A UN report accuses the United States of downplaying the number of civilians killed in anti-terrorist drone operations, while failing to assist in the investigation by releasing its own figures.

With the increased use of remotely piloted aircraft in military operations in a number of countries, the nagging question of civilian "collateral damage" as a consequence of these deadly technologies is a growing concern for the United Nations and human right groups.

In Afghanistan, for example, the number of aerial drone strikes surged from 294 in 2011 to 447 during the first 11 months of 2012, according to data released by the US Air Force in November 2012, UN Special Rapporteur Ben Emmerson noted in his interim report, which is due to be presented to the UN General Assembly next Friday.

Pakistan officials confirmed that out of 2,200 deaths "at least 400 civilians had been killed as a result of remotely piloted aircraft strikes and a further 200 individuals were regarded as probable non-combatants."

Although the first missile test-fired from a drone occurred in February 2001, it wasn't until the end of 2012 that the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) released data showing that 16 civilians had been killed and 5 injured due to drone strikes during the course of the year.

In its latest published figures, covering the first six months of 2013, UNAMA documented 15 civilian deaths and 7 injuries in seven separate attacks by drone aircraft.

Emmerson's 24-page document mentions a report by a US military advisor that contradicted official US claims that drone attacks were responsible for fewer civilian deaths compared with other aerial platforms, for example, fighter jets.

It was an innocuous e-mail, one of millions sent every day by spouses with updates on the situation at home. But this one was of particular interest to the National Security Agency and contained clues that put the sender's husband in the crosshairs of a CIA drone.

Days later, Hassan Ghul - an associate of Osama bin Laden who provided a critical piece of intelligence that helped the CIA find the al-Qaeda leader - was killed by a drone strike in Pakistan's tribal belt.

The U.S. government has never publicly acknowledged killing Ghul. But documents provided to The Washington Post by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden confirm his demise in October 2012 and reveal the agency's extensive involvement in the targeted killing program that has served as a centerpiece of President Obama's counterterrorism strategy.

An al-Qaeda operative who had a knack for surfacing at dramatic moments in the post-Sept. 11 story line, Ghul was an emissary to Iraq for the terrorist group at the height of that war. He was captured in 2004 and helped expose bin Laden's courier network before spending two years at a secret CIA prison. Then, in 2006, the United States delivered him to his native Pakistan, where he was released and returned to the al-Qaeda fold.

But beyond filling in gaps about Ghul, the documents provide the most detailed account of the intricate collaboration between the CIA and the NSA in the drone campaign.

The Post is withholding many details about those missions, at the request of U.S. intelligence officials who cited potential damage to ongoing operations and national security.

Press TV has conducted an interview with Jim W. Dean, the managing editor and columnist at the Veterans Today from Atlanta, to talk about the rise of al-Qaeda-linked militants in northern Syria which has left Turkey with a new security threat and raised serious speculations about Ankara's policy towards the crisis in the Arab country.

The following is an approximate transcription of the interview.

Press TV: Jim Dean, we could look at how Turkey began going against Assad and there was one point of which the government there of Erdogan was supporting the group that is known as Jabhat al-Nusra and the belief that it was the most effective fighting force against Assad, but then you had the US that came and put that on the list of terrorist organizations.

So, it started from there, the beginning of this foreign policy of Turkey to kind of start falling apart. What happened there? What began with Turkey regarding the support that they were giving these groups such as Jabhat al-Nusra?

Dean: Well, it is just a classic mistake that you always find bigger powers often do. They always think that the war is going to be short, so they never worry about long-range consequences and you had, at the beginning, Turkey felt that because they were in NATO, they had protection from being very aggressive because if Syria retaliated, they were providing staging areas for the rebels which legally under international law makes you a combatant and Syria had the right actually to shell or even bomb and attack those staging areas.

But Turkey would have loved to have had that happened because they would have then invoked NATO that a NATO country has been attacked. So initially that was one of the redlines that they were trying to get Assad to cross over and then when that did not work and things started dragging out, they thought they could collapse the government through defections.

The Western media has hidden that they have had 300 to 350 assassinations of government officials which is really a huge number and then that did not collapse and that is when they started to get a little panicky and that is when they started searching all of the hovels of the Middle East for every dirt bag, every gangster, every kidnapping gang they could find and let them know that there was money to be made in Syria and they started organizing jailbreaks to bring in experienced Jihadi fighters and the idea there was very simple and that would divert Assad's forces and take heed of the Free Syrian fighters and they would have a two-flank war which they could collapse Syria that way and that has not worked.

So, now what they have done is they have released a bunch of Frankensteins that even after this Syrian situation is over, you are now going to have these very highly trained gangsters out of work and there is going to be people willing to offer them money, arms and ammunition to go somewhere else and create mayhem. So, what we have created here we are going to be dealing with for at least 25 years.

Report says CIA attacks led to civilian deaths and casualties and says US protocols are 'hurdle to transparency'

A United Nations investigation has so far identified 33 drone strikes around the world that have resulted in civilian casualties and may have violated international humanitarian law.

The report by the UN's special rapporteur on human rights and counter-terrorism, Ben Emmerson QC, calls on the US to declassify information about operations co-ordinated by the CIA and clarify its positon on the legality of unmanned aerial attacks.

