ASSASSINATION PART - 2 Assassinated By Remote Control : Mohsen Fakhrizadeh: Father of Iranian N-Bomb :

 IN THE REALM OF ASSASSINATION , ESPIONAGE 

                                          AND

 TARGET KILLING THE TRUTH IS THE FIRST CASUALTY. 

                  IT MAY OR MAY NEVER COME OUT

Jael and Sisera, by Artemisia Gentileschi.

SOURCE:  (a)  https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/37882/lets-talk-about-remote-controlled-gun-turrets-and-the-killing-of-irans-top-nuclear-scientist

( b )      https://www.google.com/search?safe=active&rlz=1C1ZKTG_enIN928IN928&sxsrf=ALeKk01He9GvE8biWfqgWIN9KsG42566hw:1607665137141&source=univ&tbm=isch&q=he+SMASH+2000+gunsight,&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj52aqrm8XtAhUDzjgGHajuCnEQjJkEegQIDBAB&biw=1536&bih=780

INDEX

 ( B)   SER 2 - ASSASSINATION PART 2 :-      https://bcvasundhra.blogspot.com/2020/12/assassination-part-2-assassinated-by.html

( A)     SER 1 - ASSASSINATION PART 1 :-     https://bcvasundhra.blogspot.com/2020/12/assassination.html

Video : Click / Google to open ( https://youtu.be/pyXdB_AYiDs )

             ASSASSINATION PART - 2 

Assassinated By Remote Control : Mohsen Fakhrizadeh:  Father of Iranian N-Bomb :

How a Nissan pickup with enough explosive in it to kill 150 metres away (besides a remote controlled machine gun with ammunition that could be accurately aimed and used) was positioned at the exact spot on one of many routes Fakhrizadeh could have taken definitely suggests local collaborators within Iran. The full details will emerge months and years later, if at all. Luck, bad for the victim and good for the perpetrator is also a factor, If Fakhrizadeh had not got out of his armoured vehicle, the outcome could have been different.

This is the second killing of Iranian leadership this year by Israelis/ US using remotely controlled devices. 

On 9 January 2020, Qassem Soleimani, a General of Iran Revolutionary Guards stepped off a Cham Wings flight at Baghdad airport, He was paranoid about security for months if not years, being on US kill lists. He was met by a familiar face, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, deputy head of the Hashd al-Shaabi Iraqi paramilitary, a long standing ally of the Iranian general and a close friend.

With him was a small reception party and two vehicles, ready to whisk the head of Iran's Quds force back to Muhandis' Green Zone home, his usual address when on one of his frequent visits to the Iraqi capital. This time, something was very different. A US Reaper drone was hovering and ready to strike, and within minutes the two men would be dead on a road right next to Baghdad airport.

Such folks do not pass through the regular formal channels and get their passports stamped at airports. They do not use smartphones. They move in ordinary cars with the fewest possible number of people knowing date of time of their arrival or routes they would take. Obviously, there were fatal security leaks which allowed precise and exact knowledge of not just their whereabouts but also their intended and real-time movements. Occasionally, as on this Friday, Soleimani would land at Baghdad International Airport. Sometimes he would arrive at Najaf's instead, or cross from Iran at the Munthiriya border crossing in Diyala governorate, some 120km east of Baghdad. Increasingly, he flew into northern Iraq's Kurdistan region, before travelling south to Baghdad by car. Sensible precautions that ensure security. From analysis of experts none of those other routes would have saved Soleimani as per a leader of the Iran-backed Lebanese Hezbollah movement. "He had been betrayed by his itinerary during the final 36 hours of his life".

Overall, it was extremely difficult to track them. But Damascus and Baghdad airports are full of pro-American intelligence sources, and because of this they were located by the metre and by the minute. Either through a planted tracker or an on-ground observer or both. A Reaper has 14 hours endurance and has to be 'on target' for a designated window of no more than a few hour or so, suggesting use of multiple drones in a relay deployment.

Graphic is clearest and best viewed when enlarged on a laptop or desktop screen

The method used last week is different than the January killing. Instead of using Drone(s) flying thousands of feet above ground, the killer device was located on ground. In both instances the cost, time and effort is huge because of the kind of intelligence needed/ used. Over weeks and months security measures, movement and habit profiles of the victim are developed. Finally intelligence assets have to be present physically on ground near the intended target to locate and track the target of assasination.

Defence against such attacks will rarely come from physical measures like bodyguards or convoys of (armoured/ protected) vehicles. The targets will, like Osama bin Laden, will have to change routine and habits and be in deep protection. That too as in OBL's case did not work in the end.

Let's Talk About Remote-Controlled Gun Turrets And The Killing Of Iran's Top Nuclear Scientist

The scenario sounds like something straight out of a Hollywood blockbuster, but lightweight remote-controlled gun turrets do indeed exist.

BYJOSEPH TREVITHICKNOVEMBER 30, 2020

• THE WAR ZONE

A senior Iranian official has now claimed that Israel killed top nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh last week using a gun in either a remote-controlled or entirely automated mount on a pickup truck and that no actual human assassins were involved. No hard evidence has been provided to substantiate this assertion, which sounds like it was ripped straight from the 1997 action movie The Jackal, but it's not entirely implausible. In July, an Israeli company unveiled a man-portable gun turret that it says can scan for and lock on to targets automatically and then be fired by an operator using a wireless, tablet-like device.

Ali Shamkhani, a General in Iran's powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) who serves as Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, made the claim during the funeral procession for Fakhrizadeh earlier today. Iran's semi-official Fars news agency, which has ties to the IRGC, appears to have first reported these details about the purported remote assassination yesterday. The attack that killed the Iranian nuclear scientist, himself an IRGC officer and who U.S. and Israeli intelligence have assessed to have been in charge of Iranian nuclear weapons development efforts for decades, took place in the city of Absard, less than 50 miles east of the Iranian capital Tehran, on Nov. 27. You can read more about what was known at that time in The War Zone's initial reporting on this incident.

"The enemy used a completely new method, style, and professional and specialized way to succeed in reaching its goal," Shamkhani subsequently declared at Fakhrizadeh's funeral. 

IRGC General Ali Shamkhani, Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council.

Per Shamkhani's remarks and Fars' report from Sunday, as well as other news stories from Iranian outlets, Fakhrizadeh was headed with his wife for a weekend in Absard at the time of the attack. The black Nissan sedan they were driving in was part of a four-vehicle convoy. 

Shortly after the convoy made a turn, an electronically-controlled gun turret located inside a parked blue Nissan pickup truck shot at the sedan carrying Fakhrizadeh. The car came to a stop and the scientist is said to have gotten out, apparently unaware that the sounds he heard of objects hitting the vehicle were actually gunfire.

The gun then continued to fire, with bullets hitting Fakhrizadeh in the side and back, including at least one that left his spine severed, according to Fars. A bodyguard, who may have also been in the car, tried to save him by jumping on top of him and was also wounded, per the report. 

The pickup truck then exploded.

