US President Widens CIA Authority to Kill Terrorists

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Monday, December 16, 2002

US President Widens CIA Authority to Kill Terrorists

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The Bush administration has widened the authority of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to kill terrorist leaders around the world, the New York Times quoted senior US military and intelligence officials as saying on Sunday.

President George W. Bush has provided written legal authority to the CIA to hunt down and kill the terrorists without seeking further approval each time the agency is about to stage an operation, the Times said.

The White House has prepared a secret list of terrorist leaders the CIA is authorized to kill, if capture is impractical and civilian casualties can be minimized. Key Al Qaeda leaders like Osama bin Laden and other principal figures from Al Qaeda and affiliated terrorist groups are on the list, the officials were quoted as saying.

After the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington last year,Bush issued a presidential finding, providing the basic executive and legal authority for the CIA to either kill or capture terrorist leaders. The authority was the basis for the CIA's attempts to find and kill or capture Bin laden and other Qaeda leaders during the war in Afghanistan.

The creation of the secret list is part of the expanded CIA effort to hunt and kill or capture Qaeda operatives far from traditional battlefields, in countries like Yemen.

The list is updated periodically as the intelligence agency, inconsultation with other counterterrorism agencies, adds new names or deletes those who are captured or killed, or when intelligence indicates the emergence of a new terrorist leader.

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