US drone strikes were down significantly in Pakistan this past year, according to a UN report which put the number at 27. That’s quite a bit down from the past few years.
It appears to be a function of the growing outrage at the drone strikes by Pakistani officials, particularly in the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwah Province, which blockaded NATO supplies for months in retaliation for an attack on a religious school there.
Which somewhat undercuts the UN report’s determination that there were no “confirmed” civilian deaths in drone strikes on FATA, since the school wasn’t technically in FATA.
The US drone fleet in the region isn’t just sitting idle either, of course, as the UN report confirms a dramatic increase in the number of drone strikes against targets inside Afghanistan, and 45 confirmed civilian deaths in those attacks as well.