This question rises now because of Israel’s assassination of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. Experts are divided. Some believe: kill the leaders and the organisation dies. Others say: kill the leaders, but you cannot kill the ideology.
Four decades of reporting insurgencies lead me to believe that “decapitation”—targeted killing of top leaders—invariably delivers a death blow to militant organisations. My first experience was in Punjab in the 1980s-1990s when bus massacres and school bombings struck terror in the countryside—and in New Delhi. Questioned about his strategy to quell Sikh militancy, supercop K.P.S. Gill told me: “Kill the leaders.” He succeeded. Insurgency died, democracy returned.
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