White House to release data on drone strikes

The White House for the first time will release casualty figures from its controversial drone program, officials said on Monday, amid criticism that the airstrikes often kill civilians instead of the intended terror targets.

Lisa Monaco, President Barack Obama’s top homeland security adviser, said the administration will publish a review of its air strikes on terror targets worldwide, disclosing casualty figures for both fighters and civilians.

The planned report comes after a 2013 pledge by Obama to provide more transparency in its drone program that has become a keystone in America’s counterterrorism efforts, amid criticism that the program is too opaque and frequently kills innocent civilians.

“In the coming weeks, the administration will publicly release an assessment of combatant and non-combatant casualties resulting from strikes taken outside areas of active hostilities since 2009,” Monaco said in remarks made during a speech at a Washington think tank.

The report will be published annually, she said.

A seemingly ever-expanding global war against extremist groups means the United States relies heavily on drones to monitor hostile lands and launch missiles at suspected extremists in countries such as Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen.

Obama has drastically expanded the drone program during his tenure, but his administration provides scant information on strikes.

Critics say many drone strikes kill civilians, and the aircraft alienate and radicalize local populations on the ground.

A report by the nonpartisan Stimson Center think tank last month gave the Obama administration a failing grade in three areas: a lack of progress on releasing information on targeted drone strikes, developing better accountability mechanisms and explaining the US lethal drone program’s legal basis.

US strikes have sometimes killed Westerners, such as in January 2015 when Al-Qaeda hostages American Warren Weinstein and Italian Giovanni Lo Porto were killed in a raid. Obama expressed his “deepest apologies” to their families.