The Art of Aerial Assassination...

David Axe:

For years, the military has labored to increase the flexibility and lethality of its aircraft and to decrease the time it takes to put bombs on target. One goal has been to "decapitate" regimes and terrorist organizations with timely air strikes. Several decapitation strikes since 2003 have failed despite increasingly sophisticated weapons and sensors, due to intelligence failures.

On Wednesday, the military succeeded in killing Al Qaeda leader Abu Musab Al Zarqawi with an air strike on his Baqubah, Iraq, safehouse. For the first time in more than four years, intelligence has allowed the technology of aerial assassination to fulfill its potential...

The rest...here.

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