A New Breed of Predator

LAST WEEKEND’S attack by an unmanned RQ-1A Predator drone on a group of six al Qaeda terrorists was the first known strike by an unmanned aerial vehicle outside Afghanistan. The strike, which killed a top al Qaeda operative who was suspected of having been a key player in the October 2000 attack on the USS Cole, also heralds a new phase of Bush administration’s anti-terrorism strategy.

And it is likely that as the U.S. military reconfigures itself for the war on terrorism, tools like the unmanned strike drone will be used increasingly for precision attacks against al Qaeda targets.