US considers drone strike on American al-Qaida suspect abroad
Officials say member of-Qaida is actively planning terror attacks, but CIA drone cannot strike him because he is a US citizen

Associated Press in Washington, via theguardian.com, 10 Feb., 2014

An American citizen who is a member of al-Qaida is actively planning attacks against Americans overseas, US 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.

The CIA drones watching him cannot strike, because he’s a US citizen and the Justice Department must build a case against him, a task it hasn’t completed.

Four US officials said the American suspected terrorist is in a country that refuses US military action on its soil and that has proved unable to go after him. And President 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 US citizens overseas and who continues to plan attacks against them that would use improvised explosive devices.

But one US official said the Defense Department was divided over whether the man is dangerous enough to merit [....]

My highlighting. And I suggest to read the article in full for more details on new policy.

  Innocents will be killed whether we rely on electronic surveillance or human intelligence, and even if we act in accord with the laws of war. And if the rule is that we can never kill any of these people, because that is "assassination"; some of them will probably succeed in carrying out attacks. We could simply call off the whole war, and maybe become pacifists, but I myself am not willing to do all the things pacifists want us to do.