Airstrike An air strike is an attack on a specific objective by military aircraft during an offensive mission . Air strikes are commonly delivered from aircraft such as fighter s , bomber s , ground attack aircraft , and attack helicopters . The official definition includes all sorts of targets , including enemy air targets , but in popular use the term is usually narrowed to tactical ( small - scale ) attack on a ground or naval objective . Weapons used in an airstrike can range from machine gun bullet s , missile s , to various types of bomb s . Also commonly referred to as an air raid . In close air support , air strikes are usually controlled by trained observers for coordination with friendly ground troops in a manner derived from artillery tactics . History . On November 1 , 1911 , Italian aviator Second Lieutenant Giulio Gavotti dropped four bombs on two Turkish - held oases in Libya , carrying out the world ' s first air strike as part of the Italo - Turkish War . Use of air strikes were extended in World War I . For example , at the Battle of Neuve Chapelle in 1915 , the British Royal Flying Corps dropped bombs on German rail communications . However , it was not until World War II that the Oxford English Dictionary first records usage of the term " air strike , " which remained two separate words for some time thereafter . WW2 also saw the first development of precision - guided munitions , which were fielded successfully by the Germans , and contributed to the modern sense of air " strike , " a precision targeted attack as opposed to a strafing run or area bombing . The importance of precision targeting cannot be over - stated : by some statistics , over a hundred raids were necessary to destroy a point target in World War 2 ; by the Persian Gulf War the US Air Force was able to release to media precise footage of television - or radar - guided bombs directly hitting the target without significant collateral damage ( using , for example , the LANTIRN pod ) . Paul Fussell noted in his seminal work The Great War and Modern Memory the 20th century popular tendency to assume an errant bomb hitting a church , for example , was completely deliberate and reflective of the inherent evil of the enemy ; over time , expectations for reduced collateral damage have increased to the point that developed countries engaging in war against less technologically advanced countries approach near - zero in terms of such damage and to a large degree , they have done so . Today , airstrike terminology has extended to the concept of the strike aircraft , what earlier generations of military aviators referred to as light bombers or attack aircraft . With the near - complete air supremacy enjoyed by developed nations in undeveloped regions , fighter jets can often be modified to add strike capability in a manner less practicable in earlier generations , e . g . Strike Eagle . Airstrikes can be carried out for strategic purposes outside of general warfare . Operation Opera was a single eight - ship Israeli airstrike against the Iraqi Osirak nuclear reactor , criticized by world opinion but not leading to a general outbreak of war . Such an example of the preventive strike has created new questions for international law . Collateral damage . In any air strike , there is a risk of injuring , killing , or destroying non - combatants , allies or non - military buildings . This is called collateral damage . Collateral damage can be advantageous by damaging nearby enemy troops and installations . The negative side effects to collateral damage may include the infliction of damage to civilian facilities and accidental injury of friendly troops near the target .