L-Ne · Historical Source Library

News Source Record

# News Source Record

**L-Ne / Open-source news extract** — Original media coverage of unmanned aerial systems.

| Field | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Collection date | 25 July 2010 |
| Platform | Quiet Systems |
| Data label | Open-source news record // LRRK collection product |
| Handling | Public-source material. Image rights require separate verification before publication. |
| Scale | National |
| Language | English |
| Terms matched | unmanned drone; Reaper; Predator; drones; Hellfire |

## Bibliographic

| Field | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Outlet | The Guardian |
| Title | Afghanistan war logs: Reaper drones bring remote control death |
| Dateline | 25 July 2010 |
| First publisher | yes |
| Original URL | https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/jul/25/reaper-drone-missions-afghanistan-flights |
| Archive URL | — |
| Dedup key | 2010-07-25|the-guardian|wikileaks-war-logs-reaper |
| Source grade | A1 |

## Record

**Verified extract — [Fact — A1]** The Guardian, from the WikiLeaks war logs, described the Reaper as a heavily armed unmanned drone flying at 50,000 ft, about $13m each, with up to $100,000 per Hellfire and a payload of four Hellfires plus two 500 lb GBU-12 smart bombs. Caption and body said 97 missiles had been fired by British Reapers in Afghanistan since 2008. A 29 August 2009 log had US soldiers watching live Reaper video of a fighter pulling weapons from a culvert cache, then signalling a Nevada bunker pilot who loosed a missile on a vehicle (US claimed three insurgents). A 30 June 2009 Khakrez log had a Nevada pilot drop a laser-guided bomb then three Hellfires on fleeing fighters and a fourth on two more at a rock pile, with a Predator providing overwatch (up to seven Taliban said killed). A 28 October 2008 Kandahar log had a remote pilot fire a Hellfire at insurgents with 82 mm mortars then another at two "squirters." On 27 October 2009 a Reaper bombed "murder holes" after 2nd Battalion The Yorkshire Regiment (Green Howards) was attacked near Nad-e Ali, Helmand; the log said two Taliban were killed. The RAF, "third in the queue after the US air force and the CIA," deployed its first Reaper in Afghanistan in June 2008; British Reapers had flown more than 11,500 hours in a purely surveillance role and fired 97 missiles; they fly from Kandahar for maintain/refuel; MoD said no civilians killed. On 13 September 2009 a "rogue Reaper" headed for Tajikistan with a full load; an F-15 shot it down short of the border.

**Kinematic object.** Armed Reaper (Hellfire + GBU-12); Predator overwatch; RAF Reapers from Kandahar, flown from Nevada.

**Coverage frame.** military / incident

## Source integrity

- Why this is treated as an original: Guardian first-publisher war-logs analysis of named Reaper/Predator missions.
- Wire reprint status: Not a wire reprint.
- What was excluded: other WikiLeaks war-log stories that do not centre UAVs.

## LRRK relevance

Watch / Campaign / Control Fabric. A Watch desk would have recorded the 97-missile RAF tally, Creech remote fire, and a lost-control Reaper shot down near Tajikistan.

*LRRK — security assurance for systems that sense, move, and act.*

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