US President Barack Obama personally determines secret Al-Qaeda 'kill list': Report

WASHINGTON: US President Barack Obama was personally making all decisions about a top-secret and expanding "kill list" of terrorists belonging to al-Qaeda 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.

The US president insisted on approving every new name on an expanding "kill list", it reported, citing dozens of senior officials.

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 shadow war with al-Qaeda.

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 counter-terrorism officials going through biographies and selecting suspects in Yemen and Somalia to be added to the kill list.

The CIA, which frequently conducts drone attacks against terrorists in Pakistan, carries out a separate process for identifying suspects in Pakistan, the report said.