This Air Tractor is similar to the one the U.S. has plans to provide to Yemen. The plane shown here is being used by Israeli Defense Forces in a firefighting drill.

Faced with growing questions about civilian deaths in its secret drone war in Yemen, the Obama administration has plans to equip the small and poorly trained Yemeni military to run its own "targeted killing" program, according to documents and three sources familiar with the effort.

Instead of supplying the Yemenis with high-tech drones, though, the Pentagon would arm the Yemen Air Force with a fleet of 10 rugged, two-seater propeller planes of a type usually used as crop dusters. The specially modified versions for the Yemeni program would be armed with laser-guided missiles and high-tech electronic intelligence equipment. One reason these slow, single-engine planes were chosen is because even poorly trained Yemeni pilots could learn to fly them, according to people familiar with the project.

One significant twist: American pilots may fly the planes along with Yemenis on the missions, keeping Americans involved in the controversial attacks.

Still, both critics and supporters of the drone war agree that the move could help the U.S. put more of a Yemeni face on the controversial targeted killing program.

According to a Central Command memorandum dated Feb. 3 and obtained by BuzzFeed, the "Precision Strike" program for Yemen would "greatly enhance counter terrorism (CT) objectives to support action against Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula." The U.S. government says AQAP is a Yemeni-based group that has tried to launch terrorist attacks against the U.S., including the infamous failed effort by the "underwear bomber," Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, in 2009.

It's not clear when the planes would get sent over. After repeated requests for comment, a Pentagon official told BuzzFeed that "the Department of Defense is reassessing the program at this time."

An official with the government of Yemen says the project is going forward, though it's at its early stages. The point, he said, "is that eventually Yemen will be able to carry out precision strikes without the aid of its allies."

One choice for Yemen's "Precision Strike" plane, according to documents and the sources, is a version of an "Air Tractor" plane called a 802U. It's a hardy airplane, manufactured in Texas. The fuselage resembles a World War II Spitfire fighter plane, though it flies more slowly.

Asked about the Yemen project, Air Tractor Inc.'s president, Jim Hirsch, said, "I'm not at liberty to discuss that program." Although the Air Tractor is widely used as an agriculture plane for crop spraying, the company makes a version it says is for "counterinsurgency operations," and Air Tractor's website bills it as "a true irregular warfare aircraft."

The other plane in the running is a Thrush, which looks similar to the Air Tractor and is also usually used as a crop duster. It is manufactured in Georgia by Thrush Aircraft. Documents indicate that a specially designed version of the plane, outfitted by a North Carolina contractor named IOMAX, was being considered. IOMAX and Thrush officials did not respond to requests for comment.

According to the Centcom document, the planes would be armed by some combination of Hellfire missiles, GBU-12s, GBU-58's, and laser-guided rockets. The document says that four planes would be delivered this year. Another six would be delivered later, according to sources.