures of state policies, inefficient and wasteful parastatal, and endemic corruption, poverty, unemployment, and extensive underdevelopment in the North of Nigeria”. Within that context, it is not surprising that Boko Haram emerged and galvanised active membership among segments of the Northern population. The franchising of Al Qaeda has also contributed to the increase in terrorist activities on the continent. Out of these loose arrangements, terrorists’ organisations in Africa, continue to adopt and adapt the modus operandi of Al Qaeda. One of the foremost organisations depicting this franchise is Boko Haram. Operating mainly from the Northern parts of Nigeria since 2002, Boko Haram claims to be fighting for the institution of Islamic rule in Nigeria. Beyond their objective, their modes of operation; a combination of suicide attacks and car bombs in civilian areas, is dangerously similar to Al Qaeda’s mode of operation. Elsewhere on the continent, a number of terrorist organisations have engineered actions that fit within the anti-western agenda of Al Qaeda but also indicate, in some cases, the localised grievances of these groups. In North Africa for instance, Al Qaeda in Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) has been engaged in some of the high profile terrorist actions against the West and its interests as well as supporters of western ideals (Masters, 2013). Their versatility, coupled with the porous borders and vast territories in the region as well as their collaboration with other like-minded organisations in the area has resulted in an expanding trans-regional terrorist network, fast gaining reputation not just for its adopted Al Qaeda tag but also a conspicuous résumé of terrorist activities. The West African Sub-Region is also home to two relatively recent terrorist organisations. Boko Haram operates mainly in Northern Nigeria and Cameroon, while Ansar Dine operates from Northern Mali. The former was formed in Maiduguri in 2002 as the Congregation and People of Tradition for Proselytism and Jihad (Onuoha, 2010). It is however known as Boko Haram, a Hausa moniker accorded to the group mainly on the basis of their proscription of western education. Similarly to AQIM, at foundation, the leaders of Boko Haram exploited Nigeria’s governance challenges particularly relating to corruption as well as socio-economic vulnerabilities which are more evident in the northern region to mobilise a base of followers, discontented with the status quo. With known links to AQIM (United Nations Security Council, 2014), and operating in a region with porous borders, the fear of Boko Haram expanding their influence is justified. In May 2013, a military offensive was launched against the group in Nigeria’s three northern states. Aided by the declaration of curfews in some cities and air strikes on identified training camps, the military indicated that the insurgents had been “halted” (Abrak, 2013). In spite of this, experience with terror cells in other parts of the world suggest that once the underlying motif is active, the dislocation arising through the decimation is merely temporal as groups and cells relocate and often hit back in a variety of revised ways. Moreover, in the particular case of Nigeria, the military has gained a reputation for exaggerating successes while downplaying setbacks (Waddington, 2014). It is therefore not surprising that subsequent to the May 2013 offensive, Boko Haram has proven to be even more organised and effective, striking key targets and conducting high profile operations such as the abduction of 200 girls from a Nigerian government secondary school in April, 2014. A further threat to the region is the presence of Ansaru, a breakaway of fringe elements in Boko Haram. Ansaru has since January, 2012 sought to enforce the fight for Islamist rule. Though a smaller group, it has sought, and perhaps obtained, recognition through high profile kidnapping and execution of western targets (Onuoha, 2013). Mali has provided another platform for brewing terrorism in Africa. With the fall of the Gaddafi regime in Libya, mercenaries armed with weapons, proliferated during the war, moved into Northern Mali where ethnic Tuaregs have been engaged in a long-running rebellion with the government in Bamako over the independence of Azawad in the North. Mobilised under the name Ansar al-Dine, this group has since 2012, engaged in various acts of terrorism, thus earning the US State Departments’ categorisation as a terrorist organisation. In the Horn of Africa, Al Shabaab continues to attract attention as arguably the continent’s most prominent terrorist organisation both in terms of its links with Al Qaeda and its ability to strike at western targets or targets considered as sympathetic to the western cause or detrimental to Islam. While it is deemed as an outgrowth of the Al-Itihaad al-Islamiya (AIAI), a radical organisation that confronted the Siad Bare regime in the early 1990s, in 2003 it began its operation as the enforcing arm of the Union of Islamic Courts (ICU), when the latter took control over Mogadishu and tried to exert a level of law and order in the Somali capital that is most notable. Following the Ethiopian intervention in December 2006, ICU was all but disbanded except for the Al Shabaab that withdrew to the south Central region of the country and launched what has become a long running insurgency first, against the Ethiopians and subsequently, troops serving under the African Union Mission in Somalia. While its objective resonates as the creation of an Islamic State of Somalia, its