WASHINGTON, Oct 28: In a break with long-standing US foreign policy, the Central Intelligence Agency is contemplating clandestine missions aimed at killing specific individuals, according to a report on Sunday in the Washington Post.

If true, the new policy would represent an about-face from a closely-held tenet of post-Vietnam era US foreign policy forbidding political assassination.

Executive orders signed by three US presidents since February 1976 have been interpreted as forbidding clandestine acts of targeted killing.

But the Washington Post reported that the Bush administration has reinterpreted the orders, saying they do not prevent the president from singling out terrorists for death by covert action.

The White House also is broadening the list potential targets beyond Osama bin Laden, his immediate circle, and the present boundaries of the fight in Afghanistan, senior officials told the daily.

The Post reported that the policy revision also would sanction new forms of cooperation between the CIA and uniformed military commando units, and could allow for the use of foreign agents — or non-CIA employees — to carry out the assassinations. —AFP/Reuters