What is "targeted killing"

n. (context warfare English) The intentional killing by a government or its agents of a civilian or "unlawful combatant" who is not in that government's custody, and who is taking part in an armed conflict or terrorism, whether by bearing arms or otherwise, and is thus regarded by the government as having lost the immunity from being targeted that he or she would otherwise have under the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geneva%20Conventions.(reference-book pages=74 first=Eric last=Patterson title=Just War Thinking: Morality and Pragmatism in the Struggle against Contemporary Threats publisher=Lexington Books year=2009 isbn=978-0739119013)(reference-book year=2009 pages=227-228 title=The Impact of 9/11 and the New Legal Landscape: The Day that Changed Everything? first=Matthew J. last=Morgan publisher=Palgrave Macmillan isbn=0230608388)(reference-book year=2008 pages=150 first= Amos N. last=Guiora title=Constitutional Limits on Coercive Interrogation publisher=Oxford University Press, USA isbn=0195340310)

Targeted killing is a modern euphemism for the assassination (premeditated killing) of an individual by a state organization or institution outside a judicial procedure or a battlefield.

Targeted killings were employed extensively by death squads in El Salvador, Nicaragua, Colombia, and Haiti within the context of civil unrest and war during the 1980s and 1990s. Targeted killings have also been used in Somalia, Rwanda, and in the Balkans during the Yugoslav Wars. The United States government also carries out targeted killings, such as the killing of Anwar al-Awlaki. Targeted killings have also been used by narcotics traffickers.

Use of targeted killings by Israeli conventional military forces became commonplace after the Second Intifada, when Israeli security forces used the tactic to kill Palestinian opponents. Though initially opposed by the Bush Administration, targeted killings have become a frequent tactic of the United States government in the War on Terror. Instances of targeted killing by the United States that have received significant attention include the killing of Osama bin Laden and of American citizens Anwar al-Awlaki and his teenage son in 2011. Under the Obama administration use of targeted killings has expanded, most frequently through use of combat drones operating in Afghanistan, Pakistan or Yemen.

The legality of targeted killing is disputed. Some academics, military personnel and officials describe targeted killing as legitimate within the context of self-defense, when employed against terrorists or combatants engaged in asymmetrical warfare. They argue that drones are more humane and more accurate than manned vehicles. Others, including academics such as Gregory Johnsen and Charles Schmitz, twenty-six members of Congress, some media sources ( Jeremy Scahill, Glenn Greenwald, James Traub), civil rights groups like the American Civil Liberties Union and ex- CIA station chief in Islamabad, Robert Grenier have criticized targeted killings as a form of extrajudicial killings, which may be illegal within the United States and possibly under international law.