affiliation with Al Qaeda has meant that the group has also sought to hit targets deemed as affronts to the global jihad currently been pursued by Al Qaeda and its affiliates. The trend of terrorism around the continent is instructive of the intensifying wave of Islamic fundamentalism and the possibility of generating and sustaining training camps and recruits akin to the challenges confronted in Pakistan and Afghanistan. It also justifies the renewed focus of the US on Africa. NEGOTIATING DRONES FOR AFRICA The dynamics of terrorism in Africa are not lost to US policy makers. However, since the Somalia debacle in 1993, the US appears to have conceded to its relative weaknesses on the continent (Adebajo, 2003). This is related to the fact that it was not a colonial power and its actions on the continent during the Cold War were mostly limited to covert operations championed by the CIA. The history of US actions in Africa has therefore been more of covert ‘drone-like’ operations than open warfare such as witnessed in Iraq and Afghanistan. The current hyper predilection for drones in the US strategy is in line with the Obama Administration’s “light footprints” and ‘leading from behind policy’. Admittedly, the adoption of drones is confronted by some controversies. This can be compared to those surrounding waterboarding and other interrogation techniques applied in US detention facilities (Bellamy, 2006). Unfortunately, the debate on the utility of drones in the context of terrorism is significantly challenged by what can best be described as the ‘Pak Syndrome’. This is the reality that debates on the utility of drones are heavily influenced by their application to the war on terror in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Consequently, the application of drones are confronted by utility-blighting propaganda that merely portray drones as killer devices and negates the intelligence gathering and surveillance relevance and the impact of such intelligence to the war on terror. This includes the fact that the intelligence gathered potentially leads to the prevention of even more strikes, and by implication, more deaths by terrorists. The Pak syndrome also dilutes the complementary capacity of drones in the war on terror by highlighting legal conundrums particularly focusing on issues concerning the responsibility to fair trial for suspects and the application of principles of humanitarian law (Alston, 2010 and Sadat,2012) among others. These objections are often overrated and do not aptly reflect the reality that the war on terror is unconventional in many respects. Moreover, certain aspects of the African context peculiarly requires the utility of drones. In arguing the veracity of the latter, it is submitted that an analysis of the trend of terrorism in Africa, points to some continent-wide commonalities from the use of guerilla tactics, the exploitation of large expanses of geographical areas and the implications of Africa’s infamous porous borders on the activities of terrorist organisations. While these illuminate the nature of the terrorist threat in Africa, it is also suggestive of the strategies that are likely to make an impact in relation to managing the phenomenon of terrorism on the continent. A number of these commonalities and their implications for drone use are examined herein. A pronounced feature of the new wars relating to terrorism in Africa is the guerilla tactics (Onuoha, 2011) employed by the various terrorist organisations on the continent. The implication is that timeless principles of war, as espoused by the Geneva and Hague conventions, for instance, are not being adhered to. For Boko Haram, Ansar Dine, AQIM and Al Shabaab for instance, civilian targets are legitimate targets and so are injured US soldiers. The weapons of choice for terrorists have been decided more by availability and less by restrictions of Jus in Bello. A stark reminder of the abuse of legal principles is the attack on the US consulate in Benghazi, Libya, which, needless to say, was a violation of the inviolability of diplomatic premises; one of the preeminent provisions of post-Westphalia diplomatic relations. The tendency for non-state parties or their state sponsors to adhere to these rules of war undoubtedly points to the presence of an asymmetrical war. Unfortunately, the US is bound to largely adhere to the rules that terrorist organisations, herein considered as unconventional combatants, flout with impunity. In such an unfavorably unbalanced terrain, positive outcomes from the use of conventional security operatives even with regard to intelligence-gathering is dodgy. Africa’s disreputably porous borders and the prospects they offer for trans-regional terrorism is another reason why unconventional interventions by the US should be contemplated. As noted above, almost all the Islamic fundamentalist groups straddle entire regions with relative ease. In the case of Mali, it has been indicated, for instance, that porous borders to the North have facilitated the migration of fighters from Algeria-based AQIM as well as vestiges of the Libyan conflict to move in and operate with reasonable ease. The fact of mercenaries crossing the porous borders of Africa means that mobilising terror for cross-country objectives of hitting US and Western interests is made much easier (Dehez, 2010). The expanse of territory straddled, the multiplicity of countries operated in and the implications on sovereignty that the US will have to be confronted with in pursuit of terrorist and networks makes it more difficult for conventional