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Terror Networks
Does leadership decapitation lead to the demise of terrorist organizations? Study sez:
2019-11-11
[MITPressJournals] Does leadership decapitation lead to the demise of terrorist organizations? Can the United States undermine or destroy terrorist organizations such as al-Qaida by arresting or killing their leaders? What explains organizational resilience to leadership targeting? Leadership decapitation, or the killing or capturing of the leaders of terrorist organizations, has become a core feature of U.S. counterterrorism policy. Many scholars and analysts claim that it weakens terrorist organizations and reduces the threat they pose. Unsurprisingly, they saw the killing of Osama bin Laden on May 2, 2011, in Abbottabad, Pakistan, as a major tactical victory for President Barack Obama and for the broader war on terrorism. Despite the success of this operation and subsequent attacks on al-Qaida leaders, decapitation is unlikely to diminish the ability of al-Qaida to continue its activities in the long run. Rather, it may have counterproductive consequences, emboldening or strengthening the organization.

Since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the United States has killed or captured many al-Qaida leaders as part of a general campaign to decapitate the organization. It has employed a variety of military operations to achieve this objective, including raids by Special Operations forces. Both bin Laden and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, leader of al-Qaida in Iraq, were killed as a result of such raids. On October 5, 2012, U.S. forces captured Abu Anas al-Libi, an al-Qaida leader, in a raid in Libya. The United States has also relied heavily on drone strikes to target al-Qaida leaders and other militants in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Yemen.

In June 2012, Abu Yahya al-Libi, then al-Qaida’s deputy leader, was killed in Pakistan in a drone strike coordinated by the Central Intelligence Agency. Highly experienced, al-Libi served an important operational function within the organization. Scholars and policymakers saw his death as a significant blow to an already weakened al-Qaida.2 Nine months earlier, a Hellfire missile fired from a U.S. drone killed Anwar al-Awlaki, a Yemeni-American cleric linked to a number of terrorist plots in the West. On August 22, 2011, Atiyah Abd al-Rahman, believed to be the organization’s second-highest leader, was reportedly killed in a drone strike in Pakistan.3 Rahman served an important communicative function between bin Laden and lower-level operatives. Ilyas Kashmiri, reputed to be a senior member of al-Qaida and the operational commander for Harakat-ul-Jihad al-Islami, was killed in a drone attack in South Waziristan on June 3, 2011.4 These examples illustrate the frequency with which the United States has targeted al-Qaida leaders and operatives over the past few years, speciªcally through the use of drone strikes.5

Despite these and other instances of successful targeting, al-Qaida remains a resilient terrorist organization. Applying a theory of organizational resilience, I examine why targeting al-Qaida’s leadership is not an effective counterterrorism strategy and, indeed, is likely counterproductive. A terrorist group’s ability to withstand attacks is a function of two factors: bureaucratization and communal support. Analyzing both when and why certain terrorist groups are able to survive leadership attacks, this article differs from existing work by providing a more nuanced lens through which to evaluate the effectiveness of counterterrorism policy.
The center of gravity of Islamic terrorism is their grievance that we occupy their countries and kill their people. Stop doing this and their grievance disappears. Attacking their leaders or footsoldiers will never, ever win the war.
The center of gravity of Islamic terrorism is that we have not surrendered and converted to their faith — that’s what their term for the non-Muslim world, Dar al-Harb, the House of War, means. There is only one way, from their perspective, for their grievance to disappear, and that is for us to become members of the Borg. But killing lots of them will discourage the jihadi faction for a while.
Related:
Dar al-Harb: 2018-07-09 Why Muslim Rapists Prefer Blondes: A History
Dar al-Harb: 2011-01-18 Al-Qaeda and organized crime: two sides of the same coin
Dar al-Harb: 2009-02-24 No jihad in India, says Darul Uloom Deoband
Posted by:Herb McCoy

#35  That's the 17th century, Herb. Not to be nitpicky, but... 17th century.
Posted by: Dron66046   2019-11-11 23:49  

#34  Herb....I'm convince you're a bot. No sentient human could be so obtuse
Posted by: Frank G   2019-11-11 21:16  

#33  
How about... killing them all ?

Posted by: Dron66046   2019-11-11 18:03  

#32  The center of gravity of Islamic terrorism is their grievance that we occupy their countries and kill their people

You really need to get out more.

This study is literally saying killing them doesn't work, based on evidence

No, it says that killing their leaders alone won't win. Something I think is obvious to most of us here. People get hung up on THE SOLUTION or THE CAUSE. The real world is more complicated than that.
Posted by: SteveS   2019-11-11 17:53  

#31  Yes, and ever since the 16th century AD the West has had a decisive advantage against Islam. Sigh. They ceased to be a threat at that time.

