© 2024 KUNR
Illustration of rolling hills with occasional trees and a radio tower.
Serving Northern Nevada and the Eastern Sierra
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations
KUNR’s spring fund drive is happening now, and your gift to the station will go twice as far with a matching pledge from the KUNR Advisory Board!

Now is the time to act –
click here to make a gift to KUNR today or increase your sustaining membership and have it matched.

Drone Strike Deaths Raise Questions

President Barack Obama makes a statement in the Brady Briefing room at the White House April 23, 2015 in Washington, DC.  President Obama talked about a US drone strike that targeted a suspected al Qaeda compound in Pakistan but inadvertently killed an American and Italian being held hostage by the group.  (Mark Wilson/Getty Images)
President Barack Obama makes a statement in the Brady Briefing room at the White House April 23, 2015 in Washington, DC. President Obama talked about a US drone strike that targeted a suspected al Qaeda compound in Pakistan but inadvertently killed an American and Italian being held hostage by the group. (Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

Italy says it wants more information from the United States about how an Italian aid worker was killed in a U.S. drone strike on the Afghan-Pakistani border.

President Barack Obama revealed yesterday that Italian Giovanni Lo Porto and American Warren Weinstein, both held hostage by al-Qaida, were accidentally killed during the drone strikes in January.

Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni says Italy takes note of Obama’s “maximum transparency” in assuming responsibility for the deaths, but he says Italy wants more information about what happened.

Here & Now’s Robin Young speaks to security analyst Jim Walsh with MIT’s Security Studies Program about the issue of unintended drone casualties and whether this incident will change the way the U.S. uses drones.

Guest

  • Jim Walsh, Here & Now security analyst, an expert in international security at MIT’s Security Studies Program. He tweets @DrJimWalshMIT.

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.