WarSclerotic

Does The Death of ISIS #2 Man Mean We’re Winning? Clarion Project, Elliot Friedland, August 31, 2016

An MQ-1B Predator Drone takes off from a US airbase in Iraq. (Photo: © Wikimedia Commons)

[A] concerted effort to delegitimize and deconstruct the underlying ideology of Islamism is the only way to secure a lasting solution to the problem of jihadist terrorism.

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Islamic State (ISIS, ISIL) spokesperson Mohammed al-Adnani, who was reportedly tipped to be the successor to self-styled Caliph Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, has been killed in Aleppo, Syria, according to an ISIS announcement.

The Islamic State has vowed to exact revenge for his death.

The Pentagon confirmed they targeted al-Adnani with a drone strike.

“We are still assessing the results of the strike, but al-Adnani’s removal from the battlefield would mark another significant blow to ISIS,” Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook said in a statement.

“Al-Adnani has served as principal architect of ISIS’ external operations and as ISIS’ chief spokesman. He has coordinated the movement of ISIS fighters, directly encouraged lone-wolf attacks on civilians and members of the military and actively recruited new ISIS members,” he said, explaining the importance of al-Adnani to the Islamic State.

Adnani was thought to be behind the Paris attacks, according to CNN.

Yet, however important al-Adnani was, he was still just one man. Killing terrorist leaders is important. But until the radical Islamist ideology that spawns terrorism is eradicated, this “War on Terror” will continue to resemble whack-a-mole.

ISIS has no shortage of eager jihadists ready to take his place and who can be trained to fulfill his role. Perhaps they will not succeed as well as he has, perhaps they will do even better.

The elimination of individual jihadists, while important, has not significantly eroded terrorism in the past.

On the contrary, more jihadists have simply stepped forward.

Islamist preacher Anwar al-Awlaki was killed in a drone strike in Yemen in 2011, yet his teachings still influenced Omar Mateen to massacre revelers at the Pulse gay nightclub in Orlando Florida.

When Osama bin Laden was killed in a drone strike in 2011, Aymen al-Zawahiri took over as leader of Al-Qaeda. Bin Laden’s son Hamza released an audio message earlier this year calling on Saudis to overthrow their government.

Since the “War on Terror” began in 2001, global terrorism has increased. According to the Global Terrorism Index fatalities caused by terrorism increased from 3,361 in 2000 to 11,133 in 2012 and 18,111 in 2013. In 2014 the figure was even higher, with 32,658 fatalities.

ISIS and Boko Haram (which pledged allegiance to the Islamic State) were jointly responsibe for 51% of those deaths.

This is despite Obama’s drone strike program killing from 2,372 to 2,581 combatants with drone strikes between January 20, 2009 and December 31, 2015 according to official White House figures, not including deaths from air strikes in Afghanistan, Iraq or Syria.

The administration claims to have killed 64 to 116 civilians in drone strikes over the same time period, a number that human rights and monitoring groups have slammed as being much lower than the real figure.

The Obama administration has killed up to 10 times as many terrorists in drone strikes as the Bush administration did, depending on which figures you use, yet terrorism increased.

Last year the number of terror attacks dropped.

“The total number of terrorist attacks in 2015 decreased by 13% and total deaths due to terrorist attacks (28,328) decreased by 14%, compared to 2014,” the US annual Country Reports on Terrorism stated.

Advances of Kurdish and Iraqi government forces and airstrikes on Islamic State oil fields probably had a lot more to do with the reduction than the killing of any one man, no matter how important.

Yet, as the Islamic State loses territory in its base of Iraq and Syria, they threaten to expand their terror attacks abroad.

Therefore a concerted effort to delegitimize and deconstruct the underlying ideology of Islamism is the only way to secure a lasting solution to the problem of jihadist terrorism. Defeating ISIS and similar groups must occur both on the battlefield, to deny them the freedom of movement and operation which enables them to plan and execute attacks, and in the realm of ideas.