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NPR
"An American citizen who is a member of al-Qaida is actively planning attacks against Americans overseas, U.S. officials say, and the Obama administration is wrestling with whether to kill him with a drone strike and how to do so legally under its new stricter targeting policy issued last year," those officials tell The Associated Press.The wire service writes that "four U.S. officials said the American suspected terrorist is in a country that refuses U.S. military action on its soil and that has proved unable to go after him."
The Washington Post, which has followed up on the AP report, writes that "U.S. officials" it has spoken with "said that no decision has been reached on whether to add the alleged operative to the administration's kill list, a step that would require Justice Department approval under new counterterrorism guidelines adopted by President Obama last year."
CNN writes that a senior U.S. official says "high-level discussions" are under way about "staging an operation to kill an American citizen involved with al-Qaida and suspected of plotting attacks against the United States."
That network adds that the official "declined to disclose any specific information about the target or the country the suspect presides in."
McClatchy
WASHINGTON — There was bipartisan consensus after the 9/11 attacks, in Congress and among Americans, that the United States would never again ignore rising threats in distant lands and allow al Qaida or other terrorist groups to gain sanctuary as it had in Afghanistan.More than a dozen years ago, nine days after the World Trade Center fell and the Pentagon burned, President George W. Bush told a joint session of Congress: “The only way to defeat terrorism as a threat to our way of life is to stop it, eliminate it and destroy it where it grows.”
Lawmakers leapt to their feet and burst into applause; Bush’s approval rating soared.
Now the black flag of al Qaida flies in Fallujah, the group and its offshoots are spreading across the Middle East and Africa, and their fighters are battling for control of cities not only in Iraq but also in Syria, Lebanon and beyond.
The Guardian
The Obama administration came under renewed pressure to disclose the legal grounds for its drone programme on Monday, amid reports that another US citizen accused of plotting attacks against Americans for al-Qaida overseas is to be assassinated.Legal experts and civil liberties campaigners urged the White House to explain the basis for a potential strike against the suspect, alleged to be an active “facilitator” for the terrorist network and already responsible for deadly attacks on Americans.
Senior US officials were reported by the Associated Press to be weighing the benefits of killing the man against the likelihood of international condemnation and domestic criticism for targeting an American who has not been not charged with a crime. The Washington Post said it had confirmed the story.
Hina Shamsi, the director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s (ACLU) National Security Project, said the Obama administration “continues to fight against even basic transparency” about how it justifies the executions of thousands of people under the programme.