dronestrikes
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The Intercept publishes massive leak on America's drone strike program
The Intercept published a huge trove of secret documents Thursday morning that extensively document the Obama administration's secretive and controversial drone-based assassination program. This program sought to kill high-value enemy targets throughout Afghanistan, Yemen, and Somalia. These documents, obtained from an anonymous whistleblower, cover an enormous breadth of subjects. Documents on how the legal and logistical architectures behind the program were constructed, details on how people wind up on President Obama's "kill lists", revelations of startlingly regular intelligence flaws, internal analysis of collateral damage and the strategic limits of the program are only part of what's included in the cache. You can begin reading through the documents at The Intercept, we'll have a deeper analysis of this leak for you tomorrow. [Image Credit: The Washington Post/Getty Images]
US military wants more lethal drone strikes
Despite doubts about the effectiveness of US drone airstrikes in war-torn nations, the Pentagon wants to dramatically increase them. An unnamed official told the WSJ that military commanders intend to bump the number of daily flights by 50 percent. UAVs like the MQ-9 Reaper would not only aid with surveillance in regions like Ukraine, the Middle East and the South China Sea, but also perform more targeted missile strikes. The Pentagon says it needs the surge in drone activity -- the first since 2011 -- to deal with new conflicts in Syria, Iraq, Yemen and elsewhere.
