World

White House Tightens Rules on Counterterrorism Drone Strikes


WASHINGTON – President Biden signed a top-secret policy restricting counterterrorism drone strikes outside of conventional war zones, tightening rules that President Donald Trump has loosened for a 21st-century method of warfare, according to officials.

The policy that the White House sent to the Pentagon and CIA on Friday, institutionalizes a version of temporary limit which Mr. Biden’s team quietly offered on his inauguration day as a backstop to reduce risks to civilians while the new administration reviews the counterterrorism policies it has inherited from Mr. Trump.

A description of this policy, along with a newly classified counterterrorism strategy memorandum that Biden also signed, shows that amid competing priorities in a volatile world, The United States intends to conduct fewer drone strikes and commando raids farther from recognized war zones than it does. in the recent past.

The policy requires Mr Biden’s approval before a suspected terrorist is added to the list of people who could be targeted for “direct action”, in order to return to centralized control. over decisions about targeted killing operations that are the hallmarks of President Barack Obama’s second term. Mr. Trump has assigned field commanders at higher latitudes to decide who to target.

The New York Times has not yet seen a copy of the classified document, which officials call the PPM, for the president’s policy memo. But it was described by a senior administration official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to explain key aspects of it.

In a statement, Liz Sherwood-Randall, Mr. Biden’s hometown security adviser who oversaw a 20-month review that led to the changes, acknowledged that the policy was “completed and well-characterized” is directing the government to be “intelligent and agile in defending Americans against the evolving global terrorist challenges”.

She added: “The President’s Guidelines for the use of lethal action and arresting operations outside of areas of hostile activity require that U.S. counterterrorism operations be met. the highest standards of accuracy and rigor, including the identification of appropriate targets and the reduction of civilian casualties”.

The Biden administration’s rules apply to strikes in poorly regulated places where Islamist militants are active, but the United States does not consider them a “hostile activity zone.”

Only Iraq and Syria – where the US military and its partners are battling the remnants of the Islamic State – are currently considered conventional war zones where the new rules will not apply and the new directives will not apply. Field commanders would retain the greater latitude to order air strikes or counterterrorism raids without the official saying they were seeking White House approval.

That means the rules would restrict any such activity in a number of other countries where the United States has carried out drone strikes in recent years, including Afghanistan, Somalia and Yemen, as well as tribal areas of Pakistan.

The number of counter-terrorism attacks and drone attacks in some of the affected countries has decreased in recent years. The last US drone strikes in Pakistan and Yemen were in 2018 and 2019, According to the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies’ Long War Journal. In August, a US drone strike in Afghanistan killed the leader of Al Qaeda, Ayman al-Zawahri.

The policy requires that it is “almost certain” that the target is a member of a terrorist group approved for so-called “direct action” and that it is “almost certain” that no civilians will be killed. or injured before pulling the trigger, the official said.

Operators are also required to obtain the consent of the chief of the State Department mission in a country before carrying out a strike there, the official said.

By limiting approval of targeting to specifically named people, the policy does not allow a tactic that could increase the risk of making the mistake of killing civilians: so-called signed attacks, attack people without knowing their identity based on suspicious patterns.

However, the rules do allow Biden to seek permission for other types of strikes in unusual circumstances. And the rules do not require White House approval for strikes taken in self-defense, such as the so-called collective self-defense of partner forces.

Many of the airstrikes in Somalia, where US forces are helping build up government troops to fight the militant group Al Shabab, were seen as acts of collective self-defense by partners – including an attack. on September 18 that the military said. kill 27 Shabab warriors who attacked Somali forces.

Counter-terrorist drone strikes targeting militants in remote and poorly managed areas – where there are no police to catch those plotting terrorist attacks – have become a form of warfare. new competition, causing legal and policy dilemmas. Four presidents have now struggled over how to use and limit the technology.


What we consider before using anonymous sources. Do the sources know the information? What is their motivation to tell us? Have they proven reliable in the past? Can we verify the information? Even if these questions are satisfied, The Times still uses anonymous sources as a last resort. Reporters and at least one editor know the source’s identity.

The CIA used a new armed drone to kill a fighter in 2002, following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. During the 2002 attack, the attack destroyed a The car was carrying a suspected member of Al Qaeda in Yemen.

