A new study has revealed that the Obama administration has carried out ten times more assassination drone strikes than the Bush administration which preceded it.

According to the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, the George W. Bush administration ordered 50 drone attacks while the government of current US President Barack Obama has already launched around 500 such strikes.

Obama primarily ordered assassination strikes in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia and Afghanistan.

US President Barack Obama

The United States says the CIA-run drone strikes essentially kill militants, although casualty figures show that civilians are often the victims of the non-UN-sanctioned attacks.

According to the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, civilians and children are often mistakenly killed in the drone strikes.

Since 2001, the United States has been carrying out drone attacks in several countries, including Yemen, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Somalia.

A US MQ-9 Reaper assassination drone<

The aerial attacks were initiated by Bush but have been escalated under Obama. The United Nations has called the US drone attacks targeted killings that flout international law.

Former US drone operator Brandon Bryant, who was involved in the killing of more than 1600 people, revealed earlier this year that aerial strikes are conducted with complete uncertainty.

Bryant, who worked for almost five years in America’s secret drone program bombing targets in Afghanistan and other countries, such as Pakistan and Iraq, said operators lacked visibility and were not sure about the identity of the people they were shooting at.

“We see silhouette, shadows of people, and we kill those shadows,” he said.