War on terror

SPECIAL ANALYSIS - Killing Grounds: Trump Inherits Obama’s So-Called ‘Kill List’ For Drone Strikes

For all his reservations over the veracity of the information that the intelligence agencies provide, there is one thing President-Elect Donald Trump needs to get over quite quickly. He will have to learn to trust the briefings he will be given, almost weekly, on the activities and locations of key terrorists on what has been known as President Obama’s “Kill List.”

This is the list of people who pose an immediate and direct threat to the United States and its allies. Arguably, this is the most important database maintained by the collective intelligence services of the allies. It’s more formerly known as the “Disposition Matrix,” and was created by the Obama administration in 2010. It is the centrepiece of a framework of analysis that allows the intelligence agencies to advise the President on the various ways to neutralise, either through killing or arrest, anyone on the list.

The list of targets on the intervention board has not been going down. When it was created, unnamed intelligence officials were quoted as saying the size of the list was going to expand for “at least another decade.”