Wednesday, August 03, 2022

That drone strike: a teeny-tiny query

UPDATE: apparently it was a new, horrible slicing-up weapon, one of a family of ghastly new inventions as discussed here: https://theconversation.com/bladed-ninja-missile-used-to-kill-al-qaida-leader-is-part-of-a-scary-new-generation-of-unregulated-weapons-188316

_________________

Two intelligence sources tell Fox News Al Qaeda leader Ayman Al Zawahiri was killed in the CIA drone strike. "Over the weekend, the United States conducted a counterterrorism operation against a significant Al Qaeda target in Afghanistan," the senior administration official told Fox News. "The operation was successful and there were no civilian casualties." 

- https://www.fox5ny.com/news/biden-announces-counterterrorism-operation-al-qaida-afghanistan

Why is the qualifier 'civilian' there?

Does it imply that there were others? Another account I hear said he was standing on a balcony - all alone in a big house?

If there were other casualties, what would make them non-civilian? Being members of his family?

A fuller account, please.

2 comments:

Unfortunately, because of a plague of spam comments, you need to be a "registered user", otherwise your observations will be buried in a torrent of multilingual nonsense. Please do comment!

Say what you please, so long as it's phrased politely and is not libellous or legally proscribed. Fact, reason and wit are keenly welcomed.