'Will target Qaida across world'

WASHINGTON: US will hit al-Qaida targets anywhere in the world, including in countries unable or unwilling to act themselves, top White House counter-terrorism adviser John Brennan has said.

The use of military force against al-Qaida is not restricted only to hot battlefields like Afghanistan, Brennan declared in a lecture at the Harvard law school, adding that US can take pre-emptive action against suspects who pose an imminent threat to it, anywhere in the world.
Laying out what he called the Osama bin Laden raid doctrine, Brennan said that under international law, US has the right to take pre-emptive action whenever it foresaw any threat to it. Brennan also criticised a proposal in the senate version of the 2012 defence authorisation bill that would require terrorism suspects arrested inside the US to be transferred to the military.