UPDATE: CIA drone operators could be prosecuted for war crimes, lawyer tells Congress

The US's unofficial program of targeted killings against terrorist suspects could result in the CIA's drone operators being prosecuted for war crimes, a prominent law professor told a congressional hearing Wednesday.

Loyola Law School professor and former Navy officer David Glazier told a House foreign affairs subcommittee that, because CIA agents are not legally considered combatants in a war, the law could see them as being civilians who carried out killings.

But "the risks to US drone operators are at this point theoretical," writes Nathan Hodge at Wired.com. "Unless a judge in, say, Pakistan, wanted to issue a warrant, it doesn’t seem likely."

Nor was there any explanation as to how foreign governments could learn the identities of CIA drone operators, another hurdle that would have to be cleared if any government wanted to launch a prosecution.