A surgical strike is a military attack which is intended to damage only a legitimate military target, with no or minimal

collateral damage "Collateral damage" is a term for any incidental and undesired death, injury or other damage inflicted, especially on civilians, as the result of an activity. Originally coined to describe military operations, it is now also used in non-milit ...

to surrounding structures, vehicles, buildings, or the general public infrastructure and utilities.

Description

A swift and targeted attack with the aim of minimum collateral damage to the nearby areas and civilians is a surgical strike. Neutralization of targets with surgical strikes also prevents escalation to a full-blown war. Surgical strike attacks can be carried out via air strike, airdropping special ops teams or a swift ground operation or by sending special troops.

Precision bombing Precision bombing is the attempted aerial bombing of a target with some degree of accuracy, with the aim of maximising target damage or limiting collateral damage. Its strategic counterpart is carpet bombing. An example would be destroying a sing ...

is another example of a surgical strike carried out by aircraft – it can be contrasted against

carpet bombing Carpet bombing, also known as saturation bombing, is a large area bombardment done in a progressive manner to inflict damage in every part of a selected area of land. The phrase evokes the image of explosions completely covering an area, in t ...

, the latter which results in high collateral damage and a wide range of destruction over an affected area which may or may not include high civilian casualties. The bombing of Baghdad during the initial stages of the 2003 invasion of Iraq by US forces, known as " shock and awe" is an example of a coordinated surgical strike, where government buildings and military targets were systematically attacked by US aircraft in an attempt to cripple the

Ba'athist Ba'athism, also spelled Baathism, is an Arab nationalist ideology which advocates the establishment of a unified Arab state through the rule of a Ba'athist vanguard party operating under a revolutionary socialist framework. The ideology ...

controlled Iraqi government under

Saddam Hussein Saddam Hussein (28 April 1937 – 30 December 2006) was an Iraqi politician and revolutionary who served as the fifth president of Iraq from 1979 until Saddam Hussein statue destruction, his overthrow in 2003 during the 2003 invasion of Ira ...

Examples

Azerbaijan

On 14 October 2020, during the

2020 Nagorno-Karabakh conflict The Second Nagorno-Karabakh War was an armed conflict in 2020 that took place in the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh and the Armenian-occupied territories surrounding Nagorno-Karabakh, surrounding occupied territories. It was a major esca ...

, Azerbaijan carried out surgical strikes against Armenian forces and destroyed three R-17 Elbrus tactical ballistic missile launchers in

Kalbajar District Kalbajar District () is one of the 66 Administrative divisions of Azerbaijan, districts of Azerbaijan. It is located in the west of the country and belongs to the East Zangezur Economic Region. The district borders the districts of Lachin Distric ...

, ''

de jure In law and government, ''de jure'' (; ; ) describes practices that are officially recognized by laws or other formal norms, regardless of whether the practice exists in reality. The phrase is often used in contrast with '' de facto'' ('from fa ...

'' part of Azerbaijan, but under '' de facto'' independent Artsakh's control. According to Azerbaijan, the missile launchers had been targeting

Ganja ''Ganja'' (, ; ) is one of the oldest and most commonly used synonyms for cannabis flower, specifically marijuana or hashish. Its usage in English dates to before 1689. Etymology ''Ganja'' is borrowed from Hindi (, IPA: �aːɲd͡ʒa� ...

and

Mingachevir Mingachevir ( ) is the fourth largest city in Azerbaijan with a population of about 106,000. It is often called the "city of lights" because of its hydroelectric power station on the Kura (South Caucasus river), Kura River, which divides the city ...

, and the strike was in retaliation of the 11 October Ganja ballistic missile attack, which resulted in ten civilians getting killed and 40 more getting injured, with women and children being among the victims. Armenia confirmed that sites within Armenia had been struck while continuing to deny it had attacked Azerbaijan.

Israel

Israel's

Entebbe raid The Entebbe raid, also known as the Operation Entebbe and officially codenamed Operation Thunderbolt (also retroactively codenamed Operation Yonatan), was a 1976 Israeli counter-terrorist mission in Uganda. It was launched in response to th ...

in 1976, through which Israeli passengers were freed from a hijacked plane that landed in Uganda, is considered a successful surgical strike. Even though it did not involve taking out a specific military target, the operation was carried out deep inside foreign territory and the IDF commandos travelled 5,000 miles from start to finish without engaging any other forces or causing any collateral damage to the country where the operation took place, thus befitting the term. Israel's 1981 bombing of the Iraqi nuclear reactor Osirak is considered a prime example of a surgical strike.

United States

The 1986 bombing of targets in the Libyan cities of Tripoli and

Benghazi Benghazi () () is the List of cities in Libya, second-most-populous city in Libya as well as the largest city in Cyrenaica, with an estimated population of 859,000 in 2023. Located on the Gulf of Sidra in the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean, Ben ...

were carried out using surgical strike tactics, with both ground-based and carrier-based attack aircraft striking airports, barracks, and military training centers. The stated goals of the attack were to cripple Libya's ability to train and support terrorists, but it has been rumored that the attack was also an assassination attempt on

Muammar Gaddafi Muammar Muhammad Abu Minyar al-Gaddafi (20 October 2011) was a Libyan military officer, revolutionary, politician and political theorist who ruled Libya from 1969 until Killing of Muammar Gaddafi, his assassination by Libyan Anti-Gaddafi ...

. The United States carried out numerous surgical strikes against Al-Qaeda targets in Afghanistan using

cruise missile A cruise missile is an unmanned self-propelled guided missile that sustains flight through aerodynamic lift for most of its flight path. Cruise missiles are designed to deliver a large payload over long distances with high precision. Modern cru ...

s. It also used the same technology against a purported chemical weapons facility in Sudan.

References