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Out Of The Shadows: Recommendations To Advance Transparency In The Use Of Lethal Force, Human Rights Clinic, Sana'a Center For Strategic Studies

Human Rights Institute

The U.S. government’s secretive and expanding use of “targeted killings” and drone strikes since the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 is highly controversial. For many years, such killings were carried out as part of counter-terrorism operations and in near-complete secrecy by the Cen- tral Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the U.S. military’s Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), including in Pakistan, Somalia, and Yemen, far from any traditional and recognized battlefield. The government did not meaningfully explain their legal basis. The U.S. government has admitted that it killed between 2,867–3,138 people between 2009–2016, in an estimated 526 strikes in areas the …