In the last video we discussed whether or not it is possible to deradicalize a terrorist. In this video, we will look into a harder, tougher and often violent type of counterterrorism measures, which is the decapitation of terrorist organizations. It is important to stress that we are not going to look into the beheading of individuals. We will explore the arrest and sometimes killing of the leaders or leadership of terrorist organizations. Here are a few examples of groups that have been confronted with this particular counterterrorism measure. It includes the former left-wing terrorist organization, FARC from Colombia. One of their leaders was killed in 2011, Alfonso Cano. And then there are quite a number of examples from Spain and France, with regard to the leaders of the Basque separatist organization ETA. Many of them were arrested in the past decades. And then of course, you all know the case of Al-Qaeda's leader, Osama Bin Laden. He was killed in a Raid on his house in Abbottabad, Pakistan in 2011, which was carried out by US navy seals. American forces also managed to decapitate the leadership of Islamic State. In October 2019, its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi blew himself up after he was surrounded by US forces, in an isolated compound in Northern Syria. The decapitation of terrorist groups is almost as old as counterterrorism. Some historical examples include the arrest of the entire first wave of leaders of the Rote Armee Fraktion in Germany in 1972. And the arrest of Abimael Guzman, the leader of Sendero Luminoso or 'Shining Path', a leftist terrorist organization in Peru in 1992. Also, think of the arrest of the leader of the Kurdistan Workers Party, the PKK, Abdullah Ocalan, who was apprehended in Kenya in 1999. There are quite a number of scholars, practitioners and politicians that have claimed that decapitation of terrorist organization really works. One prominent scholar that looked into this particular instrument is Bryan Price. In 2012, he wrote the following: 'Decapitation tactics, which are designed to kill or capture the key leaders, or the key leader, of a terrorist group, feature prominently in counter terrorism strategies of many states, including Israel and the United States'. It's a widely practiced counterterrorism measure. It has been used around the globe and after successful arrests or killing of a key leader we often see that politicians claimed this success. Here are two examples. The first is from Spain from the Prime Minister Zapatero, who in 2008 reacted after the arrest of the operational chief of the ETA, the Basque separatist terrorist organization. And he said that 'with the arrest, ETA has suffered a severe blow in its organization and capability' and he also said 'today, ETA is weaker'. The second example comes from South America, the Colombian President, Juan Manuel Santos, after the killing of the FARC leader Alfonso Cano in 2011. He said that 'the killing of Cano is the hardest blow to this organization in its entire history'. So it's widely believed or claimed to be a successful counterterrorism measure. Why is it important to test if this is true or not? Many influential people seem to think that decapitation of terrorist organizations works and it is a common counterterrorism practice around the globe. But there are serious legal and ethical sites to it, especially when it concerns the killing of individuals. That is why we need to evaluate the effectiveness. Are terrorist organizations indeed weakened because of the arrest or killing of some of its leaders? Or do they simply continue to exist, or even grow stronger? Many of those who think decapitation is successful seem to assume that a successful terrorist organization highly depends on effective leadership. So when you kill the leader, you will weaken the organization. This might especially be the case when a leadership struggle occurs after the death of a leader, an organization might need to devote a lot of time and energy to choose a new leader. Or it's possible that they cannot find a new leader, because others do not have the right capabilities or the experience to lead the organization. This relates to ideas and theories about charismatic leadership. Some leaders, especially those of religiously inspired groups, play a crucial role in explaining and safeguarding the group's ideology. Leaders like Osama Bin Laden or the leader of the Japanese om sect, they were perceived as highly charismatic and a hero to some. Many people therefore, think that it is very effective to eliminate those leaders, as it will destabilize the organization and might weaken its appeal. Several scholars have put these ideas to the test. Let us look into these questions with the help of empirical evidence and academic literature. Let me present a study by Jenna Jordan from 2009. It has the interesting and provocative title, 'When Heads Roll: Assessing the Effectiveness of Leadership Decapitation'. She investigated 300 cases of leadership decapitation between 1945 and 2004. She coded decapitation as a success when the terrorist organization was inactive for 2 years following that event. Overall, she concluded that decapitation is not effective. Decapitation proved to be effective in only 17 percent of the cases. This decline