"CIA begins sizing up Islamic extremists in Syria for drone strikes..."

"The strategy is part of the agency's secret contingency planning to protect the U.S. and its allies as the violence there grows."

Well, it's obviously not part of the secret contingency planning. Who knows what the secret part is? But: Get ready for the drones. We can and will take you out as you sleep in your bed at night. That's a message we're choosing to put out there.

CIA targeting officers normally assemble bits of intelligence — including agent reports, cellphone intercepts, video footage, public records, tips from foreign spy services — to create folders known as "targeting packages," for a variety of reasons....

Identifying possible threats in Syria would be "a logical step if the policy community sends a signal that, 'Hey, you guys might want to think about how you would respond to a possible request for plans about how you would thin the herd of the future insurgency,'" said a former CIA officer with experience in the Middle East.