forces to gather terrorism-related intelligence. On the contrary, the reconnaissance capacity of drones makes them ultimately efficient strategies in monitoring the flow of terrorist networks and illicit weapons as well as building of training camps in Africa. Thus essentially, managing the long porous borders could therefore benefit from the surveillance capabilities of drones. Related to the above is the lack of capacity of most African governments to gather and organise unimpeachable intelligence on the activities of terrorists and their networks. A number of factors account for this reality. The obvious being the lack of political commitment as manifested in the inability of governments to commit funds for developing intelligence databases countrywide and across regions. Additionally, terrorist organisations in Africa are operating on multiple fronts, adopting mutating strategies and enlisting combatants whose identities are at the least amorphous. This makes the collection of intelligence difficult and by implication, makes these wars generally less responsive to conventional deterrence strategies. In the absence of such intelligence, countries currently confronted heavily by the activities of terrorism such as Nigeria and Mali are having to depend on inadequate or inexistent intelligence to fight what is in reality, a lost battle ab initio (Amaraegbu, 2013). From the determination of terrorist cells to the identification of key members and their arrest or execution, the reality is that the war on terror is fought more on intelligence and less on brute force. As such, the utility of the surveillance and intelligence-gathering capacity of drones to African governments grappling with terrorism cannot be over-emphasised. The proliferation of weapons in Africa also makes it impossible to gauge the strategic or tactical ability of terrorist organisations. This could lead to significant miscalculations with unpredictable consequences. Particularly in Libya, where the revolutionary forces violently confronted the Gadhafi regime, the end of the war has hardly seen any meaningful programme of Disarmament, Demobilisation and Reintegration of former combatants. A number of combatants also alluded to pro-US sentiments for as long as Gadhafi was the enemy, a simple case of the enemy of my enemy being my friend. The implications of this could be obvious - the existence of many armed people fluid enough to be manipulated, proliferated arms and a growing fundamentalist rhetoric that can be mobilised for running terrorist objectives. A critical component of the US assistance to Africa as regards the war on terror must therefore relate to intelligence gathering and dissemination. The surveillance capabilities of drones are absolutely needed in these circumstances (Drew, 2010). Related to the intelligence deficit in most African countries is an infrastructural deficit that can forestall the progress of conventional troops yet can be effectively harnessed by radical groups employing guerilla-style tactics. With vast land areas virtually undeveloped, such as the Sahel Sahara region, conventional military tactics will be confronted by accessibility challenges. Such terrain however favors the guerilla tactics of Africa’s terror networks who are prone to exploit such vulnerability of conventional troops through kidnapping and suicide bombings among others. Drones on the other hand, are comparatively less prone by design to the hazards of Africa’s infrastructural deficit. In this light, drones can better overcome Africa’s infrastructural challenges to provide surveillance and intelligence data on terrorism. Finally, one of the components of the war on terror since 2001 has been America’s desire to win hearts and minds. Within the African continent, the US reputation appears to have floundered. Indeed, in terms of security, America’s record suggests an opportunistic actor interested in the continent during the Cold War days yet quick to demarcate its interests in the aftermath of the Cold War. While this is undoubtedly symptomatic of the wiles of global politics, the re-entry of the US to Africa’s security affairs based mainly on the assessed effects of African-bred terrorism and its impact on US national security should be approached with extreme caution, less funfair and more discretion. Under the circumstances, what is required is a less visible approach to intervention, one that favors the stealth operations of drones. CONSIDERING THE ANTI-DRONE SCHOOL The argument has been made that using drones against terrorists is not the most lasting way to fight the enemy. To the holders of this opinion, the targeted-killing of terrorists does not deter their fomentation. If a top operative is killed, for instance, it is just a matter of time before he is replaced. Also, the point is made that the more terrorists are attacked with drones, the more they pursue a correction of the asymmetry by targeting innocent civilians as they are in no position to hit back at the drones or their operators (Whetham, 2013). Consequently, it is argued that, to effectively fight terrorism particularly in Africa, the human insecurity generators of terrorism must be eliminated or at least, reduced considerably through transparency and accountability as well as equitable distribution of the national cake to primarily reduce internal dissent likely to fuel insurgencies. This position is sound and undoubtedly reflective of the multivariate causes of terrorism in Africa. As indicated above, for instance, the post-independence corruption and mal-governance-filled