This study is literally saying killing them doesn't work, based on evidence. And yet here are any number of denialists contradicting what the data tells us.

The center of gravity of Islamic terrorism is their grievance that we occupy their countries and kill their people. Let's win this war, not pass it down to our grandchildren.
Posted by: Herb McCoy    2019-11-11 16:28  

#30  Or....the date could be a coincidence.

Not a coincidence, Bobby.
Posted by: trailing wife   2019-11-11 16:19  

#29  Killing leaders degrades their abilities to do anything and removes the feeling of invulnerability they might get in hiding.
Posted by: rjschwarz   2019-11-11 15:48  

#28  with some terror groups the most effective tactic has been to take out the layer of innovative leadership and technical expertise but this requires constant work

End STEM?
Posted by: Skidmark   2019-11-11 15:31  

#27  Or....the date could be a coincidence.
Posted by: Bobby   2019-11-11 15:18  

#26  A bit of historical perspective:

The Battle of Vienna took place at Kahlenberg Mountain near Vienna on 12 September 1683 after the imperial city had been besieged by the Ottoman Empire for two months. The battle is often seen as a turning point in history, after which "the Ottoman Turks ceased to be a menace to the Christian world".


I understood Osama bin Laden picked the 09/11/2001 date to 'pick up' from the Battle of Vienna on 09/11/1683 - the day before the Muslims retreated. I'm sure he didn't like infidels on Saudi soil, but he chose to continue the battle from 1683.
Posted by: Bobby   2019-11-11 15:17  

#25  There is some merit to the question and we have seen the negative results in some areas. For example when they killed Pablo he had an iron fist of control over the narco terrorist organizations. With him dead, they slid into smaller and more violent organizations that fought amongst themselves. Just because there is opportunity for this to happen when we kill someone like UBL, it does not justify letting him live. Killing UBL set AQ back years, and as TW so politely explained, this war has been in effect going on for 1300 years. Sometimes setting them back a generation or two is a good thing. The Islamic fundamentalist will never stop until every Christian is dead or enslaved, their religion mandates it. So until we kill all of Islam off, we will be at war with them. We must contain them, keep them in their own little box fighting over sand.

The bigger fight, and the one we need to get moving on, is their funding. If we cut their funding, we cut their reach and capability, thus keeping them in their sand box. We know who funded them, besides Obama and our tax dollars, and if we go after the money and stop the funding we will hold them in place. A good example of this was the IRA. American had a romantic affair with the IRA, funding jars were all over Boston bars. They took in most of their funding from America. 9/11 happened right after a string of IRA bombings at funerals. Then 9/11 hit and Americans did not have the stomach for funding an organization that attacks funerals. As well as Americans focused internal and money got tight. The point is, without the funding the IRA dried up. There is always more to every story, but the funding played a big piece of the IRA drying up. That and I'm sure they did not want it getting out that the IRA taught AQ how to do road side bombs.
Posted by: 49 Pan   2019-11-11 15:11  

#24  That's telling him, TW !
Posted by: Dron66046   2019-11-11 14:31  

#23  To paraphrase the guy at the pic "A Muslim is either at your feet or at your throat"
Posted by: g(r)omgoru   2019-11-11 13:39  

#22  Some perspective: Technically, we’ve been fighting the militantly expansionist, totalitarian faith of Islam since the 7th century A.D. The only choices are to surrender or keep fighting. There have been cases where Islam has been driven back — Spain, the southern reaches of Europe in Italy, France, and Greece — but this is a fight that will go on until either Islam has given up trying to expand or the entire world is Muslim.

Eighteen years is nothing compared to the 1300+ years this war has been going on. That’s like talking about the Michael Mann hockeystick graph of global warming without looking at the pattern since the end of the last ice age.
Posted by: trailing wife   2019-11-11 13:28  

#21  Shorter Herb: "You're gonna get raped. Lie back and enjoy it"
Posted by: Frank G   2019-11-11 12:12  

#20  Tough to destroy movements or even nations sometimes.

Rome had to have 3 wars with the Samnites, then 3 with the Carthaginians, then 3 with Greece.

and they used force a lot more broadly than we did against Al Q

with some terror groups the most effective tactic has been to take out the layer of innovative leadership and technical expertise but this requires constant work

Given that there are nearly a dozen Islamic terror groups it is likely that the rise of Al Q or something like that was inevitable given the rebirth of Islamic identity

a tactic the Romans used was to bribe tribes to fight other tribes and we are probably doing something like this already

Posted by: lord garth   2019-11-11 11:54  

#19  We've tried killing them for 18 years. It doesn't work. If it was going to work, it would have worked by now. Time for a new plan.

