Former US officials claim CIA was to hire assassination teams modeled after the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad's targeted killing specialist squads.
On Tuesday, Newsweek quoted some former senior officials as saying that in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks, the former administration approached the Central Intelligence Agency to form the teams.
The officials, requesting anonymity due to the sensitivity of the issue, said the White House broached the issue with CIA's espionage wing, the Directorate of Operations.
The program was recently exposed by the agency's director Leon Panetta, who claimed that he had stopped it last month upon hearing about it.
On Monday, The Wall Street Journal quoted intelligence sources as saying that the program also included capturing or killing al-Qaeda operatives.
"There was some initial involvement by the CIA in this program early on and it was described to me by US intelligence officials as a modern-day Phoenix program that was during the Vietnam War. The CIA and US military special forces cooperated to assassinate (the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam) Viet Cong leaders," investigative journalist Wayne Madsen told Russia Today earlier on Wednesday.
The Israeli model for the brigades were Mossad's infamous 'Wrath Of God' teams who employed themselves in taking down the suspects for the killing of Israeli athletes during the 1972 Munich Olympics. The summer event witnessed the capture and murder of the members of the Israeli Olympic team.
Accusing Palestinians of committing the murders, the Mossad men trawled through Europe for suspects, killing an innocent Moroccan man by mistake in one surge.
Pete Hoekstra on the House Intelligence Committee claims little money was spent on the project that allegedly never became fully operational.
Newsweek concluded that the plans, however, never completely hit cold storage and continued to be refurbished so the president can use them when necessary.
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