However, following the 1998 bombings of the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, and on the basis of a (secret) favorable legal opinion, President Bill Clinton issued a presidential finding (equivalent to an executive order) authorizing the use of lethal force in self-defense against Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. Shortly thereafter, seventy-five Tomahawk cruise missiles were launched at a site in Afghanistan where Osama Bin Laden was expected to attend a summit meeting. Following the attacks of September 11, 2001, President George Bush reportedly made another finding that broadened the class of potential targets beyond the top leaders of Al-Qaeda, and also beyond the boundaries of Afghanistan. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld ordered Special Operations units to prepare a plan for “hunter killer teams,” with the purpose of killing, not capturing, terrorist suspects. Using the war paradigm for counterterrorism enabled government lawyers to distinguish lethal attacks on terrorists from prohibited assassinations and justify them as lawful battlefield operations against enemy combatants
President Barack Obama’s administration has not changed the policy on targeted killings; in fact, it ordered a “dramatic increase” in the drone-launched missile strikes against Al-Qaeda and Taliban members in Pakistan. According to commentators, there were more such strikes in the first year of Obama’s administration than in the last three years of the Bush administration. CIA operatives have reportedly been involved in targeted killing operations in Yemen and Somalia as well, although in Yemen the operations are carried out by Yemeni forces, with the CIA assisting in planning, munitions supply, and tactical guidance. Obama has also left intact the authority granted by his predecessor to the CIA and the military to kill American citizens abroad, if they are involved in terrorism against the United States.
)
