Military experts say that, when the CIA used a remote-controlled unmanned aircraft to fire Hellfire missiles at a vehicle carrying six suspects, America was pursuing a revolutionary new form of warfare in which no terrorist will be safe anywhere in the world.

The Predator can range over hundreds of miles.

It strikes without warning.

In America’s no-holds-barred War on Terror, distant operators, hunched over computer screens, act as judge, jury and executioner.

As the al-Qaeda gang bumped across the desert in a black Toyota Land Cruiser on Sunday afternoon, they had no idea that they were being watched by a team of CIA agents hundreds of miles away, manoeuvring a camera on the nose of the Predator drone 25,000ft overhead.

The vehicle carried Ali Qaed Sunian al-Harthi, who allegedly masterminded the attack on the USS Cole. Minutes later he became the first victim outside Afghanistan to be killed by what the CIA are calling their “robo-assassin”. The identity of the man who launched the missile will never be revealed, nor where he was based. He could have been at a military base in Yemen, across the Red Sea in Djibouti or working from the control room at US Central Command in Tampa, Florida.

Paul Wolfowitz, the US Deputy Defence Secretary, said yesterday: “One hopes each time you get a success like that, not only to have gotten rid of somebody dangerous, you have imposed changes in their tactics and operations. Sometimes when people are changing, they expose themselves in new ways.”

Clifford Beal, editor of Jane’s Defence Weekly, said: “To use a remote-controlled drone that engages and kills people, that is quite a threshold to cross. This is the beginning of robotic warfare.

“There is underlying tension in the military about using it, but the CIA does not have any qualms. This is really the first success story of this system . . . It doesn’t seem they were given the opportunity to surrender. They were taken out Israeli-style.”

The CIA is reported to have used the same drone in Afghanistan in March when it blew up a villa outside Kabul being used a hideout by Mohammed Atef, who was said to be third-in-command of al-Qaeda.

The CIA does not need to seek permission to fire from Washington. President Bush has agreed that to fight al-Qaeda and the terrorist threat the United States needs a new rapid response philosophy that boils down to “who sees it, shoots it”.

In Afghanistan last month these drones clocked up 2,100 hours flying combat missions.

This mission began on Sunday afternoon when al-Harthi, a confidant of Osama bin Laden, climbed into his Land Cruiser with five colleagues at a farmhouse in the mountains of Marib. He was being watched by a Yemeni undercover agent. The Yemeni spy passed details of the car to the CIA, who had a drone pick up the al-Qaeda team as it headed towards the neighbouring province of Shabwa. The pin-sharp live pictures sent back by the drone showed the car veer off the road at al-Naqaa just before it reached a military checkpoint.

As the Toyota turned on to a desert track and picked up speed in what is known as the Empty Quarter, it was destroyed by the missiles. There was little left — just enough for Yemeni investigators to say that it had carried explosives, sophisticated communications equipment and weapons. Witnesses said that almost all those inside were burnt beyond recognition. Only al-Harthi, better known as Abu Ali, was identified.

The Americans had been hunting him for two years. When a US-trained force of Yemeni troops tried to ambush him at a hideout in the tribal village of al-Hosun in December, 18 soldiers were killed and he escaped.

All the Yemeni Government would say officially yesterday was that they were still investigating the cause of the explosion. Some senior officals were furious that the Americans had made the operation public. They face internal dissent from militant groups over their support for the United States.

Diplomats in Sanaa say that the Government would have co-operated with this operation, but would hope that Washington gets the blame.

Intelligence sources say that suspicious e-mail messages had been picked up in recent days warning of another imminent attack in Yemen.

Officials in Sanaa suspected that Abu Ali was also behind the suicide-bomb attack on a French oil tanker, the Limburg, last month, which led to many shipping companies abandoning Yemen. His death may persuade some to return.

Anxious not to upset its allies in Yemen, Washington is saying little more in public about the success of the CIA’s robot wars. But the timing of this attack was ideal for the Republicans ahead of yesterday’s congressional mid-term elections.

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