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The United States has killed four of its own citizens in drone strikes in Yemen and Pakistan, the Barack Obama administration has formally acknowledged.
Eric Holder, the US attorney general, said in a letter addressed to congressional leaders on Wednesday that three of those killed were not targets of the strikes involving drones in Yemen and elsewhere.
Holder named the four dead US citizens in a letter to members of Congress one day before President Obama is scheduled to deliver an address on the use of drones.
The letter defends the killing of Anwar al-Awlaki, the one dead American who was an intended target of a drone strike in September 2011, the letter said.
"The decision to target Anwar al-Awlaki was lawful, it was considered, and it was just," he wrote.
"The [Obama] administration is determined to continue these extensive outreach efforts to communicate with the American people," the attorney general wrote.
Al Jazeera's Tom Ackerman, reporting from Washington DC, said that the other three killed in the drone strikes were not intentional victims.
He said the administration also named Jude Kenan Mohammed, a US citizen who has gone to Pakistan from North Carolina and who had been indicted by a jury on charges of murder and kidnapping.
Ackerman said Obama's speech on Thursday will lay out the criteria and justification for the government's drone assassintation policy.
The letter appears to be an effort to respond to criticisms against the Obama administration over a perceived lack of transparency, particularly concerning its "counterterrorism" abroad.
Al Jazeera's Nadim Baba said Amnesty International pointed out in its new report that US policy appears to permit "extrajudicial executions" in violation of international law.
Obama defends US use of drones
President says maintaining drone strikes overseas is part of US being "at a crossroads" in defeat of terrorism.
Last Modified: 23 May 2013 19:25
Protesters outside Fort McNair where President Obama spoke, called for the end of lethal drone strikes [Reuters]
President Barack Obama has defended his country's controversial drone attacks as legal, effective and a necessary tool in an evolving US counterterrorism policy.
But addressing an audience at the National Defence University on Thursday, he acknowledged the targeted strikes are no "cure-all" and said he is haunted by the civilians unintentionally killed.
Obama framed his speech as an attempt to redefine the nature and scope of terror threats facing the US, noting the weakening of al-Qaeda and the impending end of the US war in Afghanistan.
"So America is at a crossroads. We must define the nature and the scope of the struggle, or else it will define us," said Obama, saying that threats to diplomatic facilities must be dealt with as well as "homegrown extremists".
His speech came a day after his administration revealed for the first time that a fourth American citizen had been killed in secretive drone strikes abroad.
Guantanamo Bay a 'glaring exception
The speech also reaffirmed Obama's 2008 campaign promise to close the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, where terror suspects have been held.
Obama said the US is is committed to "capturing terrorist suspects" and prosecuting them.
"The glaring exception to this time-tested approach is the detention centre at Guantanamo Bay," said Obama.
"When I ran for president the first time, John McCain supported closing Gitmo. No person has ever escaped from one of our super-max or military prisons in the United States," said Obama.
"Our courts have convicted hundreds of people for terrorism-related offences, including some who are more dangerous than most Gitmo detainees....there is no justification beyond politics for Congress to prevent us from closing a facility that should never have been opened," said the president, who was heckled by a person in the audience on the issue of forcefeeding hunger-striking detainees at Guantanamo Bay.
Obama pressed on, saying he had called on the US congress to "close a facility that should have never been opened".
He was interrupted repeatedly by a woman who shouted "I love my country, I love the rule of law. The drones are making us less safe".
The White House said on Wednesday that Obama's speech coincided with the signing of new "presidential policy guidance'' on when the US can use drone strikes.
Drafts of the guidance reviewed by counterterrorism officials gave control of drone strikes outside Pakistan and Yemen to the US military, enshrining into policy what is already common practice, according to two US officials briefed on the proposed changes.
Drone controversy
Obama has pledged to be more open with the public about the scope of the drone strikes. But a growing number of legislators in Congress are seeking to limit US authorities that support the deadly drone strikes, which have targeted a wider range of threats than initially anticipated.
"America cannot take strikes wherever we choose," said Obama, saying that such strikes "save lives."
He acknowledged civilian deaths as "a hard fact" that will "haunt us as long as we live."
The speech comes amid growing impatience in Congress with the sweeping authority it gave the president after the September 11, 2001, attacks in light of the targeting of suspected terrorists with lethal drone strikes.
Republicans and Democrats fear that they have given the president a blank check for using military force worldwide.
Shifting the responsibility of some of the drone programme from the Central Intelligence Agency to the military has given Congress greater oversight of the secretive programme and members say they want even more.
Under the draft guidance, the CIA drone programme would remain up and running, to target al-Qaeda in Pakistan's tribal areas, with US troops drawing down in Afghanistan and concern rising that al-Qaeda might return in greater numbers to the region.
The military and the CIA currently work side by side in Yemen, with the CIA flying its drones over the northern region out of a covert base in Saudi Arabia, and the military flying its unmanned aerial vehicles from Djibouti.