2019: Looking back: Terrorism 1. The Killing of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi

The 26 October 2019 killing in northwest Syria of ISIS (later: Islamic State) founder and leader Abu Bar al-Baghdadi by U.S. Special Forces brought deserved justice to a brutal terrorist leader, but his killing is not likely to have much of an effect on IS and its appetite for perpetrating acts of violence. One expert notes that much like the end of the territorial caliphate, Baghdadi’s death does not mean the end the group as a whole, or the threat it poses.

Indeed, the policy of killing terrorist leaders in order to defeat the groups they lead has had mixed results. In some cases, a group carries on with a designated successor, as has been the case with al-Qaeda under Ayman al-Zawahiri following the death of bin Laden. In other cases, the death of a leader leads to the fracturing of a terrorist group into violent, competing factions, as has been the case with some Mexican drug cartels.

Both the United States and Israel have pursued a policy of killing the leaders of terrorist groups – what is called the “kingpin strategy.” Israel was especially active, killing scores of leaders of various Palestinian terrorist groups in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s. In the last twenty years or so, however, the Israeli security services have largely abandoned the policy of killing the political leaders of terrorist groups, focusing instead on eliminating leading individuals on the operational level of these groups. Israel has concluded that it is easier to find a replacement for individuals who gives speeches or sermons and writes pamphlets than replace capable and clever operational commanders, who combine military know-how, technical sophistication, and operational guile (the most recent Israeli target: Baha Abu al-Ata, a senior commander of the militant group Palestinian Islamic Jihad in Gaza).