![]() ![]() A print from August 23, 2010, showed a dead boy of perhaps ten, the son of an Afghan refugee named Bismillah Khan, who lived near a compound associated with the Taliban fighting group known as the Haqqani network. There was a photo of a girl with a badly broken arm, and one of another boy, also in tears, apparently sitting in a hospital. It showed a bandaged boy weeping he appeared to be about seven years old. Many of the prints had dates scrawled on the back. Behram said he learned from conversations with editors and other journalists that if a drone missile killed an innocent adult male civilian, such as a vegetable vender or a fruit seller, the victim’s long hair and beard would be enough to stereotype him as a militant. Since then, he went on, he has photographed about a hundred other sites in North Waziristan, creating a partial record of the dead, the wounded, and their detritus. Although he was unable to photograph the victims’ bodies, he said, “I found charred, torn women’s clothing-that was the evidence.” American and Pakistani newspapers reported at the time that drone missiles had killed Al Qaeda-linked militants. He said it was taken during his first investigation, in June, 2007, after an aerial attack on a training camp. I picked up a photo that showed Behram outdoors, in a mountainous area, holding up a shredded piece of women’s underwear. In the beginning, he said, he had no training and only a cheap camera. He has been documenting the drone attacks for the Foundation for Fundamental Rights, a Pakistani nonprofit that is seeking redress for civilian casualties. For the past seven years, he said, he has driven around North Waziristan on a small red Honda motorcycle, visiting the sites of American drone missile strikes as soon after an attack as possible.īehram is a journalist from North Waziristan, in northwestern Pakistan, and also works as a private investigator. Some of the prints were curled and faded. ![]() We sat down, and Behram spilled his photos onto a table. He had a four-inch black beard and wore a blue shalwar kameez and a flat Chitrali hat. ![]() #Drone strike fullIn June, on a hot weekday morning, Noor Behram arrived at the gate carrying a white plastic shopping bag full of photographs. Illustration by Patrik SvenssonĪt the Pearl Continental Hotel, in Peshawar, a concrete tower enveloped by flowering gardens, the management has adopted security precautions that have become common in Pakistan’s upscale hospitality industry: razor wire, vehicle barricades, and police crouching in bunkers, fingering machine guns. Prelude to violence: In North Waziristan, people looked up to watch as drones circled for hours, or even days, before striking. ![]()
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