The laws of armed conflict, in particular the principle of distinction, take protection of the civilian population in times of armed conflict as its main objectives. In doing so the Principle of distinction between civilians and combatants in time of attack, produces its ‘legitimate target’ at the intersection of a certain configuration of ‘knowledge-vision’. This configuration is comprised of organisation of adversarial willpower in terms of state army as well as a series of material obligations on part of combatants in order to make themselves ‘visible’ at all times. In insurgency however there is no such thing as compliance with the legal obligation of visibility on part of the insurgents. Given the invisibility of the insurgents, the counterinsurgent forces, in our case the US, engage in expansive practices of visualisations. I seek to look in to the practices of the US COIN forces in order to understand what is the image of the target in contemporary armed conflicts.