A U.S. Predator unmanned drone armed with a missile stands on the tarmac of Kandahar military airport June 13, 2010. REUTERS/Massoud Hossaini/Pool
Mark Mazzetti and Eric Scmitt, New York Times: Terrorism Case Renews Debate Over Drone Hits
WASHINGTON — A Texas-born man suspected of being an operative for Al Qaeda stood before a federal judge in Brooklyn this month. Two years earlier, his government debated whether he should be killed by a drone strike in Pakistan.
The denouement in the hunt for the man, Mohanad Mahmoud Al Farekh, who was arrested last year in Pakistan based on intelligence provided by the United States, came after a yearslong debate inside the government about whether to kill an American citizen overseas without trial — an extraordinary step taken only once before, when the Central Intelligence Agency killed the radical cleric Anwar al-Awlaki in Yemen in 2011.
WNU Editor: I must confess that I was surprised when I first read that Mohanad Mahmoud Al Farekh was not only captured by Pakistani authorities .... but extradited to the U.S. to face trial. He was/is a high value target, and there was no guarantee that he would have ever been caught. But I am not surprised that the debate on using drone strikes continues within the Obama administration. My prediction is that this policy is going to "bite" President Obama in the future .... it opens a Pandoras Box of legal issues, both nationally and internationally, and I do expect "blow-back" from it in the future ... something that I am sure even President Obama is sensitive about.
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