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The Yemen-based al-Awlaki has been linked to the Fort Hood massacre and the attempt in December to blow up a Detroit-bound jet by a man wearing explosives in his underpants.

The decision to add him to the US hit list required a National Security Council review because of his citizenship.

Officials said US intelligence had argued that the cleric now posed a direct threat to America, an al-Qaeda recruiter who had graduated from encouraging attacks to active involvement in them.

Al-Awlaki, 38, became famous last year after it emerged he had communicated extensively by email with Major Nidal Hasan, the army psychiatrist accused of killing 13 soldiers at Fort Hood, Texas.

The cleric, who allegedly had ties with the 9/11 hijackers, later praised the Fort Hood killings and said Muslims should only serve in the US military if they intended to carry out similar attacks.

He has also been linked to Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Nigerian student accused of trying to blow up a Detroit-bound jet last Christmas with explosives in his underwear.

Al-Awlaki was born in New Mexico and spent years as an imam in the US before moving to the Yemen, where he is believed to remain in hiding.

Members of the George W Bush administration have said they believe it never approved any American for a targeted killing.

However, officials now argue privately that Americans who side with the country's enemies are not ultimately "entitled to special protections".

In February, Dennis Blair, the director of US national intelligence, confirmed that its security agencies had the authority, having obtained specific permission, to kill American citizens if they posed a direct threat to the United States.

On Tuesday, Jane Harman, the Democrat chairman of the House homeland security subcommittee, said Al-Awlaki was "probably the person, the terrorist, who would be terrorist No 1 in terms of threat against us."

For the first time in history, an American president has officially ordered the assassination of a US citizen.

President Barack Obama has approved the "targeted killing" of Anwar al-Awlaki, a US-born Muslim cleric who is reported to be in hiding in Yemen. No substantial evidence has been brought to bear against Awlaki, 38, who is accused of terrorism, and he will be afforded no legal recourse against the death sentence.

Word of Obama's decision has been intentionally leaked by multiple intelligence officials to various media sources. Reuters and the Wall Street Journal published news articles on the story on Tuesday, and these were confirmed by stories in the Washington Post and New York Times on Wednesday.

The killing of citizens declared by the executive branch to be "terrorists" was first announced as state policy by Obama's director of national intelligence, Dennis C. Blair, in February congressional hearings. "We take direct actions against terrorists in the intelligence community," Blair said. "If we think that direct action will involve killing an American, we get specific permission to do that."

Awlaki, who was born in New Mexico, has been linked by e-mail communication to Nidal Malik Hasan, the army psychologist who gunned down 13 soldiers in a November rampage at Ford Hood, Texas. No evidence has been presented, however, to suggest that Awlaki in any way planned or ordered the attack.

There have also been allegations, so far entirely unsubstantiated, linking Awlaki to Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Nigerian youth who attempted to blow up an airplane as it approached Detroit on December 25, 2009. The failed attack was, in fact, made possible by the stand-down of the US intelligence apparatus--or its direct complicity.

Awlaki's family have defended him. "I am now afraid of what they will do with my son, he's not Osama Bin Laden, they want to make something out of him that he's not," said his father, Dr. Nasser al-Awlaki, a US-trained scientist, in a January interview with CNN. "How can the American government kill one of their own citizens? This is a legal issue that needs to be answered."

The public justification for killing Awlaki is based on bald assertions and hearsay from intelligence sources who refuse to even identify themselves. Typical is the following account from the New York Times: "American counterterrorism officials say Mr. Awlaki is an operative of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula " They say they believe that he has become a recruiter for the terrorist network, feeding prospects into plots aimed at the United States and at Americans abroad, the officials said."

The decision to kill Awlaki takes Washington's lawlessness to a new level. The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) drone assassination program has killed between 400 and 500 "militants," the vast majority in countries with which the US is not officially at war. The Bush and Obama administrations have declared the right to attack or invade countries Washington deems to be threats to US interests, and have institutionalized a worldwide regime of kidnappings and indefinite imprisonment without trial in the so-called "war on terror."

But while Washington has long flouted the laws of war, there is no precedent for a president openly ordering the assassination of a US citizen he declares to be an enemy.

This is, however, a further extension of the claim asserted by Bush and continued by Obama that the president has the power to declare individuals, citizens as well as non-citizens, to be "illegal enemy combatants" and held indefinitely in military detention without being charged or given access to the courts. The Obama administration is moving to institutionalize the policy of indefinite detention by setting up a military prison in Illinois, so-called "Guantánamo North," where scores of Guantánamo detainees will be held indefinitely without trial.

The Obama administration justifies the policy of targeting US citizens for murder by citing the September 14, 2001 congressional act, the Authorization to Use Military Force. Passed three days after the September 11 attacks, the measure allowed the US president, from that moment forth, "to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001."

Out of 531 senators and congressmen casting votes, only one opposed this sweeping measure that is now being invoked by Obama to kill a US citizen without charge or trial.

The Obama White House is evidently seeking a new pseudo-legal justification for the policy of state murder. "Officials now argue privately that Americans who side with the country's enemies are not ultimately "entitled to special protections'," the British Telegraph reported. The "special protections" to be discarded are none other than the liberties guaranteed by the Bill of Rights, which the Founding Fathers installed precisely to provide the citizenry protection from the state.

There has been no evidence that suggests Awlaki represents any immediate threat to the US people. On the contrary, his killing will only provide new fodder for terrorist groups. The administration's decision to kill Awlaki is largely motivated by the desire to establish a new precedent.