It's unclear how many other casualties there may have been in total. Fakhrizadeh was reportedly rushed to a local medical clinic before being flown by helicopter to a military hospital in Tehran, where he succumbed to his wounds. Other reports have asserted that the gun turret was “controlled by satellite" and that the weapon was recovered and had "the logo and specifications of the Israeli military industry." No pictures have been released, so far, claiming to show any remains of the gun or its automated mount.

What is absolutely important to note here is this version of events almost entirely contradicts Fars' own initial reporting of the incident, which said that the explosion had occurred first and that a team of gunmen had then killed Fakhrizadeh. This scenario seemed to suggest a complex attack in which the explosive-laden truck was used to first bring the convoy to a halt. 

That report also claimed that three to four people had died at the scene, including all of the attackers. Other Iranian media reports later said that a dozen gunmen had been involved in the assassination and that a 50-person support team had also been in the country to help carry out the attack. Previous assassinations, including of other Iranian nuclear scientists, attributed to Israel have involved a mixture of bombs mounted on cars and other vehicles, as well as gunmen on motorcycles.

The gun turret story feels better suited to a Hollywood blockbuster. It is perhaps most reminiscent of 1997's The Jackal, in which the titular hitman, played by Bruce Willis, attempts to assassinate the First Lady of the United States using a remote-controlled heavy machine gun concealed inside a minivan.

Video : Click / Google to open  ( https://youtu.be/pyXdB_AYiDs )

Video : Click / Google to open  (  https://youtu.be/v3e2maV8MlQ )

At the same time, as already noted, in July, Israeli company Smart Shooter debuted the newest addition to its SMASH product family, the SMASH Hopper, also known as the Light Remote-Controlled Weapon Station (LRCWS). This system combines a gun equipped with the SMASH 2000 computerized gunsight and a remotely operated mount that the company says can be installed on a tripod or a pedestal mount on the ground or on a vehicle. You can read more about this system in this past War Zone piece all about it.

    

Video : Click / Google to open

( https://youtu.be/DNej1dwTjW4

 )

 The SMASH 2000 Computerized Gunsight and a Remotely Operated Mount 

The SMASH 2000 gunsight, which doesn't require an automated gunmount, already has the ability to automatically detect targets and lock on to them, only allowing the operator to fire when they are most likely to score a hit. You can read more about this sight in this previous War Zone story

What are the anti-drone Israeli SMASH 2000 Plus systems Navy has ordered?

SMASH Hopper builds on the inherent capabilities of the SMASH 2000, giving an operator the ability to set the turret to automatically scan and then lock on to targets and then giving the command to fire. The user can also manually operate the turret, if desired. All of this can be done using a tablet-type device either physically connected to the turret via a wire or through a wireless connection. 

An even lighter weight remotely-operated system, SMASH Hopper Light, is also available with many of the same capabilities. It uses a special, proprietary tripod and has a more limited field of fire than the standard SMASH Hopper when deployed, but it can be carried and emplaced by a single person.

Smart Shooter's promotional images show SMASH Hopper and SMASH Hopper Light fitted with 5.56mm AR-15/M16 pattern carbines. Its product material says that the full-size system, at least, can also accommodate 7.62mm caliber weapons based on the Stoner SR-25 pattern rifle.

As such, it's certainly possible that the hit team could have set up a remotely-operated turret, such as SMASH Hopper, in the Nissan pickup and operated it remotely from somewhere nearby, or even set it to function in a semi-autonomous fire mode, although that seems less likely. Of course, it's equally possible, if not far more plausible, that Iran, embarrassed that a top nuclear scientist was killed in broad daylight in the middle of the country, is effectively asserting that the assassination succeeded only because its enemies employed "a completely new method" as Shamkhani put it.

It's also possible that both scenarios are partially true. That this new technology was leveraged as part of the hit, but that actual hitman also took part in making sure Iran's prized scientist didn't live to see another day. Often times, some sort of diversion can be beneficial in these types of attacks. Having a vehicle ahead open fire with a remote gun turret would certainly qualify for such a diversion. 

All this being said, the Iranian government has yet to provide any hard evidence to support any of the reported chains of events that led to Fakhrizadeh's death, whether the attack involved some kind of remote-controlled turret or not. It remains to be seen whether or not any such additional information, including supposed pictures of any weapons used in the attack, will emerge given the broad consensus, inside Iran and elsewhere, that Israel was responsible, regardless of the method.

It's still important to note that the idea that Fakhrizadeh was killed in a remote-controlled ambush of some kind is not entirely out of the realm of possibility. Precisely this type of capability does exist, and not in a big heavy form, and it is indeed manufactured in Israel. This could be all the more reason for Iranian officials to point to this technology as the culprit of the assassination, regardless of any proof it was actually present or not. 

Using sophisticated algorithms, the technology calculates the movement of a target and predicts where it is likely to be via advanced image processing. 

 lighter weight remotely-operated system, SMASH Hopper Light,

 Mini Variant of SMASH 2000 Plus

The theatre of modern warfare is constantly evolving with today's infantryman facing a whole host of new threats that never existed previously. Drones, for instance, have revolutionised the ways in which states carry out attacks, often offering inexpensive and highly effective solutions to undertake strikes without the need to risk personnel. 

But in the same way that nation-states can use drones, adversaries may also benefit. Weaponised drones pose an increasingly clear and present threat to soldiers stationed at sensitive or vulnerable locations. Identifying and taking out a fast-moving unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) can prove a futile challenge even for the greatest of sharpshooters. 

In order to address this threat, weapons designers across the world have developed a whole slew of solutions ranging from the use of trained eagles to locate and latch on to drones in mid-air to radio jamming technology. 

N THE REALM OF ASSASSINATION , ESPIONAGE 

                                          AND

 TARGET KILLING THE TRUTH IS THE FIRST CASUALTY. 

                  IT MAY OR MAY NEVER COME OUT

ASSASSINATION (PART-1)

 SOURCE:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination

INDEX

 ( B)   SER 2 - ASSASSINATION PART 2 :-      https://bcvasundhra.blogspot.com/2020/12/assassination-part-2-assassinated-by.html

( A)     SER 1 - ASSASSINATION PART 1 :-     https://bcvasundhra.blogspot.com/2020/12/assassination.html

                          ASSASSINATION

                    (PART-1)  

Assassination is the act of deliberately killing a prominent person,^[1] such as a head of state or head of government. An assassination may be prompted by political and military motives. It is an act that may be done for financial gain, to avenge a grievance, from a desire to acquire fame or notoriety, or because of a military, security, insurgent or secret police group's command to carry out the assassination. Acts of assassination have been performed since ancient times.

Contents

• 1Etymology
• 2Use in history
  • 2.1Ancient to medieval times
  • 2.2Modern history
  • 2.3Cold War and beyond
• 3Further motivations
  • 3.1As a military and foreign policy doctrine
  • 3.2As a tool of insurgents
• 4Psychology
• 5Techniques
  • 5.1Modern methods
• 6Targeted killing
• 7Countermeasures
  • 7.1Early forms
  • 7.2Modern strategies
• 8See also
• 9Notes and references
• 10Further reading
• 
  
   External links
  
  
  
  Etymology
  
  
  Main article: Hashshashin
  
  Nikolay Bobrikov, the Russian Governor-General of Finland, assassinated by Eugen Schauman on June 16, 1904 in Helsinki.^[2] A drawing of the assassination by an unknown author.
  