narratives of the Africa State is proven to be one of the creators of terrorism in Africa. It therefore stands to reason that the search for strategies takes into consideration aspects that rectify the challenges indicated above. Unfortunately, part of the local dynamics influencing terrorism on the continent may point to the ineffectiveness of such human security and governance-inspired strategy. Presently, for instance, the leitmotif for Africa-based terrorists has shifted or is shifting from out-and-out domestic concerns to a hard lined anti-west agenda. In such a situation, one can only be dodgy about whether the terrorists remain interested in pressurising their home governments into pursuing good governance. If governance in Nigeria improves, for instance, will Boko Haram disband? Will the group abort its objective of de-secularisation of the state? In responding in the negative, this paper suggests the presence on the continent, some terrorist organisations whose evolution and motive have no relation to Africa’s governance challenges, or who have moved beyond those challenges to represent a global jihad against the West and values largely considered as of western orientation. Thus, in reality, such terrorists are a bunch of ‘all or nothing’ intransigent killers not willing to meet anybody halfway and as such can hardly be satisfied through negotiations or good governance. This unfortunately reduces the human security and governance-inspired strategies to effective add-ons to multidimensional strategies much the same way as drones. As Olojo (2013) points out, the sources and causes of terrorism in Africa are multiple in nature and as such the best way to counter terrorism on the continent is to pursue a multi-dimensional approach. Using drones as part of the cocktail of strategies for confronting terrorism in Africa must factor in the Pak syndrome. Civilian deaths and abuse of territorial sovereignty resulting from drone usage are legitimate concerns. Notwithstanding, they are bearable opportunity costs in the war on terrorism. Although the death of non-combatants cannot be justified in absolute terms, comparatively, incidents of terrorism are resulting in the death of more civilians than American drones have accidentally killed. Moreover, the point has been made that the civilian-casualties argument against drone usage has largely arisen due to the well-publicised quality of ‘precision’ drones are supposed to have. Thus, even one civilian casualty is seen as a preventable case. Such a standard cannot be achieved by any ground combat operation. Beyond the attack functions, the intelligence-gathering utility of drones is a practical tool to fight terrorism in Africa. For instance, after Boko Haram abducted about 200 girls from a high school in Chibok, China offered help by providing satellite imagery to help Nigeria track the location of the abductees. America supported with same, as well as surveillance, intelligence and reconnaissance assets. The excellence of these capacities is undoubtedly essential to combatting terrorist attacks such as the Chibok kidnapping incident.
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	15	+Decapitation ruins Al-Qaida functionality O'Toole 15
	16	+ (Molly O’Toole is the politics reporter for Defense One. O’Toole previously worked as a news editor at The Huffington Post. She has covered national and international politics for Reuters, The Nation, the Associated Press and Newsweek International. "Is ‘Whack-A-Mole’ Working Against al Qaeda?" National Journal, http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/16/world/middleeast/pentagon-says-airstrikes-in-libya-may-have-killed-qaeda-leader.html?_r=1, 6-17-15)
	17	+The administration argues the strikes prove the United States can continue to conduct counterterrorism operations even when there are no Americans on the ground, as in Yemen, where the United States withdrew the last of its personnel in March. "We still have a global reach," Warren told reporters Tuesday. "We still retain the ability to find and kill terrorists anywhere they're hiding in the world." Administration officials also say the assassinations have hurt al-Qaida's ability to operate by taking experienced fighters off the battlefield and disrupting its command structure. "We have been patient, we have been focused, and this week, we have seen success across a broad spectrum of our anti-terror operations," Warren told reporters Tuesday before the NSC announcement. "We have reports unconfirmed, reports by al-Qaida, that their leader's dead in Yemen. We have a targeted air strike against Mokhtar Belmokhtar in Libya. We have advances across the Syrian-Turkish border in Syria. And we have continued evidence of a continued gain of momentum of our friendly forces in Iraq." But Warren seemed to struggle when asked about the impact of such assassinations. "Any time an organization loses its leader, that organization is disrupted. In some cases, the disruptions are longer than in other cases, but there's always a disruption," he said. "It causes this enemy organization to have to reorganize, it introduces a leader which could potentially create confusion among the ranks, and overall it degrades that organization's ability to conduct their operations. During reorganizations, there's vulnerability." Of AQAP's recently promoted leader, Warren said, "He will now have to live in even more fear, because we will find him and we will kill him." Rep. Adam Schiff, ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, praised the announcements Tuesday, noting that al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri is increasingly relying on a smaller group of lieutenants as ISIS challenges his group for territory and recruits. "In the case of top leadership like al-Wuhayshi, that interruption in organizational planning is all the more profound," Schiff said. But he noted the steady flow of fighters into ISIS. "Counterterrorism operations of the type reported to have taken place here must always be considered as only one element in a multipronged approach that includes building capacities of local and regional authorities, countering the flow of resources to terrorists, and working with partners in the Islamic world to defeat the ideology that attracts new recruits to replenish the ranks of those removed from the battlefield."
