Drones

Obama Will Finally Own Up to Drone War Dead

Terror leaders around the world have cited the drone war as a reason for others to join their ranks. The release of the order and official tally will likely, in the short term, only add to the controversy.

In the West, perhaps the most well-known civilians killed by a drone strike were American Warren Weinstein and Italian Giovanni LePorto, who were being held by al Qaeda in Pakistan, when a January 2015 U.S. strike targeting the deputy al Qaeda leader in the Indian Subcontinent killed the two hostages as well.

But they were not the only innocents taken out. Independent groups put civilian death tolls in the hundreds, sometimes in the thousands—and have said the U.S. has not been honest about who has been killed. For example, Reprieve, a human rights group dedicated to studying the drone war, estimates that 4,700 people in all have been killed in the U.S. drone war. And a 2013 McClatchy report found that despite U.S. assertions that drone strikes had killed top level al Qaeda members, classified documents show that the strikes have also killed hundreds of lower level militants.