Damadola airstrike

The attack was carried out by four CIA-operated unmanned Predator drones which launched four Hellfire missiles at a mud-walled compound, destroying three houses several hundred yards apart.

[7][8] Two Pakistani intelligence officials said Libyan-born Abu Faraj al-Libbi, who was captured in Pakistan in May 2005, told interrogators that he had met al-Zawahiri last year at the home of Bakhtpur Khan, one of the thirteen villagers killed in the airstrike.

Pakistan's Foreign Ministry issued a statement saying it protested to US Ambassador Ryan Crocker over the "loss of innocent civilian lives."

Pakistan's Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed called the attack "highly condemnable" and said the government wanted "to assure the people we will not allow such incidents to recur."

Senator Evan Bayh blamed the Pakistani government for being unable to control the frontier, rhetorically asking "Now, it's a regrettable situation, but what else are we supposed to do?

"[10] George W. Bush provided written legal authority to the CIA to hunt down and kill people designated as enemy combatant "high-value targets" without seeking further approval each time the agency is about to stage an operation.

The CIA believes it possesses all the necessary approvals within its "counterterror" centre in Langley, Virginia to fire missiles anywhere in the world, including Pakistan, when a high-value al-Qaida target is spotted.

The agency doesn't require further clearance from the White House, local governments, or the CIA director to kill an al-Qaida operative.