How are targeted killings different from assassinations 鈥� and are they legal?
After Israel鈥檚 strike on Hezbollah鈥檚 leader Hassan Nasrallah last month, President Joe Biden and other world leaders called it a measure of justice. But retribution and even justice, some analysts note, are not sufficient grounds for killing under the laws of warfare.
The dozens of targeted strikes by Israel to take out senior operatives within Hezbollah and Hamas since the latter group鈥檚 brutal Oct. 7 attack on Israeli civilians last year come with almost dulling frequency today.
They are part of a global expansion of what have been called 鈥渟ignature鈥� or 鈥渄ecapitation鈥� killings that go back to the U.S. war on terror. In the past decade alone, a dozen countries, including Iraq, Iran, Egypt, and Turkey, have launched programs to carry out such hits on enemies of their own.
Why We Wrote This
Recent strikes by Israel on Hezbollah and Hamas leaders are part of a global expansion of targeted killings, including by the United States. We examine the legal basis for such operations.
These strikes alarm many humanitarian law experts who urge proportionality and protection of civilians, too: Mr. Nasrallah鈥檚 death involved multiple 2,000-pound bombs and razed several apartment buildings.
In the cold calculus of military advantage, even the seasoned strategists who carry out these operations sometimes wonder aloud whether they actually work 鈥� or whether they create more terrorists than they kill.
Don鈥檛 the U.S. and other countries have laws against assassination?
Take Israel, for example, the country most recently in the news for targeted killings. Israel鈥檚 Supreme Court in 2006 ruled that targeted killings are a legitimate form of self-defense against terrorists, though it cautioned that these assassinations should be weighed against harm to innocent bystanders. Both Israel and the United States designate Hezbollah and Hamas as terrorist organizations.
The U.S. government has since reached a similar conclusion in a legal journey that started in the mid-20th century. In the days when it viewed communism as an existential threat, the U.S. orchestrated coups to overthrow left-leaning governments. This included Guatemala in 1954 after its president was deemed unfriendly to American businesses like the United Fruit Company, which owned 42% of the country鈥檚 lands.
This operation and others came to light during the 1975 U.S. Senate Church Committee hearings. So, too, did the torture and killing committed by these CIA-backed regimes that seized power through military force.
On the heels of these revelations, President Gerald Ford in 1976 signed an order banning anyone working for the U.S. government from carrying out political assassinations. Further orders from Presidents Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan removed the word 鈥減olitical鈥� and added that no one working on behalf of the U.S. government could engage in assassinations, either.
The orders didn鈥檛 define assassination 鈥� no federal law does 鈥� but it鈥檚 widely understood to mean murder for political purposes. The word itself implies illegality, notes Tom Porteous, deputy program director at Human Rights Watch, a New York-based advocacy group.
Up until the 9/11 attacks, U.S. officials steered clear of any intimation of it. In the 1990 run-up to America鈥檚 first Gulf War, then-Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney fired the Air Force鈥檚 top officer for saying that the U.S. planned to target then-Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.
The general鈥檚 remarks were 鈥減otentially a violation of the standing presidential executive order鈥� prohibiting assassination, Mr. Cheney said at the time. It was 鈥渋nappropriate for U.S. officials to talk about targeting specific foreign individuals.鈥�
How did this change?
Just before the 9/11 attacks, the American ambassador to Israel criticized its policy of picking out Palestinian militant leaders to kill.
The U.S. 鈥渋s very clearly on the record as against targeted assassinations,鈥� Ambassador Martin Indyk said in July of that year. 鈥淭hey are extrajudicial killings, and we do not support that.鈥� Israel defended it as 鈥渁ctive self-defense鈥� or 鈥渋nterception.鈥�
Then came America鈥檚 global war on terror. Not including the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan, President George W. Bush ordered some 55 targeted killings of Al Qaeda leaders in the ungoverned tribal areas of Pakistan. President Barack Obama ordered some 560 of them in Pakistan, Somalia, and Yemen, including of Anwar al-Awlaki, a New Mexico-born Muslim cleric accused of being an Al Qaeda leader. Critics labeled it an extrajudicial killing and a potential assassination.
The essence of the legal arguments that have been made by the U.S. officials who green-light targeted killings is that they are acts of self-defense in a war against a terrorist group. This reasoning mirrors Israeli jurisprudence decried by the U.S. prior to 9/11, some analysts note.
But it was the Trump administration鈥檚 2020 strike on Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani, commander of the elite Quds Force unit of Iran鈥檚 Revolutionary Guard, that prompted particular alarm among international law experts. General Soleimani was on an official state visit to Iraq, whose officials said they鈥檇 received no prior warning and decried the violation of their sovereignty.
General Soleimani鈥檚 killing 鈥渨as unlawful,鈥� according to a report by the United Nations special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary, or arbitrary executions, prepared for the U.N. Human Rights Committee. This was in large part because the operation targeted a state official away from a battlefield. The U.S. had in other killings argued they were part of America鈥檚 war against Al Qaeda, but this was a tough legal case to make with General Soleimani, given Shiite Iran鈥檚 historic hostility to Al Qaeda, a Sunni group.
U.S. officials instead argued that it was a 鈥渄efensive action鈥� against someone 鈥渁ctively developing plans to attack American diplomats and service members in Iraq and throughout the region.鈥�
Then-President Donald Trump, for his part, said he was trying 鈥渢o stop a war.鈥� It was reported that although Presidents Bush and Obama had contemplated a strike against General Soleimani, they ultimately decided against it. The concern was that rather than forestalling wider conflict, the strike could accelerate it.
Iran responded with missile strikes on two U.S. bases in Iraq, wounding 100 U.S. troops, including 34 who were diagnosed with traumatic brain injury.
So are targeted killings legal or not?
In the case of General Soleimani and others, that was 鈥� and remains 鈥� a matter of intense debate.
Arguing self-defense in a preemptive attack away from the battlefield, as the Trump administration did, generally requires that the attack be imminent 鈥� specifically, a threat that is, as the U.N. report put it, 鈥渋nstant and overwhelming.鈥�
But U.S. officials since the Obama administration have called, as the U.S. counterterrorism adviser did in 2011, for a 鈥渕ore flexible understanding of imminence.鈥� Critics call it an 鈥渆xpansionist鈥� definition, and it includes preemptive strikes against not just confirmed but also 鈥減erceived鈥� threats.
The strike against General Soleimani raised 鈥済enuine uncertainty,鈥� the report concluded, 鈥渁s to how to interpret its lawfulness.鈥�
There is, too, international law surrounding the death of innocents. In a conflict zone, the legal rule of thumb is that the greater the military advantage conferred by a targeted killing, the greater the permissible civilian harm.
But while military advantage is relevant in determining excessiveness, proportionality still matters. In other words, it鈥檚 about more than the least amount of harm that commanders can cause in pursuing their goals.
鈥淯ltimately, there鈥檚 still a limit,鈥� says Tom Dannenbaum, associate professor of international law at Tufts University鈥檚 Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. 鈥淚t鈥檚 a judgment call in each case. But I can鈥檛 think of an instance where the elimination of a single individual has been understood to justify the collateral killing or injuring of hundreds of civilians.鈥�
In many cases, states have stopped bothering to make legal justifications at all, the Human Rights Committee report warned. 鈥淲hat is especially troubling is the absence of public discussion about ethics, legality, and effectiveness of the 鈥榙ecapitation鈥� strategy鈥� at the heart of targeted killings.鈥�
