Fewer deaths from drone strikes in 2013 after Obama policy change

[Eugene]

Source: The Guardian

Fewer deaths from drone strikes in 2013 after Obama policy change

• Strikes kill up to 271 people, down from 2012 figure
• President signalled policy shift in May speech

Spencer Ackerman in Washington
theguardian.com, Tuesday 31 December 2013 20.01 GMT

President Barack Obama’s mid-year decision to wind down drone strikes has accounted for a lower number of deaths resulting from such actions in 2013, newly compiled data indicates.

Sifting through the estimates of three non-governmental organizations, the Council on Foreign Relations scholar Micah Zenko published on Tuesday a tally of drone strikes in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia, the central theaters of deadly and formally undeclared counterterrorism operations run in official secrecy.

While specific figures are difficult to narrow down and even harder to verify, the number of strikes, almost exclusively by drones, declined in 2013, as did the casualties they caused. Between the three countries, there were around 55 strikes this year, a substantial drop from the roughly 92 in 2012. In 2013 the strikes killed up to 271 people, down from an estimate of between 505 and 532 in 2012. Approximately one in every nine to 10 deaths is a civilian. The data comes from estimates compiled by the New America Foundation, the Long War Journal and the Bureau of Investigative Journalism.

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Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/31/deaths-drone-strikes-obama-policy-change

[morningfog]

1. So, approximately 30 innocent civilians murdered in 2013. That is at least 30 too many.

End the drone wars.