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	19	+If left unabated, AQ will detonate a nuclear bomb – leads to extinction
	20	+Asghar, 14 – contributor (Rizwan, “Nuclear nightmares”, Sunday Times (Islamabad), April 6, 2014, lexis)
	21	+Karachi, April 6 ~-~- When former US President George W Bush was asked, "What is the single most serious threat to American national security?", his answer was the possibility of nuclear weapons falling into the hands of Al Qaeda linked terrorists. After coming into power, President Obama also declared nuclear terrorism the most urgent national security threat to his nation. Robert Gates, the Secretary of Defense to have served under both President Obama and his predecessor, was asked in an interview, "What keeps you awake at night?" In his words, "It is the thought of a terrorist ending up with a weapon of mass destruction, especially nuclear." Despite a lot of skepticism regarding the capability and intent of terrorist organizations, the issue of nuclear terrorism has gradually emerged as a 'defining threat of the 21st century'. After 9/11 attacks, security experts have opined that a future strike on the US soil by Al Qaeda is likely to involve a nuclear weapon, which will inflict far greater damage than 9/11 incident. This apocalyptic scenario has been the plot of many famous novels and thriller movies in the US. Al Qaeda is well aware that the use of conventional means such as aircraft hijacking or ordinary explosives cannot achieve their desired results and only the use of nuclear weapons will create a political crisis of potentially unmanageable proportions. Over the past decades, Al Qaeda's top leadership has demonstrated a long-term and persistent commitment to steal, buy or manufacture a nuclear weapon. In 1994, for the first time Al Qaeda attempted to acquire uranium in Sudan to construct a crude nuclear weapon. Jamal al-Fadl, one of Al Qaeda's founding members, testified in a New York Court in 2001 that former Sudanese President Saleh Mobruk had helped Abu Khabab, Al Qaeda's chief bomb maker, in acquiring uranium from South Africa. He even gave information about payment of $1.5 million by Al Qaeda in return for getting a container full of nuclear material. In 1998, Osama bin Laden issued a fatwa that acquiring and using nuclear weapons for the defense of Muslims is a religious duty. After US-led military operation in Afghanistan dislodged Al Qaeda from Afghanistan, the group continued its efforts to acquire a nuclear device through its sleeper cells in a number of other countries. Ayman Zawahiri said in an interview that, "If you have $30 million, go to the black market in the central Asia, contact any disgruntled Soviet scientist, and a lot of dozens of smart briefcase bombs are available. They have contacted us, we sent our people to Moscow, to Tashkent, to other central Asian states, and they negotiated and we purchased some suitcase bombs." A few months after this interview, Al Qaeda released a video in which it made public its goal to kill four million Americans. In a 2007 video, Osama bin Laden repeated his intention to use nuclear weapons against the US and other European countries to pave way for the establishment of an Islamic caliphate. Due to these repeated assertions, there are widespread apprehensions that Al Qaeda might have succeeded in buying a nuclear weapon from disgruntled elements of the Russian nuclear establishment during the decade of 1990s, when control over the security of all Russian weapons and nuclear materials was not very tight. Another view propounded by some experts is that Al Qaeda might have manufactured a nuclear device after stealing nuclear materials from different countries. Mustafa Abu al-Yazid, a senior Al Qaeda operative, has even said that his group will try to use Pakistan's stockpile to strike the US if it had the chance to steal nuclear weapons from Pakistan. But the Obama administration has expressed full confidence in Pakistan's nuclear security apparatus. The international community acknowledges that Pakistan's nuclear security establishment has stored its nuclear weapons in a way that stealing a nuclear weapon is extremely difficult for Al Qaeda without 'insider' help which in itself is a distant possibility. Many intelligence reports have indicated from time to time that wealthy and politically influential personalities of Saudi Arabia have been secretly funding Al Qaeda for this purpose but Washington has kept its silence because of highly sensitive nature of its relations with Riyadh. Turki al-Faisal, the former Saudi intelligence chief, was reportedly involved in providing secret funding to Al Qaeda before 9/11. Turki has been accused of not only maintaining close ties with bin Laden after the latter fled Saudi Arabia, the former also played an instrumental