Published ahead of a debate on the use of remotely piloted aircraft, at the UN general assembly in New York next Friday, the 22-page document examines incidents in Afghanistan, Yemen, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Pakistan and Gaza.

It has been published to coincide with a related report released earlier on Thursday by Professor Christof Heyns, the UN's special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, which warned that the technology was being misused as a form of "global policing".

Emmerson, who travelled to Islamabad for his investigation, said the Pakistan ministry of foreign affairs has records of as many as 330 drone strikes in the country's north-western tribal areas since 2004. Up to 2,200 people have been killed - of whom at least 400 were civilians - according to the Pakistan government.

Pulitzer Prize winner explains how to fix journalism, saying press should 'fire 90% of editors and promote ones you can't control'

Seymour Hersh has got some extreme ideas on how to fix journalism - close down the news bureaus of NBC and ABC, sack 90% of editors in publishing and get back to the fundamental job of journalists which, he says, is to be an outsider.

It doesn't take much to fire up Hersh, the investigative journalist who has been the nemesis of US presidents since the 1960s and who was once described by the Republican party as "the closest thing American journalism has to a terrorist".

He is angry about the timidity of journalists in America, their failure to challenge the White House and be an unpopular messenger of truth.

Don't even get him started on the New York Times which, he says, spends "so much more time carrying water for Obama than I ever thought they would" - or the death of Osama bin Laden. "Nothing's been done about that story, it's one big lie, not one word of it is true," he says of the dramatic US Navy Seals raid in 2011 [see footnote].

If Seymour Hersh says in a forthcoming book the tale of the death of Osama bin Laden at the hands of U.S. SEALS is "one big lie" and "not one word of it is true," President Obama may be hard pressed to avoid impeachment.

Over a lifetime of journalism, investigative reporter Hersh has acquired a deserved reputation for honesty, accuracy, reliability, and integrity that is unmatched in his profession and if he says the bin Laden account is a fake, you can take it to the bank.

Hersh told The Guardian, Britain's investigative daily, "Nothing's been done about that story." A Pakistani report on the killing of bin Laden, Hersh says, was published with considerable U.S. input and is "a bullshit report." bin Laden allegedly was killed by a U.S. SEAL team in Abbottabad, Pakistan, May 1, 2011.

Actor and former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is working to change the law so he can mount a 2016 presidential run, according to a New York Post report.

The newspaper quotes unnamed sources who say the actor, who's in New York City to promote his latest movie, "has been talking openly about working on getting the constitutional rules changed."

The source said the 66-year-old Schwarzenegger, a Republican, intends to file the necessary paperwork to challenge the rules.

The U.S. Constitution forbids foreign-born citizens from holding the chief executive position, but some legal experts have said it's not completely clear that courts would enforce the law instead of letting voters decide.

Constitutional amendments require two-thirds majority approval in both the House and the Senate and then must be ratified by at least 38 of the 50 states.

Life is good if you're a member of the Gulf Counter-revolution Club, officially known as Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). You can crush the Arab Spring at will. You can hire goons all across dar-al-Islam to advance a sectarian Sunni-Shi'ite divide. You can be deeply implicated in the destruction of Syria. You can treat a significant part of your own population as third-class citizens.

Not only you get away with it; you get rewarded with expensive toys. And in one particular case - Saudi Arabia - even with a two-year seat at the UN Security Council.

Not to mention that the House of Saud expertly gets away with manipulating Islam as the pillar of its "legitimacy". The House of Saud controls the Hajj - which took place this week; an enormous logistical operation that "legitimizes" its role as leader of Sunni Islam, and automatically, the whole Islamic world. Well-informed Muslims though are very much aware of the fallacy - as much as they're aware of how the House of Saud is fast transforming Mecca into a Vegas-style pay-per-prayer luxury resort. Who's profiting? Certainly not the pilgrims.

This week, the US Defense Security Cooperation Agency announced it had notified congress about selling more state-of-the-art heavy metal for Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). That breaks down into "various munitions and associated equipment, parts, training and logistical support" to Riyadh for US$6.8 billion and to Abu Dhabi for $4 billion.

• The ship, owned by U.S security firm AdvanFort, was stopped on Saturday

• 33 crew men including six Britons, have been detained by Indian police

• They claim that a weapons haul onboard was not properly declared

• But AdvanFort say that the ship was part of an anti-piracy operation

The crew of a U.S-owned ship have been arrested by Indian police accused of entering Indian waters illegally with a stockpile of weapons on board.

The Indian coast guard stopped the ship, which belongs to security firm AdvanFort, on Saturday and detained 33 crew members.

AdvanFort claims that the ship has been supporting an anti-piracy initiative in Asia but Indian authorities say that they found weapons that had not been properly declared.

Three British organizations said Thursday that they had filed a legal challenge in the European Court of Human Rights to the online surveillance programs of the British spy agency the Government Communications Headquarters. The groups are seeking to have the court declare the collection of metadata, including e-mails and social media messages, in secret programs revealed by the American intelligence analyst Edward J. Snowden to be an illegal breach of the right to privacy.