In this case, the U.S. carefully chose to use a type of Hellfire missile that greatly minimized the chance of other casualties.
In this image provided by the U.S. Army, contactors from General Atomics load Hellfire missiles onto an MQ-1C Gray Eagle at Camp Taji, Iraq, on Feb. 27, 2011. For a year, U.S. officials have been saying that taking out a terrorist threat in Afghanistan with no American troops on the ground would be difficult but not impossible. Last weekend, the U.S. did just that killing al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahri with a CIA drone strike. – For a year, U.S.
“It can do enough damage to destroy most targets such as vehicles and buildings while not doing enough damage to level city blocks and cause significant civilian casualties,” Brobst said. Online images of the building show damage to the balcony, where the U.S. says al-Zawahri was, but the rest of the house is standing and not badly damaged.