The question, then, has been: When will the Obama administration approve drone strikes?

One clear instance was the reported terrorist threat in August that resulted in the temporary closure of more than a dozen US embassies in the Middle East. Those closures were accompanied by a flurry of drone strikes in Yemen – six in 10 days.

But the decision not to use drones to kill suspected terrorists in Libya and Somalia Saturday could offer further insight into Obama administration policy.

Of course, numerous factors could have come into play: perhaps US counterterrorism officials wanted to take the two men into custody for intelligence reasons, or perhaps drone strikes would have carried a high risk of civilian deaths.

Yet early reports suggest that both operations were dramatic and involved risk to American commandos – the sorts of operations that, in the past, might have been entrusted to drones, generally speaking.