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May 28, 2010

Senior UN Official to Call for End to CIA Drone Strikes
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A top United Nations official is preparing to urge the Obama
administration to end CIA drone strikes on alleged militant suspects
abroad. In an interview with the New York Times, Philip Alston, the
United Nations Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary
Executions, said he will issue a report next week concluding that drone
attacks should be in the hands of regular armed forces, not intelligence
agencies. Alston says he’s based his call in large part on the complete
absence of accountability for CIA attacks. A recent report from the New
America Foundation found nearly one in three people killed by CIA drone
attacks in Pakistan is a civilian. The US is believed to have carried
out as many as 100 drone attacks in Pakistan since 2008, the majority
since President Obama took office.



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