London, November 28 (RHC)-- A rights group says many civilians have been targeted and killed in US drone attacks in Pakistan and other countries where such raids are carried out. The UK-based rights group Reprieve revealed that civilians have been killed in Pakistan and other places before militants were targeted by U.S. assassination drones.

Reprieve has presented several cases on how ruthlessly the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has killed civilians but declared them militants through dubious reports in the media, which regularly cite anonymous Pakistani and US officials.

In one such case, the CIA killed 221 people, including over 100 children, in Pakistan in search of just four militants. This is while three of the militants are reportedly still alive and the fourth one has died of natural causes.

In another example, the report pointed out that on average each militant was targeted and reported killed more than three times before they were actually killed. To kill one militant, sometimes "more than 300 people have been killed," said Mirza Shazad Akbar, Reprieve's representative in Pakistan.

"A former U.S. drone operator said that by looking at the monitor and looking at people's movement, he could actually tell who is a bad person and who is a good person. This is the extent of the [U.S.] flawed intelligence," Akbar added.

The United Nations and several human rights organizations have identified the United States as the world's number-one user of "targeted killings," largely due to its drone attacks in Pakistan and Afghanistan.