Those who belong to armed forces or to armed groups may be attacked at any time.
Now, where did that come from ? I'll tell you later.

Several days ago, the NY Times ran a story, Drone Strike Prompts Suit, Raising Fears for U.S. Allies (by Ravi Somaiya, January 30, 2013).

I held off on posting it (and two related pieces by John Bellinger) to see what might happen. The story obviously ties in with my post above dealing with the "discomfort" of European "coalition partners" with US drone strikes:

The death of Malik Daud Khan, a Pakistani tribal elder, in a C.I.A. drone strike might have remained widely unremarked upon, lost amid thousands of others analysts have tallied in the American drone campaign, had not the British courts been brought into it.

The drone strike, which killed Mr. Khan and dozens of others at a tribal council meeting in North Waziristan in 2011, spawned a lawsuit that accuses British officials of becoming “secondary parties to murder” by passing intelligence to American officials that was later used in drone strikes.
...
In interviews, current and former British government and intelligence officials, some of whom worked closely with the United States after the drone campaign’s inception in 2004, said Britain does provide intelligence to the United States that is almost certainly used to target strikes. Many in Britain’s intelligence community, said one person with detailed knowledge of internal discussions, are now distinctly worried they may face prosecution.
British and other EU officials may now have to face the consequences of their countries having had reduced threats from terrs, all without being directly involved in the US drone strikes:

Few argue against the notion that European nations, many of which have been attacked by terrorists, have benefited from the drone killing, however controversial, of many of the most hardened Islamic extremist leaders.

The threat level for international terrorism in Britain was reduced to “substantial,” the middle of five ratings, in July 2011. The switch was due largely to the “removal of operational planners” through drone strikes in Pakistan’s tribal areas and Yemen, a former senior intelligence official said. Another former official put it more simply, saying the “strikes have decimated the Al Qaeda senior leadership, and we didn’t have to get directly involved.”
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For the government’s part, one senior official said, it “would just like the issue to go away.”
John Bellinger also wishes the problem to go away. In a Lawfare piece, New York Times on Noor Khan Lawsuit (by John Bellinger, January 31, 2013):

The New York Times has this long article about the Noor Khan lawsuit in Britain, in which the son of a man killed in a drone strike in Pakistan has sued the British Foreign Secretary for information about British intellligence support to the US. The article, entitled “Drone Strike Prompts Law Suit, Raising Fears for U.S. Allies,” notes that European governments are growing increasingly uncomfortable about sharing intelligence with the US that might be used in drone strikes: “Many in Brtian’s intelligence community…are now distinctly worried they may face prosecution.”
...
I have been warning for several years about the international legal risks posed by the Obama Administration’s heavy reliance on drone strikes, including my Post op-ed in October 2011 entitled “Will Drone Strikes Become Obama’s Guantanamo?”
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At the time I wrote it, I thought there was perhaps only a 25% chance that Obama’s drone strikes would become as internationally maligned as Guantanamo, given the preference of human rights groups and European governments to avoid criticising the Obama Administration. But over the last eighteen months, I have seen a crescendo in international criticism, resulting in lawsuits in the US, Britain, and Pakistan, and a potential decrease in intelligence cooperation. This has echoes of the rapid decline in European governmental support for US counterterrorism efforts after 9-11 as national parliaments pressed their governments to distance themselves from unpopular US policies. I would not be surprised if, in the next year, war crimes charges are brought against senior Obama officials in a European country with a universal jurisdiction law.
The bottom line, as I read Mr Bellinger, is that the Obama administration should make nice with European countries by adapting to their view of "international humanitarian law" (aka their version of the laws of armed conflict or laws of war); from his 2011 article linked in prior quote:

Even if Obama administration officials are satisfied that drone strikes comply with domestic and international law, they would still be wise to try to build a broader international consensus. The administration should provide more information about the strict limits it applies to targeting and about who has been targeted. One of the mistakes the Bush administration made in its first term was adopting novel counterterrorism policies without attempting to explain and secure international support for them.
Well, the Obama administration has, in effect, said "stuff it - we'll stick with our domestic laws and the laws of armed conflict as we see them." Earlier tonite from NBC, EXCLUSIVE: Justice Department memo reveals legal case for drone strikes on Americans (by Michael Isikoff):

A confidential Justice Department memo concludes that the U.S. government can order the killing of American citizens if they are believed to be “senior operational leaders” of al-Qaida or “an associated force” -- even if there is no intelligence indicating they are engaged in an active plot to attack the U.S.

The 16-page memo, a copy of which was obtained by NBC News, provides new details about the legal reasoning behind one of the Obama administration’s most secretive and controversial polices: its dramatically increased use of drone strikes against al-Qaida suspects, including those aimed at American citizens, such as the September 2011 strike in Yemen that killed alleged al-Qaida operatives Anwar al-Awlaki and Samir Khan. Both were U.S. citizens who had never been indicted by the U.S. government nor charged with any crimes.
...
But the confidential Justice Department “white paper” introduces a more expansive definition of self-defense or imminent attack than described by Brennan or Holder in their public speeches. It refers, for example, to what it calls a “broader concept of imminence” than actual intelligence about any ongoing plot against the U.S. homeland.

“The condition that an operational leader present an ‘imminent’ threat of violent attack against the United States does not require the United States to have clear evidence that a specific attack on U.S. persons and interests will take place in the immediate future,” the memo states.

Instead, it says, an “informed, high-level” official of the U.S. government may determine that the targeted American has been “recently” involved in “activities” posing a threat of a violent attack and “there is no evidence suggesting that he has renounced or abandoned such activities.” The memo does not define “recently” or “activities.”
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Although not an official legal memo, the white paper was represented by administration officials as a policy document that closely mirrors the arguments of classified memos on targeted killings by the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, which provides authoritative legal advice to the president and all executive branch agencies. The administration has refused to turn over to Congress or release those memos publicly -- or even publicly confirm their existence. A source with access to the white paper, which is not classified, provided a copy to NBC News.
The contents of the memo should be no surprise to readers of this thread, the "The Rules - Detaining HVTs and Others" thread, and the "War Crimes" thread, since it employs much the same legal arguments used to justify indefinite detention. Those arguments have already been rejected by the EU countries.

See, “Lawfulness of a Lethal Operation Directed Against a U.S. Citizen who is a Senior Operational Leader of Al Qa’ida or An Associated Force.”

My lede quote is from the memo. The memo cites to the 1987 ICRC Commentary on AP II, 4789. The same legal point was made by the Obama DoJ in 2009 (expanding the arguments previously made by the Bush II DoJ), as reported in this post, continuation of DoJ memo ...:

My message then (re: legal arguments for detention) and now (re: legal arguments for targeted killings) to the Obama DoJ, was and is: Good job, guys and gals: I will castigate when you move off the "Straight Path".

And, as to that unnamed European country(ies), with universal jurisdiction, now is your opportunity to put up by bringing war crimes charges against senior Obama officials, or shut up.

Regards

Mike