The New York Times reports that the secret CIA program initiated after the September 11th attacks was intended to carry out assassinations of Al Qaeda leaders. The report quotes unnamed intelligence officials saying the CIA "developed plans to dispatch small teams overseas to kill senior Qaeda terrorists, according to current and former government officials."
Questions of logistics, diplomatic impact and legality kept the program from being implemented.
The officials quoted say that the program would have been covered by existing Congressional authorizations for attacking Al Qaeda. As the program was never put into operation it was never reported to Congress.