  
  

  The word assassin is often believed to derive from the word hashshashin (Arabic: حشّاشين, ħashshāshīyīn, also hashishin, hashashiyyin, or assassins),^[3] and shares its etymological roots with hashish (/hæˈʃiːʃ/ or /ˈhæʃiːʃ/; from Arabic: حشيش ḥashīsh).^[4] It referred to a group of Nizari Ismailis known as the Assassins who worked against various political targets.

  Founded by Hassan-i Sabbah, the Assassins were active in the fortress of Alamut in Persia from the 8th to the 14th centuries, and later expanded by capturing forts in Syria. The group killed members of the Abbasid, Seljuk, Fatimid, and Christian Crusader elite for political and religious reasons.^[5]

  Although it is commonly believed that Assassins were under the influence of hashish during their killings or during their indoctrination, there is debate as to whether these claims have merit, with many Eastern writers and an increasing number of Western academics coming to believe that drug-taking was not the key feature behind the name.^[6]

  The earliest known use of the verb "to assassinate" in printed English was by Matthew Sutcliffe in A Briefe Replie to a Certaine Odious and Slanderous Libel, Lately Published by a Seditious Jesuite, a pamphlet printed in 1600, five years before it was used in Macbeth by William Shakespeare (1605).^[7][8]

  
  Use in History
  
  
  Main article: History of Assassination
  
  Assassination of Julius Caesar, by Vincenzo Camuccini
  
  
  
  
  

  Ancient to Medieval Times

  
  
  
  14th-century painting of the successful assassination of Nizam al-Mulk, the de facto ruler of the Seljuq Empire, by an Assassin. Many elites of the empire were assassinated in their conflicts against the Nizaris.
  
  
  
  

  Assassination is one of the oldest tools of power politics. It dates back at least as far as recorded history.

  
  

  In the Old Testament, King Joash of Judah was assassinated by his own servants;^[9] Joab assassinated Absalom, King David's son;^[10] and King Sennacherib of Assyria was assassinated by his own sons.^[11]

  
  

  Chanakya (c. 350–283 BC) wrote about assassinations in detail in his political treatise Arthashastra. His student Chandragupta Maurya, the founder of the Maurya Empire, later made use of assassinations against some of his enemies, including two of Alexander the Great's generals, Nicanor and Philip.^[12] Other famous victims are Philip II of Macedon (336 BC), the father of Alexander the Great, and Roman dictator Julius Caesar (44 BC).^[13] Emperors of Rome often met their end in this way, as did many of the Muslim Shia Imams hundreds of years later. The practice was also well known in ancient China, as in Jing Ke's failed assassination of Qin king Ying Zheng in 227 BC. Whilst many assassinations were performed by individuals or small groups, there were also specialized units who used a collective group of people to perform more than one assassination. The earliest were the sicarii in 6 AD, who predated the Middle Eastern assassins and Japanese shinobis by centuries.^[14][15]

  
  

  
  

  

  Assassination of King Przemysł II of Poland
  

  Assassination of William the Silent of Holland.
  

  Assassination of King Henry III of France
  

  Assassination of King Henry IV of France

  In the Middle Ages, regicide was rare in Western Europe, but it was a recurring theme in the Eastern Roman Empire. Strangling in the bathtub was the most commonly used method. With the Renaissance, tyrannicide—or assassination for personal or political reasons—became more common again in Western Europe. High medieval sources mention the assassination of King Demetrius Zvonimir (1089), dying at the hands of his own people, who objected to a proposition by the pope to go on a campaign to aid the Byzantines against the Seljuk Turks. This account is, however, contentious among historians, it being most commonly asserted that he died of natural causes. The myth of the "Curse of King Zvonimir" is based on the legend of his assassination.^[16] In 1192, Conrad of Montferrat, the de facto King of Jerusalem, was killed by an assassin.

  The reigns of King Przemysł II of Poland (1296), William the Silent of the Netherlands (1584), and the French kings Henry III (1589) and Henry IV (1610) were all ended by assassins.

  
  

  
  

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Modern History
  
  

  In the modern world, the killing of important people began to become more than a tool in power struggles between rulers themselves and was also used for political symbolism, such as in the propaganda of the deed. In Russia alone, two emperors, Paul I and his grandson Alexander II, were assassinated within 80 years. In the United Kingdom, only one Prime Minister has been assassinated—Spencer Perceval on May 11, 1812.^[17]

  In Japan, a group of assassins called the Four Hitokiri of the Bakumatsu killed a number of people, including Ii Naosuke who was the head of administration for the Tokugawa shogunate, during the Boshin War.^[18] Most of the assassinations in Japan were committed with bladed weaponry, a trait that was carried on into modern history. A video-record exists of the assassination of Inejiro Asanuma, using a sword.^[19]

  
  

  In the United States, within 100 years, four presidents—Abraham Lincoln, James A. Garfield, William McKinley and John F. Kennedy—died at the hands of assassins. There have been at least 20 known attempts on U.S. presidents' lives. Huey Long, a Senator, was assassinated on September 10, 1935. Robert F. Kennedy, a Senator and a presidential candidate, was also assassinated on June 6, 1968 in the United States.

  
  

  
  

  
  
  

  Shown in the presidential booth of Ford's Theatre, from left to right, are assassin John Wilkes Booth, Abraham Lincoln, Mary Todd Lincoln, Clara Harris and Henry Rathbone

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  In Austria, the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg in Sarajevo on June 28, 1914, carried out by Gavrilo Princip, a Serbian national and a member of the Serbian nationalist insurgents (The Black Hand), is blamed for igniting World War I after a succession of minor conflicts, while belligerents on both sides in World War II used operatives specifically trained for assassination. Reinhard Heydrich died after an attack by British-trained Czechoslovak soldiers on behalf of the Czechoslovak government in exile in Operation Anthropoid,^[20] and knowledge from decoded transmissions allowed the United States to carry out a targeted attack, killing Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto while he was travelling by plane. The Polish Home Army conducted a regular campaign of assassinations against top Nazi German officials in occupied Poland. Adolf Hitler was almost killed by his own officers, and survived various attempts by other persons and organizations (such as Operation Foxley, though this plan was never put into practice).

  
  

  During the 1930s and 1940s, Joseph Stalin's NKVD carried out numerous assassinations outside of the Soviet Union, such as the killings of Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists leader Yevhen Konovalets, Ignace Poretsky, Fourth International secretary Rudolf Klement, Leon Trotsky, and the Workers' Party of Marxist Unification (POUM) leadership in Catalonia.^[21]

  
  

  India's "Father of the Nation", Mahatma Gandhi, was shot to death on January 30, 1948 by Nathuram Godse.

