Memorial Day weekend brought news of more U.S. drone attacks in Pakistan and Afghanistan as The New York Times raises new questions about President Obama's so-called "Kill List" of terrorists targeted for assassination. An extensive report in Tuesday's paper looks at the use of targeted attacks to take out terrorism suspects in other parts of the world, an increasingly important part of the government's anti-terrorism policies that Barack Obama himself has taken personal responsibility for. According to the story, the President approves every name on the list of terrorism targets, reviewing their biographies and the evidence against them, and then authorizing "lethal action without hand-wringing."
As the president has slowly drawn down American forces in Afghanistan and Iraq, the use of drone attacks to take out senior leaders of al-Qaeda and the Taliban has become the primary tactic for fighting terrorism overseas. However, it raises a lot of legal and ethical questions about extra-judicial killings of individuals, particularly those who happen to be American citizens.
And there's no doubt that that strikes are continuing. NATO announced that a "precision air strike" killed Sakhar al-Taifi over the weekend, who is described as al-Qaeda's "second most senior figure in Afghanistan." Then on Monday, three separate strikes by unmanned drones killed 12 people in Pakistan, where air strikes have strained relations between the two nations.
Read the full story at The Atlantic Wire.
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