An airstrike, air strike, or air raid is an offensive operation against ground or sea surface targets carried out by aircraft, such as military balloons, airships, attack aircraft, bombers, gunships, attack helicopters and attack drones. The official definition of an airstrike includes all sorts of targets, including low-altitude air targets, but in popular usage the term is usually narrowed to a tactical (small-scale) strafing, missile strike or tactical bombing on a specific army, militia or naval position, as opposed to a larger, more generalized and indiscriminate attack against an entire area such as carpet bombing and strategic bombing.
Weapons used in an airstrike can range from aircraft-mounted direct-fire cannons and machine guns, rockets and air-to-surface missiles, to various types of aerial bombs (both unguided and guided), glide bombs, air-launched cruise missiles, and even directed-energy weapons such as laser weapons.
