Manhunt (military)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Manhunting is the deliberate identification, capture or killing of senior or otherwise important enemy combatants, dubbed high-value targets, usually by special operations forces and intelligence organizations.
A response to asymmetric tactics adopted by terrorists, insurgents, pirates, narcotraffickers, arms proliferators and other non-state actors, manhunting has been adopted by military organizations to reduce collateral damage that would occur during a conventional military assault.
The most visible such operations conducted today involve counterterrorist activities. Some involve government-sanctioned assassination, also known as targeted killing or extrajudicial execution. Operations to capture terrorists have drawn political and legal controversy, due to the practice of extraordinary rendition.
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[edit] U.S. operations
The United States has use armed forces or militia to apprehend people deemed threats to national security since colonial times.
- Colonial period
- In 1644, Virginia Governor William Berkeley dispatched a colonial militia to apprehend Powhatan chief Opchanacanough.
- Revolutionary militia caused an uproar by intentionally targeting British and Hessian officers with sniper fire during and after the battles of Lexington and Concord.
- In July 1776, Daniel Boone pursued a Shawnee raiding party through the Kentucky wilderness to rescue his daughter Jemima and two friends. The adventure inspired James Fenimore Cooper to write The Last of the Mohicans.
- Indian Wars
- The United States Army was sent to pursue leaders or small bands of Native Americans who defied the U.S. government, including Black Hawk, Chief Joseph, Geronimo and Victorio.
- In the American Civil War, the Union and Confederate forces conducted occasional manhunting operations.
- John S. Mosby planned his 17-man raid on Fairfax Courthouse to capture Union General Edwin H. Stoughton.
- Lafayette Baker's 1st District of Columbia Cavalry unsuccessfully tried to capture Mosby.
- Early 1900s
- The 20th century began with the United States intervention in the Philippines, as the Army sought out individual insurrectos in a concerted counterinsurgency campaign.
- American political influence was employed in 1904 in a manhunt for Ion Perdicaris, who had been taken captive by Mulai Ahmed er Raisuni.
- In 1916, President Woodrow Wilson ordered the Mexican Expedition to end Pancho Villa's reign of terror in the American Southwest.
- World War II
- A squadron of P-38 Lightning twin-engined fighters was sent to shoot down Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto's transport aircraft, downing his bomber on 18 April 1943 as it approached Bougainville.
- Vietnam
- Fourteen Army Combat Tracker Tracker Teams, trained at the British Jungle Warfare Schools in Malaya and New Zealand, were deployed to Vietnam to hunt enemy insurgents.
- 1979
- An abortive special operations forces rescue attempt ended in disaster during the Iranian hostage crisis.
- 1980-1999. A shift in US national security policy began to emerge in the late 20th century, as national leaders began to identify individuals as adversaries, rather than countries. This became evident in the hunts for:
- Manuel Noriega
- Mohamed Farrah Aidid
- The pursuit of Slobodan Milošević and Balkan war criminals.
- Manhunting after September 11, 2001
- US military manhunting operations included the apprehension of Saddam Hussein,[1] key Ba'ath party leaders, and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, along with the capture or death of al Qaeda and Taliban leaders.[2][3]
- Military manhunts within the United States
- Military reconnaissance aircraft helped domestic law enforcement look for the Beltway sniper.[4]
[edit] Non-U.S. operations
Manhunting operations are not confined to American history.
- International manhunting dates to Alexander the Great's pursuit of Darius III.
- The Romans pursued Hannibal Barca after the Second Punic War.
- The Hashashim, a mystic sect of warriors, cultivated a fearsome reputation with targeted assassinations of Muslim leaders, often in Mosques or other public places.
- Feudal Japan's Ninja or Shinobi warrior sect adopted similar techniques.
- Vlad Tepes, a.k.a. Dracula, carried out his Night Attack in an attempt to kill the Ottoman leader, Mehmet II.
- The conquest of the Aztec Empire resulted from Hernan Cortes' capture of Aztec ruler Montezuma II.
- Francisco Pizarro later repeated the tactic against the Inca ruler Atahuallpa.
- World War II.
