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A Deadly U.S. Drone Network Grows for Killing Terrorists
(Washington Post) Greg Miller - In the past three years, the U.S. has built an extensive apparatus for using drones to carry out targeted killings of suspected terrorists and stealth surveillance of other adversaries. The apparatus involves dozens of secret facilities, including two operational hubs on the East Coast, virtual Air Force cockpits in the Southwest and clandestine bases in at least six countries on two continents. No president has ever relied so extensively on the secret killing of individuals to advance the nation's security goals. In 2009, the nation's clandestine drone war was confined to Pakistan, where 44 strikes over five years had left about 400 people dead. The number of strikes has since soared to nearly 240, and the number of those killed has more than quadrupled. U.S. officials have said that the number of "high-value" al-Qaeda targets in Pakistan has dwindled to two. A recent study counted 775 Predators, Reapers and other medium- and long-range drones in the U.S. inventory, with hundreds more in the pipeline. Over the past year, the CIA has erected a secret drone base on the Arabian Peninsula. The U.S. military began flying Predators and Reapers from bases in Seychelles and Ethiopia, in addition to a long-standing drone base in Djibouti.