  
  

  The African-American civil rights activist, Martin Luther King Jr., was assassinated on April 4, 1968, at the Lorraine Motel (now the National Civil Rights Museum) in Memphis, Tennessee. Three years prior, another African-American civil rights activist, Malcolm X, was assassinated at the Audubon Ballroom on February 21, 1965. Two years prior, another African-American civil rights activist, Medgar Evers, was assassinated on June 12, 1963. Fred Hampton of the Black Panther Party was assassinated on December 4, 1969.

  
  

  Cold War and Beyond

  
  
  See also: Cold War and War on Terror

  

  President Kennedy minutes before his assassination, November 22, 1963.

  Liaquat Ali Khan, the first Prime Minister of Pakistan, was assassinated by Saad Akbar, a lone assassin, in 1951. Conspiracy theorists believe his conflict with certain members of the Pakistani military (Rawalpindi conspiracy) or suppression of Communists and antagonism towards the Soviet Union, were potential reasons for his assassination.

  
  

  In 1960, Inejiro Asanuma, Chairman of the Japanese Socialist Party, was assassinated in a stabbing by an extreme rightist.

  The U.S. Senate Select Committee chaired by Senator Frank Church (the Church Committee) reported in 1975 that it had found "concrete evidence of at least eight plots involving the CIA to assassinate Fidel Castro from 1960 to 1965."^[22]

  
  

  Most major powers repudiated Cold War assassination tactics, though many allege that this was merely a smokescreen for political benefit and that covert and illegal training of assassins continues today, with Russia, Israel, the U.S., Argentina, Paraguay, Chile, and other nations accused of engaging in such operations.^[23] In 1986, U.S. President Ronald Reagan (who survived an assassination attempt himself) ordered the Operation El Dorado Canyon air raid on Libya in which one of the primary targets was the home residence of Libyan ruler Muammar Gaddafi. Gaddafi escaped unharmed; however, his adopted daughter Hanna was claimed to be one of the civilian casualties.

  
  

  In the Philippines, the assassination of Benigno Aquino, Jr. triggered the eventual downfall of the 20-year autocratic rule of President Ferdinand Marcos. Aquino, a former Senator and a leading figure of the political opposition, was assassinated in 1983 at the Manila International Airport (now the Ninoy Aquino International Airport) upon returning home from exile. His death thrust his widow, Corazon Aquino, into the limelight and, ultimately, the presidency following the peaceful 1986 EDSA Revolution.

  
  

  After the Iranian Revolution of 1979, the new Islamic government of Iran began an international campaign of assassination that lasted into the 1990s. At least 162 killings in 19 countries have been linked to the senior leadership of the Islamic Republic of Iran.^[24] This campaign came to an end after the Mykonos restaurant assassinations, because a German court publicly implicated senior members of the government and issued arrest warrants for Ali Fallahian, the head of the Iranian Intelligence.^[25] Evidence indicates that Fallahian's personal involvement and individual responsibility for the murders were far more pervasive than his current indictment record represents.^[26]

  
  

  

  Orlando Letelier, a former Chilean minister, was assassinated in Washington, D.C. in 1976. Letelier's murder was part of the U.S.-backed state terror campaign known as Operation Condor.^[27]

  Anwar Sadat, President of the Arab Republic of Egypt (formerly President of the United Arab Republic), was assassinated October 6, 1981, during the annual parade celebrating Operation Badr, the opening maneuver of the Yom Kippur War.

  
  

  Swedish prime minister Olof Palme was murdered by a gun-wielding man close to midnight on February 28, 1986, after having visited a cinema with his wife. The couple was not accompanied by a bodyguard detail. In 2020 Swedish prosecutors named Stig Engström as the killer.

  
  

  On August 17, 1988, President of Pakistan Gen. M. Zia ul Haq died alongside 31 others including the Chief of Staff of the Pakistani Armed Forces, the US Ambassador to Pakistan and the chief of the US Military Mission to Pakistan when his C-130 transport plane mysteriously crashed. The crash is widely considered – in Pakistan – to be an act of political assassination.^[28]

  
  

  In post-Saddam Iraq, the Shiite-dominated government used death squads to perform extrajudicial executions of radical Sunni Iraqis, with some alleging that the death squads were trained by the U.S.^[29][30] Concrete allegations have since surfaced that the Iranian government has actively armed and funded Shia death-squads in post-Saddam Iraq.^[31]

  
  

  

  Indira Gandhi's blood-stained sari and belongings at the time of her assassination. She was the Prime Minister of India.

  In India, Prime Ministers Indira Gandhi and her son Rajiv Gandhi (neither of whom were related to Mahatma Gandhi, who was assassinated in 1948), were assassinated in 1984 and 1991 respectively. The assassinations were linked to separatist movements in Punjab and northern Sri Lanka, respectively.

  
  

  In Israel, Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated on November 4, 1995. Yigal Amir confessed and was convicted of the crime.

  
  

  Israeli tourist minister Rehavam Ze'evi was assassinated on October 17, 2001, by Hamdi Quran and three other members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). The PFLP stated that the assassination was in retaliation for the August 27, 2001, killing of Abu Ali Mustafa, the Secretary General of the PFLP, by the Israeli Air Force under its policy of targeted killings.

  
  

  In Lebanon, the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri on February 14, 2005, prompted an investigation by the United Nations. The suggestion in the resulting Mehlis report that there was Syrian involvement, prompted the Cedar Revolution, which drove Syrian troops out of Lebanon.

  
  

  In Pakistan, former prime minister and opposition leader Benazir Bhutto was assassinated in 2007, while running for re-election. Bhutto's assassination drew unanimous condemnation from the international community.^[32]

  
  

  In Guinea Bissau, President João Bernardo Vieira was assassinated in the early hours of March 2, 2009, in the capital, Bissau. Unlike typical assassinations his death was not swift; he first survived an explosion at the Presidential Villa, was then shot and wounded, and was finally butchered with machetes. His assassination was carried out by renegade soldiers who were apparently avenging the death of General Tagme Na Waie, the Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces of Guinea Bissau, who was killed when a bomb exploded the day before.

  
  

  Further Motivations

  
  

  See also: Manhunt (military)

  
  

  

  The functions of the ninja included espionage, sabotage and assassination.

  Assassination for military purposes has long been espoused: Sun Tzu, writing around 500 BC, argued in favor of using assassination in his book The Art of War. Nearly 2000 years later, in his book The Prince, Machiavelli also advises rulers to assassinate enemies whenever possible to prevent them from posing a threat.^[33] An army and even a nation might be based upon and around a particularly strong, canny, or charismatic leader, whose loss could paralyze the ability of both to make war.

