White House to reveal death toll of US drone strikes for first time

Lisa Monaco, Barack Obama’s counter-terrorism and homeland security adviser, said expanded transparency would bolster public support for drone strikes and other counter-terrorism practices that she indicated would last “for years to come.” As Monaco spoke, the Pentagon confirmed it had conducted a massive airstrike in Somalia that left 150 people dead, one the largest casualty totals in a US military attack of the post-9/11 era. While the administration claims its drone strikes are the state of the art in precision, some of those outside accounts call the unverified claims into question. An analysis by the group Reprieve in 2014 found that the US killed 1,147 people in Pakistan and Yemen in the course of targeting only 41 men.