• In 2021, the US military conducted 439 aerial strikes. This is a 54% decrease from 2020 under President Trump.
• Most of the airstrikes in 2021 were conducted in Afghanistan prior to the US withdrawal.
• According to military records, only 67 US airstrikes were conducted outside of Afghanistan.

The US's decision to end its war in Afghanistan was a disaster. A drone strike killed 10 civilians, many of them children. A new report shows that the number of such airstrikes has fallen dramatically in the first year of Biden's presidency.

The monitoring group Airwars stated Wednesday that "the biggest take-home" was Biden's significant decrease in US military action around the world. This has led to a "far lower number of civilians killed by US strikes,"

Airwars data revealed that the US military carried out 439 air attacks in 2021. This is a 54% decrease from the previous year under President Donald Trump.

According to the group, Yemen saw the largest drop in air strikes, with 18 officially declared strikes in 2020 and no official declarations of strikes in 2021. The number of airstrikes fell 88% in Somalia where the US has long fought an al-Qaeda-linked insurgency. This is a reflection on the military defeat by the Islamic State.

Most of the military strikes conducted by Biden were in Afghanistan prior to August's departure of US forces. Airwars reported that the US had only declared 67 airstrikes excluding those attacks. They cited official US military data.

This is only official data. It does not include clandestine CIA strikes, however. It does however reflect the broad review of US military actions in other parts of the world.

Insider reported that Biden had not yet been involved in any drone strikes or other high-profile military operations. This contrasts with his predecessor, who started his presidency with a failed raid in Yemen, which killed an American citizen aged 8.

The New York Times revealed later that the White House had reduced drone strikes as part a broad policy review.

The use of drones was a controversial aspect of Obama's previous administration. They killed scores of civilians in Afghanistan, Pakistan and as part of the US war against the Taliban. Obama placed new restrictions on where and when such strikes could take place before he left office. Trump reversed the executive order Obama signed requiring that civilian deaths be reported to Congress.

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