Licence to kill Americans if they plot attacks against nation: US

In first,US Attorney General defines policy to kill Americans,will be targets if threat

The Obama administration asserted late Monday a right to kill Americans overseas who are plotting attacks against the US,laying out specific details for the first time about a policy that critics argue violates US and international law.

US Attorney General Eric Holder said that Americans who have joined al-Qaeda or its affiliates can be targeted for lethal strikes if there is an imminent threat to the US and capturing them is not feasible.

In a speech to the Northwestern University School of Law,Holder did not refer directly to the CIA drone strike last year that killed Anwar al-Awlaki,a US-born Muslim cleric who joined al-Qaedas Yemen affiliate and directed many attacks.

Any decision to use lethal force against a US citizen even one intent on murdering Americans and who has become an operational leader of al-Qaeda in a foreign land is among the gravest that government leaders can face, he said. The American people can be and deserve to be assured that actions taken in their defence are consistent with their values and laws.

US officials have linked Awlaki to several plots against the US,including the 2009 Christmas Day attempt by a Nigerian man to blow up a US airliner.

Civil liberties groups have decried the programme as effectively a green light to assassinate Americans without due process in the courts under the US Constitution,a charge that Holder flatly rejected. Court approval for such strikes was unnecessary, he said,adding the president may use force abroad against a senior operational leader of a foreign terrorist organisation with which the US is at war even if that individual happens to be a US citizen.

Holder said the use of lethal force against Americans abroad would have to comply with several principles governing the law of war,including ensuring the target was of military value and that steps were taken to limit collateral damage. He added that these principles do not forbid the use of stealth or technologically advanced weapons.

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A US official said that there was fierce debate within the administration about whether Holder should give the speech,questioning if it would raise concerns his policies were too close to that of predecessor,President George W. Bush.

US teen to plead guilty in terror case
Philadelphia: A Pakistan-born teenager accused of helping a terror cell based in Ireland will plead guilty to a US terrorism charge,according to court papers. Mohammad Hassan Khalid became a rare juvenile suspect held in FBI custody after his arrest last summer,when he was 17,after he met a Pennsylvania woman who called herself Jihad Jane in an online chat room when he was 15 and had agreed to help her seek money and recruits to wage a jihad in Europe and South Asia,authorities said. The woman,Colleen LaRose,admitted last March that she had plotted to kill a Swedish artist who had offended Muslims.