WASHINGTON
(AP) -- The case of an American citizen and suspected member of al-Qaida
who is allegedly planning attacks on U.S. targets overseas underscores
the complexities of President Barack Obama's new stricter targeting
guidelines for the use of deadly drones.
The
CIA drones watching him cannot strike because he's a U.S. citizen. The
Pentagon drones that could are barred from the country where he's
hiding, and the Justice Department has not yet finished building a case
against him.
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. And
Obama's new policy says American suspected terrorists overseas can only
be killed by the military, not the CIA, creating a policy conundrum for
the White House.
Two of the officials
described the man as an al-Qaida facilitator who has been directly
responsible for deadly attacks against U.S. citizens overseas and who
continues to plan attacks against them that would use improvised
explosive devices.
The officials said the
suspected terrorist is well-guarded and in a fairly remote location, so
any unilateral attempt by U.S. troops to capture him would be risky and
even more politically explosive than a U.S. missile strike.
White
House press secretary Jay Carney said Monday he would not comment on
specific operations and pointed to Obama's comments in the major
counterterrorism speech last May about drone policy.
"When
a U.S. citizen goes abroad to wage war against America and is actively
plotting to kill U.S. citizens, and when neither the United States, nor
our partners are in a position to capture him before he carries out a
plot, his citizenship should no more serve as a shield than a sniper
shooting down on an innocent crowd should be protected from a SWAT
team," Carney said, quoting from Obama's speech last year.
Under
new guidelines Obama addressed in the speech made to calm anger
overseas at the extent of the U.S. drone campaign, lethal force must
only be used "to prevent or stop attacks against U.S. persons, and even
then, only when capture is not feasible and no other reasonable
alternatives exist to address the threat effectively." The target must
also pose "a continuing, imminent threat to U.S. persons" - the legal
definition of catching someone in the act of plotting a lethal attack.
The
Associated Press has agreed to the government's request to withhold the
name of the country where the suspected terrorist is believed to be
because officials said publishing it could interrupt ongoing
counterterror operations.
The officials spoke
on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss
the classified drone targeting program publicly.
House
Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers, R-Mich., complained last
week that a number of terrorist suspects were all but out of reach under
the administration's new rules that limit drone strikes based on the
target's nationality or location. Two of the U.S. officials said the
Justice Department review of the American suspected terrorist started
last fall.
The senior administration official
confirmed that the Justice Department was working to build a case
against the suspected terrorist. The official said, however, the legal
procedure being followed is the same as when the U.S. killed militant
cleric and former Virginia resident Anwar al-Awlaki by drone in Yemen in
2011, long before the new targeted killing policy took effect.
The
official said the president could make an exception to his policy and
authorize the CIA to strike on a onetime basis or authorize the Pentagon
to act despite the possible objections of the country in question.
