Jake Sullivan, President Biden’s national security adviser, issued the new limits on drone strikes the day Mr. Biden was inaugurated.Credit...Stefani Reynolds for The New York Times
Requiring higher-level approval is a stopgap measure as officials review whether to tighten Trump-era targeting rules and civilian safeguards.
WASHINGTON — The Biden administration has quietly imposed temporary limits on counterterrorism drone strikes and commando raids outside conventional battlefield zones like Afghanistan and Syria, and it has begun a broad review of whether to tighten Trump-era rules for such operations, according to officials.
The military and the C.I.A. must now obtain White House permission to attack terrorism suspects in poorly governed places where there are scant American ground troops, like Somalia and Yemen.
Under the Trump administration, they had been allowed to decide for themselves whether circumstances on the ground met certain conditions and an attack was justified.
Officials characterized the tighter controls as a stopgap while the Biden administration reviewed how targeting worked — both on paper and in practice — under former President Donald J. Trump and developed its own policy and procedures for counterterrorism kill-or-capture operations outside war zones, including how to minimize the risk of civilian casualties.
The Biden administration did not announce the new limits. But the national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, issued the order on Jan. 20, the day of President Biden’s inauguration, said the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.
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WNU Editor: Another leak from the Pentagon and/or the intelligence community on a secret Biden policy.
A prediction.
On the policy of drone strikes the White House is going to return to the Obama-era approach that was characterized by centralized oversight and high-level vetting of intelligence about individual terrorism suspects. Bottom line. A return to the White House micromanaging drone strikes.
More News On the Biden Administration Secretly Limiting Drone strikes
Biden orders temporary limits on drone strikes outside war zones -- Washington Post
AFRICOM needs White House approval for airstrikes, report says -- Stars and Stripes
