On this day in 2009, Obama approved his 1st drone strike, hitting a civilian home, killing 9 civilians in Pakistan and severely injuring 14 year-old Faheem Qureshi. Hours later, a 2nd drone strike hit a separate home in Pakistan, killing 8 more civilians, including 3 children. 
Obama's first drone strike hit around 5pm on Jan 23, 2009. It was allegedly targeting Taliban militants; however, the missiles hit the family home of 14 year-old Faheem Qureshi, who was with his uncles and neighbors who were chatting, cracking jokes and sipping tea.
When the strike hit, Qureshi remembers feeling like his body was on fire. He ran outside, wanting to throw water on his face, but the strike had blinded him.
It took nearly 40 days for Qureshi to emerge from a series of hospitals, all of which he spent in darkness. Shrapnel had punctured his stomach & left lacerations over much of his upper body.
Doctors operated on the entire left side of his body, which had sustained burns, and used laser surgery to repair his right eye. They could not save his left. He also suffered a fractured skull and lost hearing in one ear.
Two of Qureshi’s uncles, Mohammed Khalil and Mansoor Rehman, were dead. So was his 21-year-old cousin Aizazur Rehman Qureshi. Fourteen of Qureshi’s cousins were left fatherless.
Barely a teenager, Qureshi was suddenly an elder male, tasked with providing for his mother, brothers and sisters. Once a promising student who wanted a career in chemistry, he was now forced to scrounge a living. The family never had the money to repair their home.
Qureshi remembered thinking to himself in his hospital bed during his month-long blindness: “What did I do for which I was punished so badly? What did my family do? Why did it happen to me?”
“There are so many people like me in Waziristan that I know of who were targeted and killed who had nothing to do with militancy or the Taliban,” Qureshi said, “so many women who have been killed, children who have been killed, but there is still no answer to this."
Qureshi acknowledges he will never be a chemist. His best hope, is to open a small business. All his academic hopes will transfer to sponsoring his two brothers’ educational ambitions. He hopes he can afford it: “I don’t know how they can study if I can’t provide for them.”
Qureshi and his attorney have sought compensation through the Pakistani tribal liaison, the US embassy and the UN Human Rights Council, but none have been successful. The US has never even acknowledged it was responsible.
Hours after the drone strike on Qureshi’s family home, a separate strike hit Malik Gulistan Khan‘s family's home (also in NW Pakistan), killing 7 family members including 3 of his sons (the youngest 3 years-old)
The day after the drone strikes, the Washington Post described them as strikes on "terrorist hideouts".
