A series of new reports has leaked out over the Internet, indicating the controversial U.S. drone strikes in Afghanistan have killed a huge number of individuals who were actually not the intended target of the attacks.
A full report published by The Intercept has revealed almost 90 percent of individuals killed from drone strikes in Afghanistan were actually civilians. This report, which is an extensive eight-part series, makes use of leaked documents on Operation Haymaker.
The report of The Intercept discloses that drone strikes from January 2012 through February 2013 in Afghanistan resulted in the killing of more than 200 individuals. Of the 219 people killed by airstrikes, 35 of these were not really the targets.
"The materials also include a chart revealing that airstrikes killed 219 people over a 14-month period in 2012 and 2013, resulting in at least 35 jackpots," reads one report from the series.
The documents were given by a source within the intelligence community who worked on the types of programs as well as operations, according to the report.
“This outrageous explosion of watchlisting — of monitoring people and racking and stacking them on lists, assigning them numbers, assigning them ‘baseball cards,’ assigning them death sentences without notice, on a worldwide battlefield," the source says. "It was, from the very first instance, wrong."
Targeted killings were implemented by the U.S. government since the attacks on Sept. 11. This was deemed a counterterrorism measure and as a punishment agains Al Qaeda as well as the Taliban.
Using unmanned drones, a number of strikes were carried out.
While the program received a wide array of critticisms, President Barack Obama has supported the strikes.
"The terrorists we are after target civilians, and the death toll from their acts of terrorism against Muslims dwarfs any estimate of civilian casualties from drone strikes," the President said way back in 2013.
The Intercept's full series of report, which it calls "The Drone Papers," can be accessed here.
In an astonishing act of civil courage, one American just shattered an unspeakable lie. https://t.co/2H81IMKPha pic.twitter.com/OwIqygfpqJ
— Edward Snowden (@Snowden) October 15, 2015
