against Saddam Hussein and other Iraqi military and political leaders. These air strikes failed to kill their intended targets. The U.S. and its NATO allies have, and continue to pursue this strategy in its efforts to dismantle militant Islamic fundamentalist networks, such as Al-Qaeda and ISIL, that threaten the United States and allies. April 14, 1865: The assassination of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln by Confederate sympathizer John Wilkes Booth was part of a larger plot to disrupt the presidential line of succession by also killing then-Vice President Andrew Johnson, and Secretary of State William H. Seward, at the close of the American Civil War February 1, 1908: King Carlos I of Portugal was assassinated along with his son the Crown Prince Luís Filipe by Alfredo Luís da Costa and Manuel Buiça, both connected to the Carbonária (the Portuguese section of the Carbonari) July 17, 1918: Tsar Nicholas II of Russia and the Imperial Family were executed by a Bolshevik firing squad under the command of Yakov Yurovsky November 9, 1939: Attempt on German Führer Adolf Hitler's life in the Burgerbräukeller in Munich by Swabian carpenter Georg Elser, using a time bomb in order to cripple the Third Reich and its war effort. Several died, but Hitler escaped due to a change in schedule, leaving the rostrum 13 minutes before impact. July 20, 1944: Claus von Stauffenberg attempted to assassinate Hitler and his inner circle of advisers by a suitcase bomb as part of a broader military coup d'état against the Nazi government, which ultimately failed. Yemen 1948 Alwaziri coup. In recent warfare, unmanned aerial vehicles, or drones, are popularly used for decapitation strikes against terrorist and insurgent groups. Drones are most effective in areas with inadequate air defense. There are mixed scholarly opinions whether or not decapitation strikes via drones effectively degrade the capabilities of these groups. Some military strategists, like General Michael Flynn, have argued that the experience gained by the American and Coalition military experience from fighting the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan was in support of kill or capture operations, but that they would be ineffective without a full understanding of how they would affect the local political landscape in the country. Robert Pape has argued that decapitation is a relatively ineffective strategy. He writes that decapitation is a seductive strategy as it promises "to solve conflicts quickly and cheaply with... little collateral damage, and minimal or no