[AIN] RE: DRONE STRIKES - UK NATIONALS & DUAL-CITZ

• Document Type: FOIA
• Collection: FOIA Collection
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 06380020
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: March 8, 2023
• Document Release Date: October 4, 2019
• Case Number: F-2014-00434
• Publication Date: March 20, 2014

Approved for Release: 2019/10/01 C06380020
From:
Sent:
To:
Cc:
Subject:
Mark Mazzetti
Thursday, March 20, 2014 5:47 PM
[AIN] Re: Drone strikes - UK nationals & dual-citz
CLASSIFICATION: UNCLASSIFIED
(b)(6)
(b)(3)
(b)(6)
(b)(3)
Eric is bouncing around this evening and tomorrow AM. I'm on a train now, so probably best to wait
AM to call. How about I call in the morning? Best Mark
(b)(3)
I think
until tomorrow
Sent from my iPhone
On Mar 20, 2014, at 5:08 PM,
wrote:
(b)(3)
Eric, just tried your office
that's preferable.
and cell. Let us know when we could give you a call.
Tomorrow is fine, too, if
(b)(3)
Media Spokesman
CIA Office of Public Affairs
(b)(3)
(b)(6)
From: Schmitt, Eric
Sent: Thursday, March 20, 2014 10:10 AM
To:
(b)(3)
Cc: Mark Mazzetti
Subject: Drone strikes
- UK nationals & dual-citz
(b)(3)
Mark Mazzetti and I are helping a NYT colleague in London with an article about the British
1
Approved for Release: 2019/10/01 C06380020
Approved for Release: 2019/10/01 C06380020
practice of stripping citizens of their citizenship as punishment for terrorism-related offenses.
Our colleague noticed that several individuals who were stripped of their British citizenship were
later targeted by U.S. drone strikes. This begs the larger question, what type of
cooperation/coordination is there between the U.S. and the U.K. in those cases when the U.S.
carries out drone strikes against individuals who are or were British citizens?
In addition to that broader question, here are some specific questions related to specific cases:
1) Are the names of nationals from allied countries on the so-called U.S. kill list communicated
to those allied countries? For example, British nationals Ibrahim Adam and Mohammed Azmer
Khan are both believed to have been killed by a drone strike in Waziristan in November
2011; Abdul Jabbar a year earlier. Did London know they were targets?
2/ Specifically, in the case of Bilal Berjawi, a former dual British-Lebanese national linked to al-
Shabab who was deprived of his UK citizenship in October 2010 and killed by a US drone in
Somalia in February 2012 within hours of calling his wife in London on his cell phone, was there
any communication between the US and British government about either the stripping or the
droning or both? Had Berjawi been on any Kill List and did London know?
3/ Ditto with Mohamed Sakr, former dual Egyptian-British national also linked to al-Shabab and
childhood friends with Berjawi, stripped in Oct. 2010 and droned in February 2012.
4/ Why was Mandi Hashi, who was stripped of his British citizenship when he was in Somalia in
the summer of 2012 and then picked up and detained by the U.S. in Djibouti a couple of months
later, sent to a high-security prison in New York? Why was it decided that he would be tried in
the U.S. and not in his former home, the U.K., or in Africa?
Anything you can provide on these specific cases and/or the issue more broadly would be very
helpful.
Thanks,
Eric & Mark
Eric Schmitt
New York Times
202.862.03420
2
Approved for Release: 2019/10/01 C06380020