Towards the end of the George W. Bush administration, the government purchased more armed drones, and airstrikes on Pakistani tribal areas skyrocketed.

Drone attacks were on the rise even earlier in the Obama administration, including in Yemen with the emergence of a dangerous Qaeda affiliate. And as the frequency of airstrikes increased, airstrikes occurred in which the military or CIA mistakenly killed civilians.

In 2013, Mr. Obama sought to impose more control over drone warfare by enacting new limits on “direct action” operations far from war zones. the. In 2017, Mr. Trump replaced those guidelines with a looser set of rules, which Mr. Biden laid out in January 2021.

Mr. Biden’s rules are said to state that the United States will conduct such strikes in other countries in accordance with domestic and international law – both areas where the government’s interpretations is the subject of several disputes.

In terms of domestic law, the government often claims that it has the legal authority to attack terrorist suspects under the Military Force Use Authorization that Congress issued in the wake of the September 11 attacks. Presidents of both parties have stretched that law beyond the original version of Al Qaeda in Afghanistan to cover many other groups and locations.

In terms of international law, this policy is said not to delve into cases where the United States believes it can conduct strikes in another country without the consent of that country’s government. according to a disputed theory that local governments are unwilling or unable to suppress a threat emanating from their territory.

The policy also says that in order to be placed on the kill or capture list, a target must be considered “a continuing and imminent threat to the people of the United States,” the official said.

Currently, the Biden administration does not make the text of their drone strike rules public. Nor did it release a classified national security memorandum that included a new international counterterrorism strategy, a development that Ms. Sherwood-Randall oversaw in parallel.

This strategy is supposed to deal with the way the terrorist threat has evolved over time – it’s more pervasive, ideologically diverse, and geographically dispersed – and that the United States should prioritize threats amid competition and resource constraints, including those related to Russia, China, cybersecurity, climate change, and the coronavirus pandemic.

The strategy is also said to emphasize other measures to reduce the risk of terrorism, including working with partner forces and supporting civilian law enforcement capabilities abroad, while considering action to be taken. force of the United States as a worthy instrument.

Under Mr Trump’s system, the White House approved a “national plan” that sets broad standards for specific areas in which operators have greater latitude to select targets.

The Biden system still envisions national plans that would include things like local logistics and determine what militant groups operating there are eligible to target.

The new counterterrorism rules differ from Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III’s attempt to strengthen the Pentagon’s procedures to prevent civilian deaths in general military operations. That includes the usual battlefield areas, which Afghanistan is still considered to be in August 2021, when Army drone attack in Kabul killing 10 innocent people in the midst of a chaotic American withdrawal.

The review also considers whether to reinstate Obama’s directive, rescinded by Mr. Trump, that requires the government to annually disclose its best knowledge of the number of militias and civilians it has received. killed in anti-terrorist air strikes or not. Congress has specifically required the military to make some of that information public.

But for now, the White House has not yet reinstated the Obama-era directive as it applied to the CIA.

However, the review locked some standards higher than those that seemed to prevail in the Trump era.

The Biden-era standard of “almost certainly” that no civilian will be killed applies equally to adult males in an area where an attack can occur against women, the official said. children. The Trump-era rules also have a “almost certain” standard that no civilians are harmed in a strike but are said to have allowed for systematic exceptions as long as the procedures are important. dose is complied with.

Officials familiar with the matter have described some of the nation’s plans in the Trump era, which are still classified, as allowing for a lower standard – “reasonable certainty” that there will be no civilians. injured – in assessing the condition of adult men in a potential attack area.

But it’s still unclear what the “almost certain” standard means in practice. Army announced this month, they carried out an attack in Somalia that apparently killed Abdullahi Nadir, a longtime Shabab leader.

Initially, the military said he was the only person killed in the attack – but later realized that a second person, also believed to be a Shabab fighter, was also killed, according to officials familiar with the matter. problem. Both appeared to be in a car at the time of the attack.

Senior officials at the Pentagon and the White House have questioned how operators can meet the “almost certain” standard if they don’t realize there’s a second person. A spokesman for Africa Command acknowledged that the strike was under review.

Eric Schmitt Reporting contributions from Stuttgart, Germany.

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