Rights groups renew call for further disclosures on drone strikes

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http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/12/05/210724/rights-groups-renew-call-for-further.html


Rights groups renew call for further disclosures on drone strikes
McClatchy Washington Bureau
December 5, 2013 Updated 16 hours ago

Nine human rights and legal rights groups have called anew on President Barack Obama to provide more details of U.S. targeted killing operations, saying that he has not made any new information public since he delivered a speech on the controversial counter-terrorism tactic nearly seven months ago.

The organizations on Thursday made public a letter that they sent Wednesday to Obama in a bid to keep pressure on the administration to provide greater transparency into the top-secret operations, which are mainly carried out by unmanned missile-firing drone aircraft.

“Your speech left many important questions unanswered, and since then the U.S. government has not publicly disclosed any further information about its targeted killing operations,” the groups wrote to the president.

In his May 23 address at the National Defense University, Obama said the operations would continue, but he indicated that they'd be under tighter restrictions. He sought to explain necessity of the operations, insisted that they are legal under U.S. and international law and justified a 2003 drone strike that killed Anwar al Awlaki, an American who played a prominent role in al Qaida’s branch in Yemen.