  
  

  For similar and additional reasons, assassination has also sometimes been used in the conduct of foreign policy. The costs and benefits of such actions are difficult to compute, especially when they depend upon the policies of a successor, and one study has found that perceptual biases held by leaders often negatively affect decision making in that area, and decisions to go forward with assassinations often reflect the vague hope that any successor might be better.^[34]

  
  

  In both military and foreign policy assassinations, there is the risk that the target could be replaced by an even more competent leader or that such a killing (or a failed attempt) will "martyr" a leader and lead to greater support of his or her cause by showing the ruthlessness of the assassins. Faced with particularly brilliant leaders, that possibility has in various instances been risked, such as in the attempts to kill the Athenian Alcibiades during the Peloponnesian War. A number of additional examples from World War II show how assassination was used as a tool:

  • The assassination of Reinhard Heydrich in Prague on May 27, 1942 by the British and Czechoslovak government-in-exile. That case illustrates the difficulty of comparing the benefits of a foreign policy goal (strengthening the legitimacy and influence of the Czechoslovak government-in-exile in London) against the possible costs resulting from an assassination (the Lidice massacre).^[34]
  • The American interception of Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto's plane during World War II after his travel route had been decrypted.
  • Operation Gaff was a planned British commando raid to capture or kill the German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, also known as "The Desert Fox".^[35]

  Use of assassination has continued in more recent conflicts:

  • During the Vietnam War, partly in response to Viet Cong assassinations of government leaders, the US engaged in the Phoenix Program to assassinate Viet Cong leaders and sympathizers. It killed between 6,000 and 41,000 people, with official "targets" of 1,800 per month.^{[citation needed]}
  • With the Baghdad International Airport airstrike, the US assassinated the commander of Iran's Quds Force General Qasem Soleimani and the commander of Iraq's Popular Mobilization Forces Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, along with eight other high-ranking military personnel. The assassination of the military leaders was part of escalating tensions between the US and Iran and the American-led intervention in Iraq.^[36][37]

  
  

  
  

  As a Tool of Insurgents

  Insurgent groups have often employed assassination as a tool to further their causes. Assassinations provide several functions for such groups: the removal of specific enemies and as propaganda tools to focus the attention of media and politics on their cause.

  The Irish Republican Army guerrillas in 1919 to 1921 killed many Royal Irish Constabulary Police intelligence officers during the Irish War of Independence. Michael Collins set up a special unit, the Squad, for that purpose, which had the effect of intimidating many policemen into resigning from the force. The Squad's activities peaked with the killing of 14 British agents in Dublin on Bloody Sunday in 1920.

  The tactic was used again by the Provisional IRA during the Troubles in Northern Ireland (1969–1998). Killing Royal Ulster Constabulary officers and assassination of unionist politicians was one of a number of methods used in the Provisional IRA campaign 1969–1997. The IRA also attempted to assassinate British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher by bombing the Conservative Party Conference in a Brighton hotel. Loyalist paramilitaries retaliated by killing Catholics at random and assassinating Irish nationalist politicians.

  Basque terrorists ETA in Spain assassinated many security and political figures since the late 1960s, notably the president of the government of Spain, Luis Carrero Blanco, 1st Duke of Carrero-Blanco Grandee of Spain, in 1973. In the early 1990s, it also began to target academics, journalists and local politicians who publicly disagreed with it.

  The Red Brigades in Italy carried out assassinations of political figures and, to a lesser extent, so did the Red Army Faction in Germany in the 1970s and the 1980s.

  In the Vietnam War, communist insurgents routinely assassinated government officials and individual civilians deemed to offend or rival the revolutionary movement. Such attacks, along with widespread military activity by insurgent bands, almost brought the Ngo Dinh Diem regime to collapse before the US intervened.^[38]

  
  
  
  
• Psychology
• 
  

• A major study about assassination attempts in the US in the second half of the 20th century came to the conclusion that most prospective assassins spend copious amounts of time planning and preparing for their attempts. Assassinations are thus rarely cases "impulsive" actions.^[39]

  However, about 25% of the actual attackers were found to be delusional, a figure that rose to 60% with "near-lethal approachers" (people apprehended before reaching their target). That shows that while mental instability plays a role in many modern-assassinations, the more delusional attackers are less likely to succeed in their attempt. The report also found that around two thirds of attackers had previously been arrested, not necessarily for related offenses; 44% had a history of serious depression, and 39% had a history of substance abuse.^[39]

• 
  

• 
  
• Techniques
• 
  

• Modern Methods

• 
  

• With the advent of effective ranged weaponry and later firearms, the position of an assassination target was more precarious. Bodyguards were no longer enough to hold back determined killers, who no longer needed to engage directly or even to subvert the guard to kill the leader in question. Moreover, the engagement of targets at greater distances dramatically increased the chances for assassins to survive since they could quickly flee the scene. The first heads of government to be assassinated with a firearm were James Stewart, 1st Earl of Moray, the regent of Scotland, in 1570, and William the Silent, the Prince of Orange of the Netherlands, in 1584. Gunpowder and other explosives also allowed the use of bombs or even greater concentrations of explosives for deeds requiring a larger touch.

  Explosives, especially the car bomb, become far more common in modern history, with grenades and remote-triggered land mines also used, especially in the Middle East and the Balkans; the initial attempt on Archduke Franz Ferdinand's life was with a grenade). With heavy weapons, the rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) has become a useful tool given the popularity of armored cars (discussed below), and Israeli forces have pioneered the use of aircraft-mounted missiles,^[40] as well as the innovative use of explosive devices.

  

  Rifle of Lee Harvey Oswald, the assassin of President John F. Kennedy
  

  Derringer of John Wilkes Booth, the assassin of President Abraham Lincoln

  A sniper with a precision rifle is often used in fictional assassinations. However, certain pragmatic difficulties attend long-range shooting, including finding a hidden shooting position with a clear line of sight, detailed advance knowledge of the intended victim's travel plans, the ability to identify the target at long range, and the ability to score a first-round lethal hit at long range, which is usually measured in hundreds of meters. A dedicated sniper rifle is also expensive, often costing thousands of dollars because of the high level of precision machining and handfinishing required to achieve extreme accuracy.^[41]

  Despite their comparative disadvantages, handguns are more easily concealable and so are much more commonly used than rifles. Of the 74 principal incidents evaluated in a major study about assassination attempts in the US in the second half of the 20th century, 51% were undertaken by a handgun, 30% with a rifle or shotgun, 15% used knives, and 8% explosives (the use of multiple weapons/methods was reported in 16% of all cases).^[39]

  In the case of state-sponsored assassination, poisoning can be more easily denied. Georgi Markov, a dissident from Bulgaria, was assassinated by ricin poisoning. A tiny pellet containing the poison was injected into his leg through a specially designed umbrella. Widespread allegations involving the Bulgarian government and the KGB have not led to any legal results. However, after the fall of the Soviet Union, it was learned that the KGB had developed an umbrella that could inject ricin pellets into a victim, and two former KGB agents who defected stated that the agency assisted in the murder.^[42] The CIA made several attempts to assassinate Fidel Castro, many of the schemes involving poisoning his cigars. In the late 1950s, the KGB assassin Bohdan Stashynsky killed Ukrainian nationalist leaders Lev Rebet and Stepan Bandera with a spray gun that fired a jet of poison gas from a crushed cyanide ampule, making their deaths look like heart attacks.^[43] A 2006 case in the UK concerned the assassination of Alexander Litvinenko who was given a lethal dose of radioactive polonium-210, possibly passed to him in aerosol form sprayed directly onto his food. Litvinenko, a former KGB agent, had been granted asylum in the UK in 2000 after he had cited persecution in Russia. Shortly before his death, he issued a statement accusing Russian President Vladimir Putin of involvement in his assassination. Putin, a former KGB agent, denied any involvement in Litvinenko's death.^[44]

• 
  
• Targeted Killing
• 
  
• Main article: Targeted killing
  

  Predator drone; sometimes used in targeted killings

  Targeted killing is the intentional killing by a government or its agents of a civilian or "unlawful combatant" who is not in the government's custody. The target is a person asserted to be taking part in an armed conflict or terrorism, by bearing arms or otherwise, who has thereby lost the immunity from being targeted that he would otherwise have under the Third Geneva Convention.^[45] Note that it is a different term and concept from that of "targeted violence", as used by specialists who study violence.

