"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."
The Post writes that "U.S. officials have not revealed the identify of the alleged operative, or the country where he is believed to be located, citing concern that disclosing those details would send him deeper into hiding and prevent a possible drone strike."
The AP says it "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."
One year ago, the Justice Department drew up a "white paper" defining when it believes an American citizen overseas can and cannot be the target of a U.S. drone strike. As NPR's Carrie Johnson reported last February, "the document says the U.S. doesn't need clear evidence of a specific attack to strike." The definition of what poses an imminent threat appears to be "a little stretchy, like a rubber band," she added. She also said that the memo makes the case that the U.S. government "doesn't have to try all that hard to capture someone" if they are in another country and trying to grab them would be an "undue burden."
Three months later, in May 2013, President Obama said in a policy address that:
"I do not believe it would be constitutional for the government to target and kill any U.S. citizen — with a drone, or with a shotgun — without due process, nor should any president deploy armed drones over U.S. soil.
"But 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."