role in persuading King Fahd to grant diplomatic recognition to the Taliban after 1996. According to Al Qaeda's claims, the use of nuclear weapons is essential to achieve its stated goal of 'turning America into a shadow of itself'. All nuclear powers must rise above their selfish national interests and take a concerted action to thwart the threat of nuclear terrorism. The global nuclear security regime in its present state is not well equipped to counter this kind of global threat. For example, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) failed to take action against Al Qaeda's nuclear activities during the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. Although Afghanistan is a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the IAEA showed little motivation to inspect undeclared nuclear activities. IAEA inspectors have also miserably failed to detect secret and illegal nuclear activities in many other countries. While the threat of Al Qaeda using nuclear weapons in major American cities is taken seriously at the governmental level, this issue of human survival on this planet has not acquired considerable attention in other countries like Pakistan and India. One thing is for sure that if Al Qaeda successfully detonates a nuclear weapon in any major city in the US, the contemporary international order would cease to exist, as we have known it so far.
	22	+
	23	+Also turns case – terrorist attacks incite massive racism domestically regardless of who attacks. Akrahm and Johnson 02
	24	+ (Susan M Associate Clinical Prof @ Boston U School of Law and Kevin R Associate Dean for Academic Affairs@ UC Davis, Prof of Law and Chicana/o Studies; RACE, CIVIL RIGHTS, AND IMMIGRATION LAW AFTER SEPTEMBER 11, 2001: THE TARGETING OF ARABS AND MUSLIMS; Nov 2; www.privacysos.org/sites/all/files/akram.pdf; kdf)
	25	+Times of crisis are often accompanied by hostility toward minorities in the United States. For Arabs and Muslims, this may be even more problematic, as perpetrators of hate crimes against Arabs and Muslims frequently fail to differentiate among persons based on religion or ethnic origin, from Pakistanis, Indians, Iranians, and Japanese to Muslims, Sikhs and Christian Arabs.89 The widespread perception in the United States is that Arabs and Muslims are identical and eager to wage a holy war against the United States.90 In fact, according to a 1993 report, only 12 of the Muslims in the United States at that time were Arab,91 and Arab Muslims are even a minority in the Arab-American community.92 Although there are Muslim “extremists,” the majority of Muslims are “decent, law-abiding, productive citizens.”93 Because of the lack of differentiation between different types of Arabs and Muslims, terrorist acts by small groups of Arabs and Muslims often have been followed by generalized hostility toward entire communities of Arabs and Muslims in the United States. For example, after Lebanese Shi’a gunmen in 1985 highjacked TWA Flight 847 to Beirut, beat an American on the plane to death, and held the remaining passengers hostage for over two weeks,94 violent attacks against persons of Arab and Muslim origin occurred across the United States.95 Islamic centers and Arab-American organizations were vandalized and threatened. A Houston mosque was firebombed. A bomb exploded in the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee office in Boston, severely injuring two policemen.96 Later that same year, after terrorists hijacked the Achille Lauro cruise liner and murdered a passenger, a wave of anti-Arab violence swept the country, including the bombing of an AmericanArab Anti-Discrimination Committee office that killed its regional executive director.97 In 1986, in apparent response to the Reagan Administration’s “war on terrorism” directed at Libya,98 another episode of anti-Arab harassment and violence broke out. The same night of a U.S. bombing raid on Libya, the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee national office in Washington received threats. Shortly thereafter, the Detroit American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee office, the Dearborn Arab community center, and the Detroit Arab-American newspaper received bomb threats.99 Threats, beatings and other violent attacks on Arabs were reported across the United States.100 At this time, someone broke into a Palestinian family’s home, set off a smoke bomb inside the house, and painted slogans such as “Go Back to Libya” on the walls.101 The Gulf War intensified anti-Arab hostility in the United States. The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee reported four anti-Arab hate crimes for 1990 before the invasion of Kuwait in August.102 Between the invasion and February 1991, the Committee reported 175 incidents.103 When U.S. intervention commenced in January 1991, Arab and Muslim businesses and community organizations were bombed, vandalized, and subjected to harassment.104

EntryDate

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	1	+2017-03-08 16:16:40.260

Judge

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	1	+Panel

Opponent

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	1	+Lynbrook NS

ParentRound

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	1	+80

Round

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	1	+Octas

Team

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	1	+Harvard Westlake Engel Neg

Title

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	1	+JAN-FEB - DA - AQAP

Tournament

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	1	+Berkeley