All drone strikes must be cleared by me, says Biden

In the first two months of the new administration there have been no reported drone strikes against al-Qa’ida or ISIS targets.

A US RQ-4 Global Hawk unmanned surveillance and reconnaissance aircraft.

America’s drone war against terrorists has stopped after President Joe Biden ordered that the White House will decide which strikes are carried out by the CIA and the Pentagon’s special operations forces.

In the first two months of the new administration there have been no reported drone strikes against al-Qa’ida or Islamic State targets in countries such as ­Afghanistan, Somalia, Yemen or Libya, pending a review of their use.

On his first day in office, Mr Biden ordered the military and the CIA to seek approval from the White House for any drone ­attacks in countries where US troops have only a small presence. The undisclosed order was confirmed by the Pentagon this week. Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said the new rule represented ­interim guidance “to ensure the President has full visibility on proposed and significant actions”.

All requests from the military and CIA now have to be reviewed by the National Security Council, headed by Jake Sullivan, the ­National Security Adviser. Mr Biden has asked for a full review of the legal and policy frameworks covering the use of drone attacks.

“The review includes an examination of previous approaches in the context of evolving counter-terrorism threats in order to refine our approach going forward,” Emily Horne, spokeswoman for the National Security Council, said this week.

The decision by the President reverses the approach adopted by Donald Trump, who left it to ­regional military commanders and the Pentagon to approve drone strikes when they felt they were needed for operational reasons or when targets became available. However, the armed drone strike in Baghdad on January 3 last year that killed major general Qasem Soleimani, Iran’s foreign operations commander, had Mr Trump’s personal approval.

For years there have been differences of opinion about whether the CIA should be primarily responsible for armed drone strikes to target terrorists. The multiple attacks that took place against al-Qa’ida terrorists hiding in Pakistan during the administrations of Barack Obama and George W. Bush were carried out by the CIA.

However, in recent years the Pentagon’s Joint Special Operations Command has taken ­priority over the CIA for drone strikes. The enhanced political control over such strikes will primarily affect potential targets in Somalia, Yemen and Libya, where the US is not engaged on the ground in a war zone.

“It’s too early to come to grips with what reality is going to be or the impact it’s going to have on specific parts of the world or on specific terrorist targets,” Rear Admiral Kirby said.

However, it is an indication that Mr Biden will not be following the example of Mr Obama, whom he served as vice-president, when hundreds of drone attacks took place. Between 2009 and December 31, 2015, a period covering most of Mr Obama’s tenure, the CIA and military launched 473 strikes, mostly using drones, which killed between 2372 and 2581 terrorist “combatants”.

The Times