It seems so improbable that they shot him if he was unarmed. If people knew he had been captured, securing his release by threatening future terrorist atrocities would become aim #1 for Al Qaeda, would it not?
I don't really get why people think that this is so improbable.
If you were in a dark room and burst in on a trained soldier in a baggy robe, would you wait to see if he had a gun/knife/grenade within range? If he did anything other than lay straight down on the floor with his hands up, it could be perceived as threatening.
I'm not trying to comment on whether that response is ethical, but it seems totally plausible to me.
Exactly. People who think this way are applying the rules of police action to war.
If you're a criminal and the police burst into your house then the police can't (or at least, aren't allowed to) shoot you unless they have damn good reason to believe that their lives are in danger. In a war, though, if you're an enemy combatant then you're fair game unless you're actively surrendering.
There's some gray area between the two, somewhere, but as a general rule if you want to steer clear of the latter category then don't make a video in which you "declare war on the United States" and then start killing people.
We have no idea what rules of engagement (ROE) they were operating under. If the ROE for the mission said, "every adult in the compound is to be considered hostile," then the operators wouldn't wait to confirm if someone was armed or not before shooting.
