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UN Expert Body Raises Concerns Over US' Ongoing Practice of Overseas Drone Ops

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - The UN Human Rights Committee on Friday voiced its concerns over the United States' continuing practice of using armed drones in lethal counterterrorism operations overseas and the country's opaque criteria for such strikes.
Sputnik
"The Committee remains seriously concerned at the continuing practice of the State party of killings in extraterritorial counter-terrorism operations using armed drones," the expert body said in its periodic report.

Additional concerns included "the lack of full and continuous transparency regarding the legal and policy criteria for drone strikes, the alleged possibility of variations through classified plans, as well as the lack of accountability for the loss of life and for other serious harm caused, particularly to civilians."

Committee Vice-Chair Jose Manuel Santos Pais told a briefing in Geneva that the strikes had killed 1,500 civilians since January 2021, and no perpetrators have been brought to justice yet.
The US considers those extraterritorial counterterrorism operations to be part of its armed conflict with al-Qaeda* and forces associated with the terrorist group, thus in line "with its inherent right of national self-defence," the report said.
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"[The Сommittee] reiterates its concern about the State party's broad approach to the definition of 'armed conflict,' including an overbroad geographical and temporal scope," it added.
The body also expressed its concerns that the US had made too few payments to affected civilians and their families in recent years.
* organization banned in Russia
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