WASHINGTON — The Obama administration will disclose how many people have been killed by U.S. drones and counterterrorism strikes since 2009, the White House said Monday, lifting one element of secrecy shrouding the controversial counterterrorism program.

Both combatants and civilians the U.S. believes have died in strikes from the skies will be included in the report, which covers the period since President Barack Obama took office. It won’t cover major fighting zones like Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan, but will focus on the shadowy regime of strikes against extremist targets in other regions such as North Africa.

In recent years, the U.S. has conducted counterterrorism strikes in Pakistan, Libya, Yemen and Somalia, among other places.

In the most recent example, a weekend strike using multiple drones and manned aircraft killed more than 150 al-Shabab fighters in Somalia, the Pentagon said Monday.

A barrage of missiles and bombs hit a site called Raso Camp, where the U.S. had been watching fighters from the al-Qaida-linked group prepare for a suspected large-scale attack, said Navy Capt. Jeff Davis. He said there were no known civilian casualties.

Lisa Monaco, Obama’s counterterrorism and homeland security adviser, said the assessment would be released “in the coming weeks,” casting it as part of a commitment to transparency for U.S. actions overseas. Monaco said the figured would be disclosed annually in the future, although it will ultimately be up to Obama’s successor to decide whether to continue the practice.

“We know that not only is greater transparency the right thing to do, it is the best way to maintain the legitimacy of our counterterrorism actions and the broad support of our allies,” Monaco said at the Council on Foreign Relations.

Yet key questions will remain unanswered, including the full scope of the U.S. drone program. The U.S. doesn’t publicly disclose all the places its drones operate, so the report isn’t expected to detail specific countries where people died.

Instead, it will offer an aggregate assessment of casualties outside of areas of “active hostilities,” a designation that takes into account the scope and intensity of fighting and is used to determine when Obama’s specific counterterrorism policies apply.

Iraq and Syria, where U.S. airstrikes are pummeling the Islamic State group, currently are on that list and won’t be in the report, said a senior administration official who wasn’t authorized to comment publicly and requested anonymity.

The casualty report marks the latest attempt by Obama to shore up credibility for the drone program, which has attracted fierce criticism from civil rights advocates but plays a key role in Obama’s strategy of targeting extremists without encumbering the U.S. in massive on-the-ground military operations.

In 2013, Obama tightened rules for drone attacks, requiring that a target poses a continuing and imminent threat and that the U.S. is near-certain that no civilians will be killed.

Deaths have declined significantly since then, although the furtive nature of the program has continued to fuel concerns about unintended consequences and lack of oversight.

Civilian deaths from drone strikes have fomented anger among local populations in places like Pakistan, fueling anti-American sentiment that has vexed U.S. efforts to seek greater security cooperation from foreign governments.

U.S. lawmakers and human rights groups have long pressed for more transparency about civilians killed by U.S. drones, but those calls have traditionally faced opposition from the U.S. intelligence community.