CIA Given Power to Launch Drone Strikes Under President Trump

President Donald Trump has given the CIA power to launch drone strikes against terrorists on foreign soil, according to a report by The Wall Street Journal.

The new policy was put into place shortly after the inauguration, and has already been used to kill senior al Qaeda leader Abu al-Khayr al-Masri in Syria.  Under the Obama administration the CIA used drones to find suspected terrorists, but the Department of Defense then launched the strikes.

The United States was the first country to use unmanned aircraft to kill foreign combatants in the years after the Islamic attacks on New York and Washington.