  On the other hand, Georgetown University Law Center Professor Gary D. Solis, in his 2010 book The Law of Armed Conflict: International Humanitarian Law in War,^[46] wrote, "Assassinations and targeted killings are very different acts."^[45] The use of the term "assassination" is opposed, as it denotes murder, but the terrorists are targeted in self-defense, which is thus viewed as a killing but not a crime.^[47] Abraham D. Sofaer, former federal judge for the US District Court for the Southern District of New York, wrote on the subject:

  When people call a targeted killing an "assassination," they are attempting to preclude debate on the merits of the action. Assassination is widely defined as murder, and is for that reason prohibited in the United States ... U.S. officials may not kill people merely because their policies are seen as detrimental to our interests... But killings in self-defense are no more "assassinations" in international affairs than they are murders when undertaken by our police forces against domestic killers. Targeted killings in self-defense have been authoritatively determined by the federal government to fall outside the assassination prohibition.^[48]

  Author and former US Army Captain Matthew J. Morgan argued that "there is a major difference between assassination and targeted killing... targeted killing [is] not synonymous with assassination. Assassination... constitutes an illegal killing."^[49] Similarly, Amos Guiora, a professor of law at the University of Utah, wrote, "Targeted killing is... not an assassination."^[50] Steve David, Professor of International Relations at Johns Hopkins University, wrote, "There are strong reasons to believe that the Israeli policy of targeted killing is not the same as assassination." Syracuse Law Professor William Banks and GW Law Professor Peter Raven-Hansen wrote, "Targeted killing of terrorists is... not unlawful and would not constitute assassination."^[51] Rory Miller writes: "Targeted killing... is not 'assassination.'"^[52] Associate Professor Eric Patterson and Teresa Casale wrote, "Perhaps most important is the legal distinction between targeted killing and assassination."^[53]

  On the other hand, the American Civil Liberties Union also states on its website, "A program of targeted killing far from any battlefield, without charge or trial, violates the constitutional guarantee of due process. It also violates international law, under which lethal force may be used outside armed conflict zones only as a last resort to prevent imminent threats, when non-lethal means are not available. Targeting people who are suspected of terrorism for execution, far from any war zone, turns the whole world into a battlefield."^[54]

  Yael Stein, the research director of B'Tselem, the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, also stated in her article "By Any Name Illegal and Immoral: Response to 'Israel's Policy of Targeted Killing'":^[55]

  "The argument that this policy affords the public a sense of revenge and retribution could serve to justify acts both illegal and immoral. Clearly, lawbreakers ought to be punished. Yet, no matter how horrific their deeds, as the targeting of Israeli civilians indeed is, they should be punished according to the law. David's arguments could, in principle, justify the abolition of formal legal systems altogether."

  Targeted killing has become a frequent tactic of the United States and Israel in their fight against terrorism.^[45][56] The tactic can raise complex questions and lead to contentious disputes as to the legal basis for its application, who qualifies as an appropriate "hit list" target, and what circumstances must exist before the tactic may be used.^[45] Opinions range from people considering it a legal form of self-defense that reduces terrorism to people calling it an extra-judicial killing that lacks due process and leads to further violence.^{[45][48][57][58]} Methods used have included firing Hellfire missiles from Predator or Reaper drones (unmanned, remote-controlled planes), detonating a cell phone bomb, and long-range sniper shooting. Countries such as the US (in Pakistan and Yemen) and Israel (in the West Bank and Gaza) have used targeted killing to eliminate members of groups such as Al-Qaeda and Hamas.^[45] In early 2010, with President Obama's approval, Anwar al-Awlaki became the first US citizen to be publicly approved for targeted killing by the Central Intelligence Agency. Awlaki was killed in a drone strike in September 2011.^[59][60]

  United Nations investigator Ben Emmerson said that US drone strikes may have violated international humanitarian law.^[61][62] The Intercept reported, "Between January 2012 and February 2013, U.S. special operations airstrikes [in northeastern Afghanistan] killed more than 200 people. Of those, only 35 were the intended targets."^[63]

• 
  
• Countermeasures
• 
  

• Early forms[edit]

  

  This bodyguard was killed by an IED during Sheik Abdul Sattar Abu Risha's assassination in 2007.

  One of the earliest forms of defense against assassins was employing bodyguards, who act as a shield for the potential target; keep a lookout for potential attackers, sometimes in advance, such as on a parade route; and putting themselves in harm's way, both by simple presence, showing that physical force is available to protect the target,^[39][64] and by shielding the target if any attack occurs. To neutralize an attacker, bodyguards are typically armed as much as legal and practical concerns permit.

  Notable examples of bodyguards include the Roman Praetorian Guard or the Ottoman Janissaries, but in both cases, the protectors sometimes became assassins themselves, exploiting their power to make the head of state a virtual hostage or killing the very leaders whom they were supposed to protect. The loyalty of individual bodyguards is an important question as well, especially for leaders who oversee states with strong ethnic or religious divisions. Failure to realize such divided loyalties allowed the assassination of Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, who was assassinated by two Sikh bodyguards in 1984.

  The bodyguard function was often executed by the leader's most loyal warriors, and it was extremely effective throughout most of early human history, which led assassins to attempt stealthy means, such as poison, whose risk was reduced by having another person taste the leader's food first.

  Another notable measure is the use of a body double, a person who looks like the leader and pretends to be the leader to draw attention away from the intended target.

  Modern strategies[edit]

  

  Assassination attempt on President Ronald Reagan

  With the advent of gunpowder, ranged assassination via bombs or firearms became possible. One of the first reactions was simply to increase the guard, creating what at times might seem a small army trailing every leader. Another was to begin clearing large areas whenever a leader was present to the point that entire sections of a city might be shut down.

  As the 20th century dawned, the prevalence and capability of assassins grew quickly, as did measures to protect against them. For the first time, armored cars or limousines were put into service for safer transport, with modern versions virtually invulnerable to small arms fire, smaller bombs and mines.^[65] Bulletproof vests also began to be used, but since they were of limited utility, restricting movement and leaving the head unprotected, they tended to be worn only during high-profile public events, if at all.

  Access to famous persons also became more and more restricted;^[66] potential visitors would be forced through numerous different checks before being granted access to the official in question, and as communication became better and information technology more prevalent, it has become all but impossible for a would-be killer to get close enough to the personage at work or in private life to effect an attempt on his or her life, especially with the common use of metal and bomb detectors.

