Israel's former defense minister and army chief of staff Shaul Mofaz told local media Tuesday that the United States, in killing Osama bin Laden after a decade-long search rather than trying him in a court of law, had essentially legitimized a past Israeli policy of "targeted assassinations" of the leaders of militant groups.

Mofaz, who heads the influential Knesset (Israel's parliament) Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee told Israel Radio in an interview that the U.S. decision justified the former policy that Israel implemented in its war against Palestinian militants, which included killing Hamas and other top-echelon Palestinian officials.

While many in the international community slammed the policy, calling it "extrajudicial killings," Israel strongly maintained that going after the heads of militant organizations involved in planning and carrying out attacks against civilians and soldiers was justified, and caused the least amount of harm to non- combatants.

Israel, Mofaz said, began implementing the policy in the wake of the murder of nine Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics as a method of curtailing terror attacks locally and against Israeli citizens and interests abroad.

"This was a kill operation," a U.S. official said of the nighttime Navy SEAL raid on the compound, where bin Laden had reportedly lived for the last three years.

The remark ruled out previous speculation that the American government had planned to capture and try bin Laden for the Sept. 11 attacks which killed close to 4,000 citizens.

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