A US senator has said an estimated 4,700 people, including civilians, have been killed in the contentious bombing raids of the secretive US drone war, local media reported on Wednesday.

It was the first time a lawmaker or any government representative had referred to a total number of fatalities in the drone strikes, which have been condemned by rights groups as extrajudicial assassinations.

The toll from hundreds of drone-launched missile strikes against suspected al-Qaida militants in Pakistan, Yemen and elsewhere has remained a mystery, as US officials refuse to publicly discuss any details of the covert campaign.

But Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, a staunch supporter of the drone raids, openly cited a number that exceeds some independent estimates of the death toll.

"We've killed 4,700," Graham was quoted as saying by the Easley Patch, a local website covering the small town of Easley in South Carolina.

"Sometimes you hit innocent people, and I hate that, but we're at war, and we've taken out some very senior members of al-Qaida," Graham told the Easley Rotary Club.

Graham's office did not dispute his reported remarks but suggested that he had not divulged any official, classified government figure.

A spokesman said the senator "quoted the figure that has been publicly reported and disseminated on cable news".

His remark was unprecedented, as US officials have sometimes hinted at estimates of civilian casualties but never referred to a total body count.

"Now this is the first time a US official has put a total number on it," said Micah Zenko, a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.

If there was an official death toll estimate, it would be classified as secret, he added, raising the prospect that Graham could have broken secrecy laws.

Several organizations have tried to calculate how many militants and civilians may have been killed in drone strikes since 2004 but have arrived at a wide range of numbers.

The figure cited by Graham matches the high end of a tally by the London-based Bureau of Investigative Journalism. It says the number killed in drone strikes in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia is between 3,072 and 4,756.

The Washington-based New America Foundation says there have been 350 US drone strikes since 2004, most of them during Barack Obama's presidency. The foundation estimates the death toll at between 1,963 and 3,293, with 261 to 305 civilians killed.

US intelligence agencies and the White House have refused to divulge details about the strikes, which are officially termed classified, but officials have suggested that few if any civilians have been killed inadvertently.

Despite criticism from lawmakers and rights advocates who have questioned the secrecy and the legality of the drone attacks, Graham defended Obama's reliance on the unmanned, robotic aircraft.

"It's a weapon that needs to be used," Graham said. "It's a tactical weapon. A drone is an unmanned aerial vehicle that is now armed."

Agence France-Presse

(China Daily 02/22/2013 page11)