  Most modern assassinations have been committed either during a public performance or during transport, both because of weaker security and security lapses, such as with US President John F. Kennedy and former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, or as part of a coup d'état in which security is either overwhelmed or completely removed, such as with Congolese Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba.

  

  Pope Benedict XVI in a modified Mercedes-Benz M-Class Popemobile in São Paulo, Brazil

  The methods used for protection by famous people have sometimes evoked negative reactions by the public, with some resenting the separation from their officials or major figures. One example might be traveling in a car protected by a bubble of clear bulletproof glass, such as the MRAP-like Popemobile of Pope John Paul II, built following an attempt at his life. Politicians often resent the need for separation and sometimes send their bodyguards away from them for personal or publicity reasons. US President William McKinley did so at the public reception in which he was assassinated.^[66]

  Other potential targets go into seclusion and are rarely heard from or seen in public, such as writer Salman Rushdie. A related form of protection is the use of body doubles, people with similar builds to those they are expected to impersonate. These persons are then made up and, in some cases, undergo plastic surgery to look like the target, with the body double then taking the place of the person in high-risk situations. According to Joe R. Reeder, Under Secretary of the Army from 1993 to 1997, Fidel Castro used body doubles.^[67]

  US Secret Service protective agents receive training in the psychology of assassins.^[68]

• 
  
• SEE ALSO
• 
  
• Assassinations in fiction
• Contract killing
• History of assassination
• List of assassinations
• List of people who survived assassination attempts
• List of assassinated and executed heads of state and government
• List of United States presidential assassination attempts and plots
• Special Activities Division of the Central Intelligence Agency
• List of assassinations by firearm
• 
  
• 
  
• Further Reading's 
• 
  
• Ayton, Mel Plotting to Kill the President: Assassination Attempts from Washington to Hoover (Potomac Books, 2017), United States
• Clarke, James W. (2006). Defining Danger: American Assassins and the New Domestic Terrorists.
• Clarke, James W. (January 28, 2011). America's History of Crazy Political Assassins Didn't Begin with Loughner. History News Network'.
• Porter, Lindsay (2010). Assassination: a History of Political Murder. Thames and Hudson. Review The Daily Telegraph, April 3, 2010.
• "Section B. Killing, injuring or capturing an adversary by resort to perfidy". Customary IHL: Practice Relating to Rule 65. Perfidy. ICRC.
  • "Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907 (23.b.)". Yale University.
• 
  
• 
  
• 
  
• External links
• 
  
• Notorious Assassinations – slideshow by Life magazine
• CNN A short article on the U.S. policy banning political assassination since 1976 from CNN.com/Law Center, November 4, 2002. See also Ford's 1976 executive order. However, Executive Order 12333, which prohibited the CIA from assassinations, was relaxed by the George W. Bush administration.
• Kretzmer, David "Targeted Killing of Suspected Terrorists: Extra-Judicial Executions or Legitimate Means of Defence?" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on March 7, 2008. (PDF)
• Is the CIA Assassination Order of a US Citizen Legal? – video by Democracy Now!
• 
  
• 
  

• show v t e Lists of massacres

  show v t e List of terrorist incidents by year

  Authority control	BNF: cb119717532 (data) GND: 4003451-3 NARA: 10640728 NDL: 00560270

  Categories: 

  • Attacks by method
  • Killings by type
  • Political crimes
  • Assassinations
• 
  
