The US has now publicly acknowledged killing Anwar
al-Awlaki and three other US citizens
US President Barack Obama is due to
defend his administration's use of drone strikes, in a major speech on
counter-terrorism.
He is expected to offer some transparency over the strikes, amid reported moves to restrict their scope.
The speech comes a day after the US said publicly for the first time that drones had killed four US citizens.
In Thursday's speech, Mr Obama will also address his aim of closing the US detention camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Last month, the US president pledged a new push to transfer the remaining prisoners from the facility, saying it was "contrary to who we are" and harmful to US interests.
'Traditions and laws'
Administration officials said the president would discuss on Thursday "why the use of drone strikes is necessary, legal and just, while addressing the various issues raised by our use of targeted action".
Continue reading the main story
The armed drone has become the signature weapon in America's "war on terror".
But their use raises a variety of complex legal and ethical issues, quite apart
from practical arguments as to whether the drone strikes themselves are
effective.
Unintended civilian casualties are one problem. So too is the legal basis for such attacks in countries where the US is not directly at war. Another problem is that many of these strikes are overseen by the Central Intelligence Agency rather than the US military.
There is, though, now a sense of a shift in US thinking. The number of drone strikes in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia have declined significantly over recent years. President Obama clearly wants to address some of the criticisms. But while Washington's drone wars may be contained, they will not be abandoned altogether.
Analysis
Unintended civilian casualties are one problem. So too is the legal basis for such attacks in countries where the US is not directly at war. Another problem is that many of these strikes are overseen by the Central Intelligence Agency rather than the US military.
There is, though, now a sense of a shift in US thinking. The number of drone strikes in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia have declined significantly over recent years. President Obama clearly wants to address some of the criticisms. But while Washington's drone wars may be contained, they will not be abandoned altogether.
The speech at the National Defense University in
Washington coincides with the signing of new "presidential policy guidance" on
when drone strikes can be used, the White House said.
The policy document sharply curtails the instances in which drones can be used in places that are not overt war zones, such as Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia, the New York Times reported.
It was unclear whether Mr Obama would offer any specifics about the drone policy, which remains shrouded in secrecy, or about a reported shift of responsibility for many drone strikes from the CIA to the Pentagon.
Such a shift would give Congress greater scrutiny over the drone programme.
White House spokesman Jay Carney said on Wednesday that Mr Obama "believes that we need to be as transparent about a matter like this as we can".
"It is his belief that there need to be structures in place that remain in place for successive administrations,'' Mr Carney said, so that counter-terrorism policy is "conducted in a way that ensures that we're keeping with our traditions and our laws".
Human rights groups have long condemned the use of unmanned drones to carry out killings.
Dixon Osburn of Human Rights First welcomed the White House pledge for more transparency, but said in a statement he remained "deeply concerned that the administration appears to be institutionalizing a problematic targeted killing policy without public debate".
'Imminent threat'
Wednesday's disclosure of the drone killings in Yemen and Pakistan marked the first formal public acknowledgement of the US citizen deaths in drone strikes.
Continue reading the main story
Drone strikes
- Four US citizens killed in strikes since 2009
- Bureau of Investigative Journalism has recorded 368 drone strikes in Pakistan since 2004, 46-56 confirmed strikes in Yemen since 2002
- Vast majority carried out under Barack Obama
In a letter to the
Senate judiciary committee, US Attorney General Eric Holder defended the
targeted killing in 2011 of Anwar al-Awlaki, whom he described as a "senior
operational leader" of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.
He said that officials "appropriately concluded that [Awlaki] posed a continuing and imminent threat" to the US.
Awlaki, who was born in the US state of New Mexico, was killed in a missile strike from an unmanned plane in Yemen in September 2011.
Samir Khan, a naturalised US citizen who produced an online magazine promoting al-Qaeda's ideology, died in the same missile strike.
Awlaki's 16-year-old son Abdulrahman, who was born in Colorado, was killed in Yemen a month later.
Mr Holder also confirmed that Jude Kenan Mohammad, a North Carolina resident with a Pakistani father and an American-born mother, had been killed in a drone strike.
Mohammad is thought to have died in a strike in November 2011 in Pakistan's South Waziristan region.
Mr Holder said only Awlaki had been "specifically targeted and killed", and that the other men "were not specifically targeted by the United States".
1 comment:
Sometimes a personal trainer Manhattan will tell you an actual purge regimen or maintaining drink.
It's costly to run a business that is dependent on "new" customers.
my webpage - biuro detektywistyczne
Post a Comment