Technical question concerning drone strikes

[Nuclear Unicorn]

I just read in LBN that 6 suspected miltants were killed in Yemen.

How do they know who to strike?

For just a moment grant solely for the sake of argument that there were actually 6 bad people with the intent to do harm or they had done harm in the past. Assume there were as bad as could be and the forensic evidence and a chior of angels will prove this out.

The fact remains the drone is thousands, if not tens of thousands, of feet in the air. I don't care how good our technology is you're still only looking at the top of someone's head at that angle. How do they know where these guys were? How did they know which car they got in to?

In other words, are there boots on the ground?

[Enrique]

1. they get tips from people in the area

I have read a lot of discussion about the reliability of the tips.

[Agnosticsherbet]

2. Intelligence gathering, using...

intelligence assets on the ground, satellite imagery, drone's spying on people they suspect of working with terrorists, reports by friendly foreign governments, work with agents of friendly foreign governments.

[cthulu2016]

3. There may be spotters in some instances

But that's top secret, since spotters on the ground in these places would be in serious danger.

If we have good information (from any source), the missiles the drones launch are quite accurate. But they only hit what they're aimed at, so it does, as you say, all get down to identifying the right target.

We do not know how good the optics on the drones are, or how much angled looking they can do (which would reveal a little more than directly overhead.)

All drone pictures, gun camera footage and satellite pictures he have ever seen are degraded before release because the true level of detail they're capable of is itself classified.

If we actually could read a newspaper headline from earth orbit in the 1980s (as was sometimes said) then I have no idea what drone operators are really seeing today, in terms of telescopic detail.