Hassan Nasrallah’s death marks a significant moment in recent Middle East history, but the long-term impact is unclear. It raises an important question: Do “decapitation attacks” that kill the leaders of terrorist organizations cripple them? Simply put, it’s not.
Israel should learn from its own history that such attacks are not always successful in destroying extremist groups. In 2008, Israel killed Hezbollah military leader Imad Mughniyeh in Damascus, Syria, just as the group grew in power over the next few years.
Four years ago, Israel killed Hamas founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin in an airstrike. However, the group did not disintegrate and still carried out the October 7 attack in Israel almost 20 years later, killing approximately 1,200 Israelis in one day.
The United States has a unique history of killing terrorist leaders in hopes of neutralizing their enemies. When al-Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was killed in a U.S. bombing in 2006, it was treated as a major breakthrough, as al-Qaeda in Iraq had contributed significantly to the civil war that was tearing the country apart at the time. Ta. Especially.
But eight years later, al-Qaeda in Iraq eventually morphed into ISIS, occupying territory the size of Portugal and controlling a population of about 8 million people in Iraq and Syria.
What actually ended ISIS’s geographic “caliphate” was not the attack on its leadership, but the Iraqi and Syrian Kurdish forces, supported by thousands of U.S. troops and significant U.S. air power. It was a ground operation against terrorist forces conducted from 2014 to 2019.
Nasrallah’s killing comes as part of a major offensive against Hezbollah that escalated earlier this month with massive airstrikes that detonated thousands of pagers and walkie-talkies in covert operations and later destroyed infrastructure and other senior leaders. , an important prize for Israel. .
But while it is clearly in disarray, it is too early to eliminate extremist groups. According to history, other leaders will be reorganized and appointed to continue the long-term fight against Israel.
Read the full analysis here.
