Only 4% of people killed by US in Pakistan were Al-Qaeda members

President Barack Obama has largely developed his targeted killing program. Once a week, he oversees a meeting of his security officials in a White House basement to decide who will be his next victims, reported the New York Times [1].

The Nobel Peace Prize winner justified his action by claiming that all he is doing is taking out the leaders of the Al-Qaeda terrorist network [2].

A study by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, conducted jointly with Amnesty International, Reprieve and the Center for Civilians in Conflict, reveals that during the past year, the United States unlawfully killed in Pakistan 2,379 people. Only 704 of the victims have been identified. Of these, merely 84 were known to be members of al-Qaeda, or 4% of the total number of victims [3].

With an annual budget of over $ 10 billion, the United States Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) operates covertly in 78 states, mainly Pakistan, Afghanistan and Yemen, "to eliminate the terrorist threat" [4].

One may of course pretend that the US military consists of an incompetent bunch of people who violate international law by drawing a lottery, or question the wonder about the real goals of the "war on terror".