- A hand-picked German special forces unit, led by Otto Skorzeny, rescued former Italian dictator Benito Mussolini from the 6,000-foot Gran Sasso peak.
- British officers Stanley Moss and Patrick Leigh-Fermor infiltrated Crete with the help of local partisans to capture General Kreipe, Commander of the Sevastopol Division.
- Seven British Special Air Service members parachuted into France as part of Operation Gaff, an unsuccessful plan to assassinate Field Marshal Erwin Rommel.
- Subsequent British SAS manhunting operations were conducted during the Malayan Emergency, against key Irish Republican Army operatives, and as part of global counterterrorism missions.
- Britain may have issued shoot-to-kill orders six months after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, under the code name Operation Kratos.[citation needed]
- North Korea secretly sent a 31-man detachment from its 124th Army Unit to South Korea to kill President Park Chung-hee, nearly succeeding in a 1968 raid on the Blue House.[citation needed]
- France deployed GIGN antiterrorist police and the French Navy to capture Somali pirates who had seized the 850-ton yacht Le Ponant. On April 11, 2008, the French forces captured six of 10 pirates as they attempted to escape with a $2 million ransom.[5]
[edit] Israeli operations
Israel may have the most advanced and experienced manhunters.
- Israel adopted targeted killing in response to Black September's Munich Olympics massacre, leading to Mossad's Operation Wrath of God and Sayeret Matkal's Operation Spring of Youth. During the "Avner team" two-year deployment, eight of 11 intended targets are killed; while collateral damage includes one KGB officer, four Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) security personnel, and one freelance assassin in exchange for two team members lost.
Israel has continued to employ the targeted killing of violent radical opponents. Notable operations include:
- April 1973, when Israeli commandos landed in Beirut and killed senior members of the Fatah movement including Yasir Arafat's deputy Yusuf Najjar and the Fatah spokesman Kamal Nasir.
- Israel may have been behind the 1979 explosion in Beirut that killed Ali Hassan Salameh, founder of Fatah's elite Force 17.
- In April 1988 an Israeli commando force landed in Tunis and killed the head of the (PLO) military branch Khalil al Wazir (Abu Jihad).
- In October 1995, following a series of suicide attacks which claimed the lives of dozens of Israelis, Mossad agents shot and killed the head of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), Fathi Shiqaqi, in Malta.
- In January 1996, three months later, a booby-trapped cellular phone exploded, killing Hamas member Yahya Ayyash, also known as "The Engineer," who masterminded suicide attacks in which 50 Israelis died and 340 were wounded.
- In February 1992, Israeli helicopters fired on the car of Hizbullah leader Abbas Musawi, killing him and members of his entourage.
- Amal's operations officer, Hussam al Amin, was killed in a similar operation in August 1998.
- On November 9, 2000, near the West Bank town of Bethlehem, an Israeli Apache helicopter fired a laser-guided missile at the vehicle of Husayn Abayat, killing him and wounding his deputy.
- Similar operations on February 13, 2001 killed Masud Iyyad, a Force 17 officer trying to establish a Hizbullah cell in the Gaza Strip, and PIJ activist Muhammad abd al Al, who according to the IDF was responsible for terrorist acts and was on his way to carry out two major attacks.
- On July 22, 2002, a 2000-lb bomb dropped from an F-16 fighter killed Salah Shihada, the leader and founder of Hamas' military wing of Izz ad din al Qassam in Gaza.
- Israeli Defense Forces reveal that an April 14, 2008 air strike by an unmanned aerial vehicle killed Ibrahim abu Alba; Palestinian sources confirm his death. A member of the military wing of the Palestinian Democratic Front responsible for operations in northern Gaza, the IDF said Alba was responsible for rocket attacks and a recent infiltration into Israel that had injured three soldiers. The IDF stated Alba was planning another attack when he was killed near Beit Hanoun.[6]
- On April 16, a helicopter airstrike kills Mohammed Ghausain, Islamic Jihad's commander in northern Gaza.[7]
- On December 14, 2006 the Israeli Supreme Court ruled that targeted killing is a legitimate form of self-defense against terrorists, and outlined several conditions for its use.[8] This decision, arrived at after four years of deliberation, may establish precedent for international law.
