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Two Journalists File Lawsuit Against Trump Over 'Kill List'

© AP Photo / Alex BrandonUS President Donald Trump speaks on the phone
US President Donald Trump speaks on the phone - Sputnik International
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Former Al Jazeera Islamabad bureau chief Ahmad Zaidan and freelance journalist Bilal Kareem filed a joint lawsuit against US President Donald Trump over allegedly being kept on the so-called "Kill List," which contains individuals targeted by the United States for deadly drone strikes over their alleged affiliation with terrorist organizations.

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MOSCOW (Sputnik) — In May 2015, files leaked to the media by whistleblower Edward Snowden showed that Zaidan was placed on a US watch list of suspected terrorists as a member of al-Qaeda in 2012. Zaidan conducted a series of interviews with senior members of al-Qaeda, including Osama bin Laden, and is one of the only two journalists that interviewed bin Laden before the events of September 11, 2001. Despite being added to the "Kill List" under Barack Obama’s presidency, Zaidan and Kareem decided to file the lawsuit against Trump, as neither had been removed from the list.

According to the complaint filed to the US District Court of Columbia, the journalists "bring this action to prohibit defendants from placing and maintaining them on a 'Kill List' (also referred to as a 'Disposition Matrix'), which has resulted in their being targeted for death."

"Plaintiffs’ inclusion on the Kill List is the result of arbitrary and capricious agency action, accomplished without due process, and in violation of the United States Constitution and U.S. and international law," the complaint said, adding that the algorithms and methodologies used by the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to identify potential terrorists "result in the unjustified killing of innocent people."

Kareem, who is a US citizen reporting from Syria, claims in the lawsuit that he "narrowly avoided being killed by five separate air strikes, at least one of which was carried out by a drone."

According to the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, during Obama's two presidential terms, a total of 563 strikes, largely carried out by drones, were conducted in Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen alone, resulting in deaths of an estimated 384 to 807 civilians. The figures, according to the Bureau, do not include the numbers of those killed in active battlefields. Official White House data estimates the number of civilian casualties to be up to 116.

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