American strike on American target

But civil libertarians and Muslim-American advocates questioned how the government could take a US citizens life based on secret intelligence,without a trial. They said killing him amounted to summary execution without the due process of law guaranteed by the Constitution.

That argument was pressed unsuccessfully in federal court last year by the American Civil Liberties Union and al-Awlakis father,Nasser al-Awlaki. A federal judge threw out their lawsuit,noting that al-Awlaki had shown no interest in pursuing a claim in a US justice system he despised.

On Friday,Jameel Jaffer,ACLUs deputy legal director,said the drone strike violated US and international law. This is a program under which Americans far from any battlefield can be executed by their own government without judicial process, he said.