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The United States said Tuesday that it will allow for the first time the export of armed drones to some allied countries. 

Armed drones are a cornerstone of Washington's military strategy against armed groups and militants in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, Syria, Iraq and Yemen.  

"The United States is the world's technological leader in the development and deployment of military Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS, or drones)," the State Department said in a statement. 

"As other nations begin to employ military UAS more regularly and as the nascent commercial UAS market emerges, the United States has a responsibility to ensure that sales, transfers, and subsequent use of all US-origin UAS are responsible and consistent with US national security and foreign policy interests, including economic security, as well as with US values and international standards."  

The statement did not say which countries would be customers, but several allies are eager to get their hands on the hardware, with The Washington Post citing Italy, Turkey and the Gulf.  

So far, the United States has sold its armed drones only to close ally Britain, the newspaper said.  

"The technology is here to stay," a senior State Department official told the Post. "It's to our benefit to have certain allies and partners equipped appropriately."  

Drones are hugely controversial with many campaging against their use, pointing to the devastating impact these weapons have on civilains. 

, which tracks the use by the USA of these weapons, estimates that almost 2,500 people have now between killed by covert US drone strikes since Barak Obama inauguration six years ago. 

eserch by the Bureau of shows that of the total killed since Obama took office in 2009, at least 314 have been civilians, while the number of confirmed strikes under his administration now stands at 456.

The Bureau says that there have now been nearly nine times more strikes under Obama in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia than there were under his predecessor, George W Bush. 

And the covert Obama strikes, the first of which hit Pakistan just three days after his inauguration, have killed almost six times more people and twice as many civilians than those ordered in the Bush years, the data shows.  

Covert US drone attacks are run in two separate missions. one by the CIA and one for the Pentagon by its secretive special forces outfit, Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC).

In Yemen, there has been at least one confirmed drone strike since the start of 2015, with another attack suspected to be by a drone.  These strikes have already killed between 3 and 7 people, two of them civilians including Muhammed Tuaiman, a 13 year old child from Marib.

In a submitted to the 27th Session of the UN Human Rights Council, several human rights and civil rights organizations including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the American Civil Liberties Union expressed concerns about state practices of targeted killings and the use of armed drones.

They urged UN member states are to support and take steps to monitor and promote meaningful transparency and legal compliance by states with regard to their targeted killing policies and practices.

The organizations called on states to publicly disclose their targeted killing standards and to ensure that their use of lethal force operations abroad complies with international law.