Counter-Terrorism: Israeli Rules in Afghanistan

Archives

May 28,2008: In Afghanistan and Pakistan have found that playing by Israeli rules is paying off. The Israelis had demonstrated, over the last five years, that the key to crippling a terrorist organization is to identify, and go after, the key leadership and technical people. This included a lot of specialties you never hear much about. There are, for example, the bagmen (who move the money) and the fixers (who arrange for government officials to be bribed.) There was also a video editors and web specialists responsible for most of the slick "combat videos" that appear on pro-terrorist websites. Once the ones in Baghdad were rounded up last Summer, the number of recruiting, and morale building, videos showing up in the Internet has dropped by over 75 percent. Quality is down as well. In Israel, the counter-terror campaign has worked, with successful Palestinian suicide attacks in Israel down from 59 in 2002 (the peak) to one last year. In Iraq, the U.S. applied the Israeli solution, and terrorist activity dropped sharply.

The same pattern is being played out in Afghanistan and the border areas of Pakistan, where seven years of intelligence collection has produced a huge amount of information about who is who, and where they hang out. The tribes that live in the area have also been infiltrated, to the point where information can be bought, and passed on, in time for missiles or smart bombs to be delivered to buildings containing one or more key terrorist operatives. Dozens of these key people have been killed so far this year, and the quality and quantity of terrorist attacks has been declining. On the down side, the younger replacements tend to be more bloody minded and brutal. But that just makes the terrorists more unpopular with the population they say they are trying to "liberate."

 


Article Archive

Counter-Terrorism: Current 2022 2021 2020 2019 2018 2017 2016 2015 2014 2013 2012 2011 2010 2009 2008 2007 2006 2005 2004 


X

ad
0
20

Help Keep Us Soaring

We need your help! Our subscription base has slowly been dwindling. We need your help in reversing that trend. We would like to add 20 new subscribers this month.

Each month we count on your subscriptions or contributions. You can support us in the following ways:

  1. Make sure you spread the word about us. Two ways to do that are to like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.
  2. Subscribe to our daily newsletter. We’ll send the news to your email box, and you don’t have to come to the site unless you want to read columns or see photos.
  3. You can contribute to the health of StrategyPage. A contribution is not a donation that you can deduct at tax time, but a form of crowdfunding. We store none of your information when you contribute..
Subscribe   Contribute   Close