Drones: The face of the war on terror

A drone strike that killed an alleged planner of the 2013 Kenyan mall massacre is the latest victory for a U.S. campaign that has taken out more than 500 suspected terrorist leaders since shortly after the 9/11 attacks.

Most have been drone strikes, the Obama administration's weapon of choice. It has authorized at least 450 attacks by unmanned aircraft, according to Micah Zenko, an analyst at the Council on Foreign Relations.

Wednesday, the Pentagon announced that Adan Garar, a member of al-Shabaab's intelligence and security wing, was killed in southwestern Somalia on March 12 as he traveled in a vehicle.

"None of this would have been imaginable 14 years ago," Zenko said. "Now these are not a big deal."

The reason is simple. The unmanned aircraft provide the administration an accurate way of striking enemies while minimizing risks for U.S. personnel. They can control the weapons from American bases thousands of miles from the mountains of Pakistan or deserts of Yemen.

That is particularly attractive for an administration that wants to avoid committing ground troops in the Middle East but continues to battle extremists in far corners of the globe.

Outside the USA, the strikes have been controversial and triggered resentment. Critics of American foreign policy accuse the United States of killing innocent civilians in the strikes. Pakistan's government, which says it's an ally in the fight against global terrorism, has often been vocal in lashing out at the use of drone strikes in remote parts of the country.

"Everyone except Israel and the United States hates them (drone strikes)," Zenko said. "In some areas where operations occur, drones have become the face of U.S. policy."

Despite charges of civilian deaths, the weapons on the unmanned aircraft have become increasingly more precise, and surveillance equipment has allowed operators to get a much clearer picture of what is happening on the ground.

Often the allegations of civilian casualties come from critics who want to whip up anti-American sentiment, said Andrew Hunter, an analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Because the strikes are often in remote regions, it is difficult for journalists and human rights groups to investigate the allegations, he said.

Analysts say that as the unmanned aircraft become more precise, civilian leaders will be quicker to reach for that option, lowering the threshold for deciding whether to target a suspected militant.

The capability to strike from afar has produced the "illusion of antiseptic warfare," said James Phillips, an analyst at the Heritage Foundation. "On the receiving end, it gets very messy."

A couple of decades ago, policymakers had few options for striking from a distance.

In 1998, when President Clinton wanted to retaliate against al-Qaeda terrorist bombings of American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, he launched a barrage of 75 cruise missiles into militant bases in Afghanistan and struck a pharmaceutical factory in Sudan.

The strikes in Afghanistan damaged some training camps but did not eliminate any top leaders. The pharmaceutical factory generated controversy because of disputes over whether it produced medicine or chemical weapons for al-Qaeda.

The strikes were widely viewed as ineffective, Phillips said.

The number of drones, which are more commonly used for surveillance, has expanded dramatically, driven by their success in providing critical intelligence to American ground forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.

They see extensive action over Iraq and Syria, where the United States is conducting an air campaign against its latest terrorist threat, the Islamic State.

"The ability to know what you're shooting at – that's where things have come huge distance," Hunter said.