According to the complaint filed to the US District Court of Columbia, the journalists "bring this action to prohibit defendants from placing and maintaining them on a 'Kill List' (also referred to as a 'Disposition Matrix'), which has resulted in their being targeted for death."
"Plaintiffs’ inclusion on the Kill List is the result of arbitrary and capricious agency action, accomplished without due process, and in violation of the United States Constitution and U.S. and international law," the complaint said, adding that the algorithms and methodologies used by the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to identify potential terrorists "result in the unjustified killing of innocent people."
Kareem, who is a US citizen reporting from Syria, claims in the lawsuit that he "narrowly avoided being killed by five separate air strikes, at least one of which was carried out by a drone."
According to the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, during Obama's two presidential terms, a total of 563 strikes, largely carried out by drones, were conducted in Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen alone, resulting in deaths of an estimated 384 to 807 civilians. The figures, according to the Bureau, do not include the numbers of those killed in active battlefields. Official White House data estimates the number of civilian casualties to be up to 116.
