Interpol, the international criminal police organization, has been an especially popular tool of the autocrats to hunt down their critics. Authoritarian regimes have become savvier about using the internet and social media to track and spy on dissidents. Mr. Kadyrov’s quote is uncomfortably similar to what former President George W. Bush’s press secretary Ari Fleischer said after the C.I.A. had conducted its 100th drone strike in Pakistan, a country with which the United States was not at war. His administration also ordered the first targeted killing of an American by drone without due process, the strike on Anwar al-Awlaki, a Yemeni American imam, in 2011.

Source: International New York Times August 28, 2021 18:56 UTC