Drone shock: U.S. covers up the casualties

A shocked Asia learned on the weekend that the United States has been carrying out drone attacks far more extensive and deadly than previously believed - and covering up civilian casualties.

News agencies carried the story developed by the website of The Intercept, a muck-raking and often anti-American medium that has long featured articles and documents produced by whistleblowers, including the infamous Edward Snowden.

In news revealed during the weekend, The Intercept unveiled documents leaked by a whistleblower about America's use of unmanned aerial vehicles to kill terrorist targets in the Middle East and Central Asia.

"The whistleblower who leaked the drone papers believes the public is entitled to know how people are placed on kill lists and assassinated on orders from the president," Barack Obama, the lead article said.

The papers turned over by the whistleblower claim that U.S. President Barack Obama and high-ranking officals in his administration have under-reported the true and known number of civilians deaths in drone strikes in South Asia, the Middle East and eastern Africa.

The Intercept published several stories and released a cache of classified files.

The papers say that the U.S. military policy requires all fatalities from drone strikes to be listed as "enemy killed in action" unless each specific identity is known. This includes casualties who were not the intended targets, according to the documents.

The paper trove also seems to show that drone attacks often kill far more people than intended. Obama's administration has said since it took office in 2009 and expanded the drone war that targeting is careful, strikes are precise and "collateral damage" has been kept minimal.

Sunday morning newspapers around Asia had major headlines such as "Civilian drone deaths downplayed, secret files show" (Bangkok Post, Thailand) and "US killer drone programs: Americans, wake up to what government's doing!" (Russia Today, a web newspaper).

In an ironic side note, NBC News reported that the U.S. federal government plans to announce a new policy that will require anyone buying a commercial drone to register it with the Department of Transportation, the biggest step yet in regulating the growing drone industry. It is expected that a licensing program will follow to force every drone owner to file a "flight plan" before using the aircraft.