Al-Qaeda never begun until we put US troops in the sacred soil of Saudi Arabia. Now we don't need their oil any more. Withdraw the troops and the War on Terrorism will end. Let tbe camel fuckers keep their worthless oil and stew in their own misery while we develop solar and wind.

I won't settle for an endless draw when victory is at hand.
Posted by: Herb McCoy    2019-11-11 11:42  

#18  So, don't kill Hitler because the Nazis will only get more radicalized? Yeah, no.
Posted by: Iblis   2019-11-11 11:20  

#17  Your optimism is good, Silentbrick. One can develop weaponry to the point that you enter the name of a person and they disappear. What will still matter the most is our level of intent.

I'm afraid we have just let idle philosophies of reformative justice fester into a condition where the enemy just has to 'sit out the fight' for a few years, but the status quo is perpetual war.
Posted by: Dron66046   2019-11-11 09:40  

#16  Once we have orbital beam weapons and when so called terrorist leader simply explodes from a healthy dose of weaponized microwave radiation, I suspect it'll be far more effective. Especially if you this while someone is leading a "Death to America" chant that's being recorded.
Posted by: Silentbrick   2019-11-11 09:31  

#15  Does whacking one guy (and his goat-herder friends) end a movement? Of course not. No more than putting a mouse trap under the sink puts an end to all the mice in the county. But it *is* part of a program of integrated pest management. Yet another instance of "Perfect is the enemy of good".
Posted by: SteveS   2019-11-11 08:26  

#14  until we have the stones to actually define the enemy (islam), there is no use even trying to ask the question.
Posted by: Bob Grorong1136   2019-11-11 07:14  

#13  Gee, Herb ask the Germans or Japanese. When we finally get around to fighting WAR rather than some intellectual and moral substitute, we might find out.
Posted by: Procopius2k   2019-11-11 06:23  

#12  Yes, funding decapitation (Epstein style "suicide") of terrorist style groups is probably the most effective way.
Posted by: Bright Pebbles   2019-11-11 03:35  

#11  In his 1995 book, Fighting Terrorism: How Democracies Can Defeat Domestic and International Terrorism., Bibi recommended cutting of their funding sources - thank you frackers.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru   2019-11-11 03:08  

#10  In fact, we have several stories about the Ismailis in our archives. Here is one, showing the lasting effects of being defeated properly. Hulagu Khan destroyed the Alamut fortress of the Nizari Ismailis, popularly known as the Assassins or Hashashin, in 1256 A.D.
Posted by: trailing wife   2019-11-11 01:44  

#9  I do not remember reading about any Sturmabteilung rising from the ashes of Dresden.

The success of 'endless wars' and long-term enemy sustainment, depends upon remembering to save some yeast. As the author surmises, fighting a war via a 'Joint Personnel Effects List' (JPEL - massive wanted list) will NOT win the conflict or produce victory.

BTW, the US Army does not or did not author or prioritize the JPEL. Other folks did that.
Posted by: Besoeker   2019-11-11 01:19  

#8  “The Holy Roman Empire was neither Holy, nor Roman, nor an Empire” - Voltaire.

I get tired of people sloppily conflating "specific group 'X' " with "all copycat organizations claiming to be 'X' " and "the doctrine of organization 'X' ". It is very hard to destroy an idea, though you can convince a generation or so that following through Is a Very Bad Idea™. This is a different situation from the tenuous argument that "these groups are unkillable".
Posted by: magpie   2019-11-11 01:08  

#7  One is reminded of what happened to the Assassins when the Mongols came through... and the Aga Khan‘s people been delightfully peaceful ever since.
Posted by: trailing wife   2019-11-11 00:54  

#6  They should be given a choice, like the one they give others. 'Convert to any other religion, or suffer dehumanization.'
Posted by: Dron66046   2019-11-11 00:48  

#5  I meant that for #2.
Posted by: Dron66046   2019-11-11 00:46  

#4  Exactly. Even the bible shows something like that.
Posted by: Dron66046   2019-11-11 00:46  

#3  Their leaders should be killed on general principles.
Posted by: M. Murcek   2019-11-11 00:42  

#2  Cut off the toes and the head will topple.
Posted by: Skidmark   2019-11-11 00:37  

#1  In addition to what TW said, the muslims of the world need to be stripped of their 'democratic rights', purchasing power and jobs.

If you denounce a civilization so as to plot its demise constantly, you must be denied its fruits too. Muslims are not part of the social contract.
Posted by: Dron66046   2019-11-11 00:32  

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