rate was not much higher than that of non-decapitated groups. She found out that the key elements in assessing the effectiveness of that act, are age of the group, size of the group and the type of the group. Her findings include that younger and smaller groups are more often destabilized, than older and larger groups. Moreover, religiously inspired terrorist organizations seem to be more or less resilient to decapitation, according to Jordan. Separatist groups remain active in almost 90 percent of decapitation cases. Well, the numbers were lower for ideological organizations, such as left-wing and right-wing groups. So there were some differences, but overall it is not very effective. She also discovered that it could be counterproductive. Jordan's listed a number of side effects, such as the strengthening of the group's resolve. They grow stronger because of it, or it results in retaliation. It could also increase public sympathy for the organization. Another perspective was provided by Bryan Price in 2012. He argues that it could work in his article 'Targeting top terrorists: How leadership decapitation contributes to counterterrorism'. Decapitated terrorist organizations have a higher mortality rate than non-decapitated organizations. His explanation why other studies have come to the opposite conclusion is that they adopt a too short time span. For instance, the time span of 2 years adopted by Jordan is too short to really measure the effects according to Price. His theoretical argument, why decapitation of terrorist groups could be successful, is that terrorist organizations are different from other organizations. They're violent, clandestine and value-based, simply put, leaders of these types of organizations are more important compared to non-violent profit based organizations, ordinary businesses, etc. Price also found that within 2 years only 30 percent of the groups had ended. He agreed with Jordan that the age of a terrorist organization affects the likelihood that decapitation will be successful. It is more likely to work for younger organizations. Another interesting finding is that in contrast to Jordan, religious organizations seem to be more prone to decline after decapitation. And this is in line with the emphasis on the importance of charismatic leadership, in such organizations. Overall, according to Price decapitation could thus be an effective tool for states to use as part of their counterterrorism efforts. These are just two important examples of studies that looked into the effectiveness of decapitation. The authors arrived at different conclusions. Jordan says it's not effective, while Price says it can be, but both points at the importance to look at the features of the organization, the differences. So the main lesson here is that this measure is context dependent. It might work in one case, it might backfire in another, and they're certainly not one size fits all solution. We mentioned some successful examples in the first part of this video. But we have also seen unsuccessful examples in the past, for instance, by Israel against Hamas and by German agencies against the Rote Armee Fraktion. And then there's one very important aspect of this assumption that has not been addressed so far, and that is the human rights dimension and the ethical dimension. This is particularly important with regards to the drone attacks that are frequently used by the United States and a number of other countries in the war on terror. To decapitate organizations like the Taliban, Al-Qaeda and Islamic State. These drone strikes are not without controversy, as many civilians have been killed or how does that relate to the success of this particular CT measure? According to a highly critical report by Stanford University and the New York University from 2012, 'publicly available evidence that the strikes have made the United States any safer is ambiguous at best'. Moreover, these attacks have many negative side effects in the regions where these attacks take place. In 2018 Amnesty International stated that drone strikes could in several cases even amount to war crimes or extrajudicial executions. A broader ethical question is whether violence by terrorists could or should be answered by violence by states. Yet some would answer that question by saying that in many situations, there is no alternative available. And the damage done by terrorist leaders in terms of the cost of human lives, justifies the killing of such an individual. So this makes the question whether or not decapitation is effective into a much more complicated one. To sum up, there's a variety of reasons to doubt the effectiveness of decapitation of terrorist organizations. The success depends on the type of organizations that are targeted and the modus operandi that are used. Are we talking about the arrest of leaders or the killing of persons by way of drone strikes? And of course it depends on how you measure success. But I guess in some cases decapitation of terrorist organizations does work. Some terrorist organizations have ceased to exist or were seriously weakened after such a measure. Therefore, we label this assumption as 'partly true', but again, more research is needed. In the next video, we will investigate the idea that terrorism cannot be defeated.
