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![Extract from Wikipedia article "Civilian casualties from the United States drone strikes"
#Approvals of drone strikes
During the Obama administration, proposed U.S. drone strikes in locations outside active war zones (i.e., in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia) required high-level approval.[24][25] The Obama administration process for approving drone strikes in such locations featured centralized, high-level oversight, based on intelligence about individuals suspected of terrorism activity.[25] Obama's approval was required for every strike in Yemen and Somalia, as well as "the more complex and risky strikes in Pakistan" (about one-third of the total as of 2012), and insisted on deciding whether to approve a strike unless the CIA had a "near certainty" that no civilian deaths would result.[24] The process, formalized in a 2013 Presidential Policy Guidance document, was intended to reduce civilian casualties and blowback risks by requiring the targeted person to present a "continuing and imminent threat" to Americans.[25] The process often required multiple interagency meetings to decide whether to go forward with a strike.[25] However, some U.S. military and intelligence officials opposed the restrictive nature of the system,[25] and some Republicans criticized it as too cautious.[24] However, in the pre-strike review, Obama "embraced a disputed method for counting civilian casualties" that effectively counted "all military-age males in a strike zone as combatants, according to several administration officials, unless there is explicit intelligence posthumously proving them innocent."[24] Counterterrorism officials defended this approach on the idea that people located in close proximity to known terrorists were likely combatants; some Obama administration officials were critical of this approach, who said that it led to implausibly low official counts of civilian deaths, with one administration official telling the New York Times that it amounted to "guilt by association."](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:pembolnjf2k32tuvi4cum5yd/bafkreih47wp7itxqhxwp273wytp7stnzd6ngun4aaa6bkzdy2575r6iuti@jpeg)