[edit] Sources
- John Cloud, "The Manhunt Goes Global," Time/CNN, October 15, 2001 [1]
- Seymour Hersh, "Annals of National Security: Moving Targets: Will the counter-insurgency plan in Iraq repeat the mistakes of Vietnam?" The New Yorker, Dec 15, 2003 [2]
- Steven Marks, Thomas Meer, Matthew Nilson, Manhunting: A Methodology for Finding Persons of National Interest June 2005 [3]
- George Crawford, Manhunting: Reversing the Polarity of Warfare, 2008
- Charles O'Quinn, An Invisible Scalpel: Low-Visibility Operations in the War on Terror, June 2006, [4]
- Steven Roberts, Unilateral Man Hunting: Is The Strategic Operating Environment Structured To Allow The Department Of Defense To Conduct Unilateral Manhunting Operations, June 18, 2004 [5]
- Matthew Machon, Targeted Killing as an Element of U.S. Foreign Policy in the War on Terror, March 25, 2006 [6]
- John Dodson, "Man-hunting, Nexus Topography, Dark Networks and Small Worlds", Joint Information Operations Center IOSphere, Winter 2006 [7]
- Casper Weinberger "When Can We Target the Leaders?," Strategic Review (Spring 2001), p.23.
- Thomas Wingfield, "Taking Aim at Regime Elites," 22 Md. J. Int'l. L. & Trade 287.
- Elizabeth Bazan, Assassination Ban and E.O. 12333: A Brief Summary, January 4, 2002
- Eben Kaplan, "Targeted Killings," Council on Foreign Relations Website, [8]
- Gal Luft, "The Logic of Israel's Targeted Killing," Middle East Quarterly, Winter 2003 [9]
- David Kretzmer, "Targeted Killing of Suspected Terrorists: Extra-Judicial Executions or Legitimate Means of Defence?" European Journal of International Law, 2005 [10]
- Laura Blumenfeld, "In Israel, a Divisive Struggle Over Targeted Killing," The Washington Post, August 27, 2006 [11]
- Mayur Patel, "Israel's Targeted Killings of Hamas Leaders," American Society of International Law Website, May 2004 [12]
- Daniel Byman, "Do Targeted Killings Work?" Foreign Affairs March/April 2006 [13]
- Angus Fay, Combating Terrorism: A Conceptual Framework for Targeting at the Operational Level, June 18, 2004 [14]
- Sue Rodgers, "Combat Tracker Teams: Dodging an Elusive Enemy", Vietnam Magazine, October 2001.
- Ray Suarez, "Manhunt," Online News Hour, October 16, 2002 [15]
- Lieutenant Colonel Jack Marr, U.S. Army; Major John Cushing, U.S. Army; Captain Brandon Garner, U.S. Army; and Captain Richard Thompson, U.S. Army, Human Terrain Mapping: A Critical First Step to Winning the COIN Fight, April 2008
- Michael A. Sheehan, Crush the Cell: How to Defeat Terrorism Without Terrorizing Ourselves, ISBN 978-0-307-39217-7, 2008
[edit] References
- ^ James Risen And David Johnston, "A Nation At War: Manhunt; Military And C.I.A. Searching Baghdad For Hussein And His Sons Or Their Bodies," New York Times, April 10, 2003
- ^ Robin Wright and Joby Warrick, "U.S. Steps Up Unilateral Strikes in Pakistan, Officials Fear Support From Islamabad Will Wane", Washington Post, March 26, 2008
- ^ Mark Hosenball, Zahid Hussain and Ron Moreau, With a Quiet Blessing, U.S. Attacks on Al Qaeda Spike, Newsweek, Mar 31, 2008
- ^ Ray Suarez, "Manhunt", Online News Hour, Oct 16, 2002
- ^ "Video shows pirates pursued, captured", CNN.com, April 15, 2008
- ^ "Israeli airstrike kills Palestinian militant," CNN.com, April 14, 2008
- ^ "Israel kills top Palestinian commander," PressTV, April 16, 2008
- ^ Summary of Israeli Supreme Court Ruling on Targeted Killings Dec 14, 2006
[edit] See also
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