The proposal by CIA Director David H. Petraeus would bolster the agency’s ability to sustain its campaigns of lethal strikes in Pakistan and Yemen and enable it, if directed, to shift aircraft to emerging al-Qaeda threats in North Africa or other trouble spots, officials said.

According to the WaPo's official source, if Petraeus' request is fulfilled, the move would "extend the spy service’s decade-long transformation into a paramilitary force." Indeed, the CIA's drone program has developed extensively and controversially in recent years. As Salon noted, a recent study found that the agency's strikes in Pakistan were "counter-productive" and terrorized civilians. Meanwhile, as WaPo noted Thursday, the "campaign of U.S. airstrikes in Yemen has heated up," with 35 strikes by the spy agency this year.

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