The history of \u2018decapitation strategies\u2019 tells us it is almost impossible to know what effect assassinating a key figure such as Yahya Sinwar will have<\/b>
\nIsraelis and others have \u00adwelcomed the killing of Yahya Sinwar, the leader of Hamas and the \u00admaster\u00admind of the 7 October 2023 attacks, as an \u201cOsama bin Laden moment\u201d. This reflects how many in Israel feel about the death of a man responsible for the \u00admurder of 1,200 people, mostly civilians and their compatriots, but \u00adterrorism experts have long debated the \u00adefficacy of eliminating the \u00adleaders of violent extremist groups, with some suggesting the strategy is counter-productive.
The truth is that no one is sure.
There are some cases where the elimination of a leader has brought definitive success. When the Mossad killed Wadie Haddad, leader of a breakaway faction of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and responsible for a string of \u00adspectacular terrorist attacks in the 1970s, probably with poisoned \u00adchocolates, his group disintegrated. Hijackings and bombings \u00adcontinued, but were carried out by others.
Velupillai Prabhakaran, the head of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, in Sri Lanka, died in 2009 in a skirmish with government forces after a brutal campaign with \u00admany civilian casualties \u2013 though far fewer than the tens of \u2013thousands in Gaza. This decisively closed a bloody decades-long civil war with complex social, ethnic, religious and economic roots.
Targeted killings were a mainstay of US strategy during the \u201cwar on terror\u201d that followed the 9\/11 attacks of 2001, the work of Bin Laden and his al-Qaida. The advent of drones was one reason, but so was the growing reluctance to risk western soldiers\u2019 lives in combat.
In Afghanistan, the killing of a series of Taliban leaders was lauded at the time but did \u00adnothing to change the circumstances, regional and local, that ultimately lent the movement its strength. \u201cHunting man is a difficult game,\u201d one British brigadier blithely said in Kabul in 2006. It was also a futile one. The Taliban were \u00adundoubtedly hurt by their losses, and some \u00adstudies show their capabilities \u00adsuffered, but they were still able to retake power in 2021.
In Iraq, the US killed successive leaders of Sunni extremist \u00adjihadist groups. The elimination in 2006 of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the first prominent leader of al-Qaida\u2019s \u00adaffiliate there, merely cleared the way for competent, low-\u00adprofile local men to rebuild. These too were killed, eventually allowing the \u00adlittle known but ruthlessly effective Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi to take over. He unleashed Islamic State on the region and eventually western Europe too.
Al-Baghdadi was killed in 2019, but the IS leaders who followed have been lacklustre \u2013 when they have stayed alive. The \u00adcurrent head is thought to be a minor preacher and faction leader in a remote part of east Africa. So that could be counted as a win for those who support assassination as a strategy.
Then there\u2019s Hezbollah. Hassan Nasrallah became leader of the Lebanon-based organisation in 1992 after his predecessor was killed by Israel, then ruled \u00adskilfully and \u00adeffectively for 32 years, \u00adevading multiple efforts to end his life. Last month Israel killed not just Nasrallah but the entire top leadership echelon. This combination of \u201cdecapitation\u201d and straightforward attrition is virtually unprecedented. Unsurprisingly, Hezbollah is reeling.
The US had its literal \u201cBin Laden moment\u201d in 2011 when the founder and leader of al-Qaida was tracked to a Pakistani hide-out and killed by US special forces. Subsequently, under Ayman al-Zawahiri, al-Qaida gave up international attacks and entrenched itself in local communities. Al-Zawahiri was killed in 2022 and we still don\u2019t really know who al-Qaida\u2019s current leader is, not least because there is no one who has the profile of either predecessor.
Al-Qaida is still around, though it does not pose much of an \u00adinternational threat at the moment. This is less true of IS, which is gaining ground in Africa, active in Afghanistan and continues to inspire attacks elsewhere.
Israel has of course already killed many of the leaders and most \u00adcapable operatives of Hamas in the past 20 years. Each death has forced change, but rarely that anticipated.
If the chequered history of \u00addecapitation strategies tells us \u00adanything, it is that it is almost impossible to predict what effect killing a leader will have. This may not matter to those who order the killings or to those who rejoice at the news of a successful assassination. Politics and entirely \u00adunderstandable desire for retribution and justice are important factors.
But any jubilation in Israel or elsewhere at the death of Sinwar should be tempered with an awareness that no one can know what will come next. It may indeed be the beginning of the end of the war in Gaza, as Benjamin Netanyahu has suggested. But the history of such killings \u00adsuggests that, in the long term, any decisive victory will remain elusive.<\/p>\n