Washington: The Biden administration has disclosed a set of rules secretly issued by President Donald Trump in 2017 for counterterrorism “direct action” operations - like drone strikes and commando raids outside conventional war zones - which the White House has suspended as it weighs whether and how to tighten the guidelines.
While the Biden administration censored some passages, the visible portions show that in the Trump era, commanders in the field were given latitude to make decisions about attacks so long as they fit within broad sets of “operating principles,” including that there should be “near certainty” that civilians “will not be injured or killed in the course of operations.”
Biden administration releases Trump-era deadly force rules for terrorist suspects abroad
The Biden administration disclosed Trump-era rules on Friday regulating the use of deadly force against terrorism suspects abroad, releasing them with several redacted lines to the American Civil Liberties Union and the New York Times as part of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit after the Trump administration refused to make them public.
The rules, which President Joe Biden suspended on his first day in office while his administration began reviewing them, according to the Times, have come under criticism for making exceptions to standards about how and where “direct action” attacks were allowed outside war zones.
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