US Air forces AH-64 Apache helicopter participates in Saber Strike military exercise at Central pylon in Tapa, Estonia on June 20, 2016. Saber Strike is an annual U.S.-led exercise of land and air forces. (Xinhua/Sergei Stepanov)
WASHINGTON, July 1 (Xinhua) -- The White House announced on Friday between 64 and 116 civilians were killed in U.S. strikes outside areas of active war zones from 2009 to 2015.
In its first public assessment of civilian casualties of U.S. counterterrorism strikes, the White House said in a summary released on Friday that as many as 473 U.S. strikes were conducted in Pakistan, Libya, Yemen, Somalia and North Africa.
Civilian casualties in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria were not included in the summary.
Few details were offered about the strikes and the people who were killed, provoking criticism from human rights groups which called for more transparence into the U.S. counterterrorism strikes, especially the U.S. drone program.
On the eve of the first public assessment of civilian casualties by the White House, the human rights group Amnesty International on Thursday welcomed the rare step, but also argued that without more details, it would remain to be impossible to assess the accuracy of the federal data.
"Our independent investigations certainly tell a different story," said Amnesty International in a statement, citing a case of a female civilian called Mamana Bibi, whose death caused by a U.S. drone strike in front of her grandchildren while gathering vegetables in a field had "never been acknowledged or explained by the U.S. government."
The drone war, initiated in the wake of 9/11 terrorist attacks by former U.S. President George W. Bush, continues to be one of the Obama administration's trump cards.
According to the Bureau of Investigative Journalism (BIJ), a British non-profit, the Obama administration conducted its first drone strikes shortly after Obama began its presidency in 2009. Although there were reports of alleged "militants" killed, said the group, at least 14 civilians were also killed that day.
Up till Friday, the U.S. government had kept almost all information relevant to its drone attacks classified, including the civilian casualties.
