Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of the terrorist group al-Qaeda in Iraq, was killed on Wednesday June 7 in an airstrike by U.S. forces.  The announcement of his death was made on June 8 by Iraq's Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, flanked by America's ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad and its top general George W. Casey, Jr.

According to General Casey, Zarqawi was killed in an airstrike against an "isolated safe house" outside the town of Baqubah, north of Baghdad.  Seven other alleged militants were also killed in the raid.  The location was identified following information received from someone in Zarqawi's inner circle, according to the Iraqi Prime Minister and American sources quoted in news reports.  U.S. officials later said that American F-16 fighter jets had dropped two 500lb bombs on the site.

As further details of the operation emerged, it became clear that the house where Zarqawi was killed had been surrounded by U.S. and Iraqi forces.  According to U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, the Americans "came to the conclusion that they could not really go in on the ground without running the risk of letting him escape.  So they used airpower and attacked a dwelling he was in."

While few would challenge the legitimacy of the attack on Zarqawi, it's worth examining the circumstances of his killing from the perspective of international law, since it may help illuminate the vexed question of when "targeted killings" of terrorist suspects should be considered acceptable.

An Exceptional Case

From one perspective, the U.S. strike against Zarqawi fits into the pattern of American attacks against terrorist suspects in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen (and Israeli actions against alleged Palestinian terrorists): an aerial attack against a terrorist fighter in circumstances where an attempt to arrest him using ground troops would not be possible either for reasons of security, timing or likely effectiveness.

However, the attack against Zarqawi also stands out for a number of reasons.  First, there is unquestionably an armed conflict going on in Iraq: the best way to characterise the situation is probably to regard it as a civil war or internal armed conflict in which U.S. forces are fighting alongside the forces of the Iraqi government to repress a widespread insurgency.  Second, there is no question that Zarqawi, who is believed to have instigated attacks leading to the deaths of many thousands of people, was a leading participant in that conflict.

In general, the best way to assess targeted strikes against terrorists is probably to examine them in terms of the overlapping requirements of the laws of armed conflict and the laws of human rights.

Targeted Killing and the Laws of War

In situations of armed conflict, international humanitarian law permits attacks against individuals who are taking a direct part in hostilities on the opposing side.  There is much dispute about the precise meaning of this term: in the Israeli-Palestinian context, Israeli forces have carried out targeted strikes against members of groups such as Hamas that have been widely criticised on the grounds that the targets were not directly involved in fighting.  But in the case of Zarqawi, as mentioned above, there seems no question that he was taking a direct and ongoing part in the insurgency.

In addition, military actions during armed conflict must observe the rule of proportionality.  This means that harm to innocent civilians must not be excessive in relation to the military importance of the action.  In the attack on Zarqawi, the United States says that a member of Zarqawi's organization Sheikh Abd-al-Rahman and four other people, including a woman and a chld, were killed.  Given Zarqawi's central role in the insurgency, no one is likely to argue that the death of two (or three or four) civilians outweighs the military importance of the attack.

Human Rights and the Taking of Life

Human rights law is the principal body of law that governs targeted killing outside armed conflict, and it may also apply as a supplement to humanitarian law during conflict.  In normal circumstances, human rights law forbids the deliberate taking of life except as a lawfully-decided criminal sentence, or in circumstances where it is necessary to save the life of others.  However, it is generally accepted that the state may use lethal force (though only to the extent strictly necessary) to suppress insurgency or other forms of violence that pose a serious threat to public order.

There is no consensus about how far human rights law governs the activity of a state outside its own borders.  However during an internal conflict on Iraqi soil, Iraqi authorities would be constrained by human rights law, and it seems reasonable to think that U.S. forces operating in conjunction with the Iraqis should observe similar standards. 

In this case, few people would dispute that the killing of Zarqawi -- even in circumstances where he posed no immediate threat to others -- was justifiable in order to counter the continuing and lethal Iraqi insurgency.  Thus the strike against Zarqawi seems indisputably to meet the requirements set both by the laws of armed conflict and human rights law.

The most controversial cases of targeted killing arise in situations that are outside the bounds of a conventional armed conflict, but where normal police powers of arrest are unavailable -- as in some provinces of Pakistan and Yemen, for instance.  In such cases, human rights principles provide the primary standard to judge the necessity of using deadly force.  Although it's sometimes said that human rights principles would forbid all cases of targeted killing outside armed conflict, this argument seems unconvincing.  Instead, it seems more accurate to say that targeted killings in these circumstances must meet a very high threshold to be justifiable -- they must be strictly necessary to counter an ongoing campaign of lethal violence, and there must be no alternative to the use of targeted killing (such as arresting the suspect) that would achieve the same result.

Related Links

Coalition Forces Kill Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi

Multinational Force Iraq Press Release

June 8, 2006

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