They describe a paradoxical leader who shunned the legislative deal-making required to close the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, but approves lethal action without hand-wringing. The report described the top-secret process, which begins with some 100 counterterrorism officials going through biographies and selecting suspects in Yemen and Somalia to be added to the kill list.
Nato takes out Afghanistan Qaida No. 2
The US-led Nato force in Afghanistan killed al-Qaida’s second highest leader, Sakhr al-Taifi , in the country in an airstrike in eastern Kunar province, the coalition said on Tuesday. He was responsible for commanding foreign insurgents in Afghanistan. AP Washington: US President Barack Obama was personally making all decisions about a top-secret and expanding ‘kill list’ of terrorists belonging to al-Qaida and its affiliates hiding in Pakistan and Yemen to be eliminated in stepped-up drone attacks, according to a media report.
“He (Obama) is determined that he will make these decisions about how far and wide these operations will go,” said Thomas E Donilon , his national security adviser. “His view is that he’s responsible for the position of the US in the world. He’s determined to keep the tether pretty short,” New York Times quoted Donilon as saying.
In interviews with The New York Times, three dozen of his current and former advisers described Obama’s evolution since taking on the role, without precedent in presidential history, of personally overseeing the shad.
–PTI–