AP sources: Obama to reveal civilian deaths from drones

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama is expected to disclose as early as Friday the number of civilians killed in U.S. military and CIA drone strikes in Pakistan, Yemen and Africa since he took office and will issue an executive order that makes protecting civilians a more integral part of planning U.S. military operations, according to activists and other individuals familiar with the report.

While sketchy details often emerge about individual drone strikes, the full scope of the U.S. drone program — a key tool of Obama's counterterrorism strategy — has long been shrouded from view.

Reprieve, an international human rights organization based in New York, claims that the Obama administration's previous statements about the drone program have been proven to be false by facts on the ground and the U.S. government's own internal documents.