WASHINGTON - The Bush administration has prepared a list of about two dozen terrorist leaders that the Central Intelligence Agency is authorized to kill if capture is impractical and civilian casualties can be minimized, senior military and intelligence officials said.
The previously undisclosed CIA list of targets includes top leaders of al-Qaida, such as Osama bin Laden and his chief deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, and other principal figures from al-Qaida and affiliated terrorist groups, the officials said.
President 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 launch an operation. Some officials said the terrorist list was known as the "high-value target list."
A spokesman for the White House declined to discuss the list or issues involving the use of lethal force against terrorists. A spokesman for the CIA also declined to comment on the list.
Despite the authority given to the agency, Bush has not waived the executive order banning assassinations, officials said. The presidential authority to kill terrorists defines operatives of al-Qaida as enemy combatants and thus legitimate targets for lethal force.
Bush issued a presidential finding last year, after the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, providing the basic executive and legal authority for the CIA to kill or capture terrorist leaders. Initially, the CIA used that authority to search for al-Qaida leaders in Afghanistan.
That authority was the basis for the CIA and military effort to kill bin Laden and other al-Qaida leaders and several Taliban leaders. The newer list represents an expanded CIA effort against a larger number of al-Qaida operatives outside Afghanistan in countries such as Yemen.
The president is not legally required to approve each name added to the list, nor is the CIA required to obtain presidential approval for specific attacks, although officials said Bush had been kept well informed about the CIA's operations.
Last month, the CIA killed an al-Qaida leader in a remote region of Yemen. A pilotless Predator aircraft operated by the CIA fired a Hellfire antitank missile at a car in which Qaed Salim Sinan al-Harethi, also known as Abu Ali, was riding. Al-Harethi and five other people, including one suspected al-Qaida operative with U.S. citizenship, were killed.
Al-Harethi is believed to have been on the list of al-Qaida leaders that the CIA had been authorized to kill. After the Predator operation in Yemen, American officials said Bush was not required to approve the mission immediately before the attack was launched nor was he specifically consulted.
Intelligence officials said the presidential finding authorizing the agency to kill terrorists was not limited to those on the list.
The list is updated periodically as the intelligence agency, in consultation with other counterterrorism agencies, adds names or deletes those al-Qaida leaders who are captured or killed, or when new intelligence indicates the emergence of a new leader.
Officials said the CIA, working with the FBI, the military and foreign governments, will seek to capture terrorists when possible and then bring them into the custody of the United States or another nation willing to work with the United States to fight terrorism.
Counterterrorism officials prefer to capture senior al-Qaida leaders for interrogation. They regard killing as a last resort in cases in which the location of an al-Qaida operative is known but capture would be too dangerous or logistically impossible, the officials said.
Under intelligence law dating to the mid-1970s, the president must sign a finding to provide the legal basis for covert actions to be carried out by the CIA. In response to past abuses, the decision-making process has grown into a highly formalized review in which the White House, Justice Department, Pentagon and CIA take part.
The administration must notify congressional leaders of any covert action finding signed by the president. In past cases of lethal force against members of al-Qaida, congressional leaders have been notified as required, the officials said.
The new emphasis on covert action is an outgrowth of more aggressive attitudes regarding the use of lethal force in the campaign against terrorism. Moreover, such operations have become easier to launch because of technological advances like the development of the Predator, which has evolved from a camera-carrying surveillance drone into an armed robot warplane controlled by operators safely stationed thousands of miles from any attack.
CIA Director George J. Tenet said in a speech last week that more than one-third of the top leadership of al-Qaida identified before the war in Afghanistan had since been killed or captured. Since September of last year, Tenet said, more than 3,000 suspected al-Qaida operatives or their associates have been detained in more than 100 countries.