Media reports last week indicated that al-Qaeda figure Haitham al-Yemeni had been assassinated by the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in Toorikhel, a suburb of Mirali in the Pakistan province of North Waziristan. The attack was reported to have been carried out using a missile fired from a Predator unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV or drone), though the CIA declined any official comment and the Pakistani information minister said that no such incident had occurred.

Such operations are carried out under authority derived from a ?Presidential finding? approved by President George Bush in the immediate wake of the September 11 attacks . It allowed the CIA to draw up highly classified rules, setting out which individuals could be killed by CIA officers in attacks described as acts of self defense in the global war against al-Qaeda terrorists. Leaving aside the legitimacy of actions from which US administrations have previously insisted others fighting terrorism refrain, with commentators employing terms such as ?extra-judicial killings,? this operation surfaces other issues.