That summer, the US finally caught up with Zarqawi, with the help of Jordanian intelligence, killing him in an airstrike north of Baghdad.
They began in September with a NATO airstrike called by a German colonel against a group of Taliban who had hijacked two fuel trucks in Kunduz.
Under scrutiny will be not just the events leading to the airstrike, but also whether the new defence minister, Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, misled parliament about it.His is not the only reputation on the line, amid much grumbling over Ms Merkel's overall handling of the war.
Moreover Israeli press reports said that Hizbullah had communicated through the UN that it considered its attack an adequate retaliation for the Israeli airstrike a week earlier.Yet even if neither leader wants another outright war, both have an interest in appearing tough.
An American airstrike on another village in Shindand almost a year ago led to a review of both American and NATO rules of engagement.
And even at its current price, both gun and ammunition compare favourably with alternative methods of dealing with dug-in gunmen.The most reliable of these is an airstrike.
The administration is debating whether Israeli intelligence on a Syrian weapons programme justified last month's airstrike on the country, and whether it may justify a change in American policy towards both Riyadh and Pyongyang.
On May 13th the Iraqi government claimed that a coalition airstrike in northern Iraq had killed Abu Alaa al-Afari, the group's number two figure although America has disputed the account.
Was a given rocket or airstrike a retaliation?
But some senior American officials denounced it as surrender to the Taliban.In any event, the Musa Qala deal collapsed last month when the Taliban, accusing local elders of collaborating with a NATO airstrike that narrowly missed a militant leader, stormed back into town and bulldozed part of the local police station.
On taking office he called the Kunduz airstrike militarily "appropriate" despite its horrific death toll.