• 
  
• Notes & References
• 
  
•  Black's Law Dictionary "the act of deliberately killing someone especially a public figure, usually for money or for political reasons" (Legal Research, Analysis and Writing by William H. Putman p. 215 and Assassination Policy Under International LawArchived December 6, 2010, at the Wayback Machine, Harvard International Review, May 6, 2006 by Kristen Eichensehr).
• ^ Kauffman, George B.; Niinistö, Lauri (1998). "Chemistry and Politics: Edvard Immanuel Hjelt (1855–1921)". The Chemical Educator. 3 (5): 1–15. doi:10.1007/s00897980247a. S2CID 97163876.
• ^ American Speech – McCarthy, Kevin M. Volume 48, pp. 77–83
• ^ The Assassins: a radical sect in Islam – Bernard Lewis, pp. 11–12
• ^ Secret Societies Handbook, Michael Bradley, Altair Cassell Illustrated, 2005. ISBN 978-1-84403-416-1
• ^ Martin Booth (2004). Cannabis: A History. Macmillan. ISBN 978-0-312-42494-7.
• ^ A briefe replie to a certaine odious and slanderous libel, lately published by a seditious Iesuite. Imprinted at London : By Arn. Hatfield, 1600 (STC 23453) p.103
• ^ "assassinate, v." OED Online. Oxford University Press, June 2016. Web. August 11, 2016.
• ^ 2 Kings 12:19-21
• ^ 2 Samuel 3:26-28 RSV
• ^ 2 Chronicles 32:21
• ^ Boesche, Roger (January 2003). "Kautilya's Arthaśāstra on War and Diplomacy in Ancient India" (PDF). The Journal of Military History. 67 (1): 9–37. doi:10.1353/jmh.2003.0006. S2CID 154243517.
• ^ Johnson, Francis (March 3, 2008). Famous assassinations of history ... Retrieved October 27, 2010.
• ^ Pichtel, John, Terrorism and WMDs: Awareness and Response, CRC Press (April 25, 2011) p.3-4. ISBN 978-1439851753
• ^ Ross, Jeffrey Ian, Religion and Violence: An Encyclopedia of Faith and Conflict from Antiquity to the Present, Routledge (January 15, 2011), Chapter: Sicarii. 978-0765620484
• ^ "FFZG.hr" (PDF). Retrieved December 29, 2013.
• ^ M. Gillen 1972 Assassination of the Prime Minister: the shocking death of Spencer Perceval. London: Sidgwick & Jackson ISBN 0-283-97881-3.
• ^ Turnbull, Stephen. The Samurai Swordsman: Master of War. Tuttle Publishing; 1 edition (August 5, 2014). p. 182. ISBN 978-4805312940
• ^ Chun, Jayson Makoto (2006). A Nation of a Hundred Million Idiots?: A Social History of Japanese Television, 1953–1973. Routledge. pp. 184–185. ISBN 978-0-415-97660-2. Retrieved March 22, 2014.
• ^ Burian, Michal; Aleš (2002). "Assassination — Operation Arthropoid, 1941–1942" (PDF). Ministry of Defence of the Czech Republic. Retrieved July 5, 2011.
• ^ Michael Ellman. The Role of Leadership Perceptions and of Intent in the Soviet Famine of 1931–1934. Europe-Asia Studies, 2005. p. 826
• ^ Church Committee – Interim Report: Alleged Assassination Plots Involving Foreign Leaders Part III.B, page 71 from the 'history-matters.com' website. Retrieved August 22, 2008.
• ^ John Dingles (2004) The Condor Years ISBN 978-1-56584-764-4
• ^ "English front cover – No Safe Haven" (PDF). p. 100. Archived from the original (PDF) on September 2, 2010. Retrieved June 2,2010.
• ^ "Mykonos front cover" (PDF). Archived from the original(PDF) on September 2, 2010. Retrieved May 13, 2010.
• ^ "Condemned by Law – Report 11-10-08.doc" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on March 7, 2010. Retrieved May 13,2010.
• ^ McSherry, J. Patrice (2011). "Chapter 5: "Industrial repression" and Operation Condor in Latin America". In Esparza, Marcia; Henry R. Huttenbach; Daniel Feierstein (eds.). State Violence and Genocide in Latin America: The Cold War Years (Critical Terrorism Studies). Routledge. p. 107. ISBN 978-0415664578.
• ^ Ghosh, Palash (April 27, 2013). "Who Killed General Zia Of Pakistan? Perhaps The Israelis, The US, Moscow". International Business Times. Retrieved April 16, 2015.
• ^ "The Salvador Option" – The Pentagon may put Special-Forces-led assassination or kidnapping teams in Iraq – Newsweek, Friday January 14, 2005
• ^ CBS: Death Squads In Iraqi Hospitals – CBS Evening News, Wednesday October 4, 2006
• ^ Iran 'training Shia death squads' – [Scotsman.com News], March 22, 2007
• ^ Benazir Bhutto shot dead at suicide bombing of rally; 20 feared dead – The Canadian Press, Thursday December 27, 2007
• ^ Machiavelli, Niccolò (1985), The Prince, University of Chicago Press. Translated by Harvey Mansfield
• ^ Jump up to:^a b Schilling, Warner R.; Schilling, Jonathan L. (Fall 2016). "Decision Making in Using Assassinations in International Relations". Political Science Quarterly. 131 (3): 503–539. doi:10.1002/polq.12487.
• ^ Commando Extraordinary – Foley, Charles; Legion for the Survival of Freedom, 1992, page 155
• ^ Abdul-Ahat, Ghait (January 4, 2020). "Qassem Suleimani: 'Death to America' chants at Baghdad funeral procession". The Guardian.
• ^ Harel, Amos (January 4, 2020). "Iran Says It Has Decided How to React to U.S. Strike That Killed Soleimani". Haaretz.
• ^ Viet Cong – Pike, Douglas, The MIT Press; New Ed edition, Wednesday December 16, 1970
• ^ Jump up to:^a b c d Assassination in the United States: An Operational StudyArchived June 20, 2006, at the Wayback Machine – Fein, Robert A. & Vossekuil, Brian, Journal of Forensic Sciences, Volume 44, Number 2, March 1999
• ^ Hamas leader killed in Israeli airstrike – CNN, Saturday April 17, 2004
• ^ Iraqi insurgents using Austrian rifles from Iran – The Daily Telegraph, Tuesday February 13, 2007
• ^ The case of the poisoned umbrella. BBC World Service, 2007.
• ^ Christopher Andrew and Vasili Mitrokhin. The Sword and the Shield: The Mitrokhin Archive and the Secret History of the KGB.Basic Books, 1999. ISBN 978-0-465-00312-9 p. 362
• ^ Putin 'Deplores' Spy Death – Sky News Friday November 24, 2006^{[dead link]}
• ^ Jump up to:^{a b c d e f} Gary D. Solis (2010). The Law of Armed Conflict: International Humanitarian Law in War. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-87088-7. Retrieved May 19, 2010.
• ^ Solis, Gary D. (February 15, 2010). The law of armed conflict ... – Gary D. Solis. ISBN 978-1-139-48711-5. Retrieved December 27,2011.
• ^ Targeted killing is a necessary option, Sofaer, Abraham D., Hoover Institution, March 26, 2004
• ^ Jump up to:^a b Abraham D. Sofaer (March 26, 2004). "Responses to Terrorism / Targeted killing is a necessary option". The San Francisco Chronicle. Archived from the original on August 29, 2011. Retrieved May 20, 2010.
• ^ Matthew J. Morgan (2009). The Impact of 9–11: The New Legal Landscape. Macmillan. ISBN 978-0-230-60838-2. Retrieved May 29, 2010.
• ^ Guiora, Amos (2004). "Targeted Killing as Active Self-Defense". 36 Case W. Res. J. Int'l L. 31920. Retrieved May 29, 2010.
• ^ Banks, William C.; Raven-Hansen, Peter. "Targeted Killing and Assassination: The U.S. Legal Framework". 37 U. Rich. L. Rev. 667 (2002–03). Retrieved October 19, 2010.
• ^ Rory Miller (2007). Ireland and the Middle East: trade, society and peace. Irish Academic Press. ISBN 978-0-7165-2868-5. Retrieved May 29, 2010.
• ^ Steven R. David (September 2002). "Fatal Choices: Israel's Policy Of Targeted Killing" (PDF). The Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies. Archived from the original (PDF) on November 16, 2010. Retrieved May 29, 2010.
• ^ "Frequently Asked Questions About Targeting Killing | American Civil Liberties Union". Aclu.org. August 30, 2010. Retrieved August 13, 2012.
• ^ Stein, Yael (2003). "By Any Name Illegal and Immoral: Response to "Israel's Policy of Targeted Killing"". Carnegie Council. Archived from the original on March 14, 2012. Retrieved January 31, 2019.
• ^ "Q&A: Targeted Killings", Eben Kaplan, The New York Times, January 25, 2006. Retrieved October 8, 2010.
• ^ Dana Priest (November 8, 2002). "U.S. Citizen Among Those Killed In Yemen Predator Missile Strike". The Tech (MIT); The Washington Post. Retrieved May 19, 2010.
• ^ Mohammed Daraghmeh (February 20, 2001). "Hamas Leader Dies in Apparent Israeli Targeted Killing". Times Daily. Retrieved May 20, 2010.
• ^ Greg Miller (January 31, 2010). "U.S. citizen in CIA's cross hairs". Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on May 7, 2010. Retrieved May 20, 2010.
• ^ Greg Miller (April 7, 2010). "Muslim cleric Aulaqi is 1st U.S. citizen on list of those CIA is allowed to kill". The Washington Post. Retrieved May 20, 2010.
• ^ Drone strikes by US may violate international law, says UN . The Guardian. 18 October 2013.
• ^ UN report calls for independent investigations of drone attacks. The Guardian. 18 October 2013.
• ^ {{cite web |url=https://theintercept.com/drone-papers/the-assassination-complex/ |title=The Assassination Complex |work=The Intercept |date=15 October 2015}}
• ^ Lincoln – Appendix 7, Report of the President's Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy, 1964
• ^ How to choose the appropriate bulletproof cars ArchivedJanuary 3, 2007, at the Wayback Machine (from Alpha-armouring.com website, includes examples of protection levels available)
• ^ Jump up to:^a b The Need For Protection Further Demonstrated – Appendix 7, Report of the President's Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy, 1964
• ^ Donaldson-Evans, Catherine (December 20, 2001). "It's Bin Laden ... or Is It?". Fox News. Archived from the original on August 5, 2012. Retrieved December 8, 2006.
• ^ Pelley, Scott (August 15, 2000). "Mind of the Assassin". CBS 60 Minutes II. Retrieved March 30, 2010
•