I was listening to this interesting podcast titled '60 words' on Radiolab, it's about the Authorization for Use of Military Force act that the US congress and senate put in place 4 days after 9/11 which gave the govt the right to wage war on al-Qaeda and all of its affiliates worldwide. The purpose of the podcast was to see the extent of the overreach by the US govt. When they got to part about drone strikes, they were discussing how the govt determines who to kill and how often state department lawyers object to it and they offered Muktar Robow as an example.
The US military wanted to kill him but lawyers put a stop to it saying that, although he's a founding member of al Shabab which is affiliated to al-Qaeda, he is of the nationalistic wing of al Shabab and not on the global jiahd side.
Take a listen, start at 44mins - http://www.radiolab.org/story/60-words/
