Targeted terrorists killings an effective, if unsettling measure

I'm not one to give much credence to statements made by terrorist organizations, but when I found a post on the BBC News website dated Jan. 29 that said Hamas was reporting that a "senior Hamas military commander has been assassinated by Israel in Dubai," I nodded and moved on to the rest of my daily news reading. As befits my perspective, I gave scant attention to the BBC article other than its headline, since this assassination seemed like little more than a positive step towards thwarting the goals of terrorists. As I browsed my usual news and commentary sources—The New York Times, Foreign Policy, The Jerusalem Post and a number of national security blogs—the same story that I had seen on the BBC kept popping up. So, begrudgingly, I went back to the BBC article and Googled the name of the terrorist who had been killed.

Apparently, Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, the senior Hamas leader killed in Dubai on Jan. 19, was not an upstanding fellow. Not only is he one of the founders of the Izzedine al-Qassam Brigades, what The New York Times calls the "military" arm of Hamas, both of which are recognized as terrorist organizations by the United States and European Union, but Mr. Mabhouh was also implicated in "weapons smuggling operations into Gaza" that involved liaisons with the Iranian regime, according to The New York Times in an article published on Jan. 29. In reference to Hamas or other Palestinian terrorist groups, "weapons smuggling" tends to refer to the illicit shipment of antipersonnel rockets and sundry, small arms from Iran to terrorists in the Gaza Strip for use against civilians. As such, when it was reported that the chief of police of Dubai asserted that he was "99 percent, if not 100 percent [certain] that" the Israeli intelligence service, the Mossad, was behind the killing, I was all but cheery, for if Israel successfully pursued a terrorist leader, I am quite certain that the assassination was justifiable, whether it was strictly legal or not.

Even though there exists some doubt that Israel was responsible for this operation, Israel would most certainly be justified in targeting al-Mabhouh for assassination and, in doing so through an in-person assassination rather than, say, a missile strike on Hamas enclaves in Gaza, risked much less collateral damage. Thus, this assassination was very much the "least-bad alternative" to letting a terrorist wanted by a number of nations, including Egypt and Jordan, smuggle weapons used to kill civilians into Gaza.

In the context of countering terrorism on a global scale, targeted killings of terrorist leaders must remain among the arsenal of the clandestine services of the free nations of the world. When applied judiciously, targeted killings—whether by commando raids, drone strikes or other methods—can be an effective tactic for engaging high-value targets throughout the world, as both the Bush and Obama administrations have admitted, even to the point where Secretary of Defense Robert Gates stated "both President Bush and President Obama have made clear that we will go after al-Qaeda wherever al-Qaeda is. And we will continue to pursue that," in reference to targeted killings of al-Qaeda leaders in Pakistan, Afghanistan and surrounding areas.

It would be a dangerous precedent for the free world to give up on targeting terrorists. Crippling global terror is a vital task that has fallen to the United States, the European Union and their allies across the globe in the 21st century. The use of targeted killings and other clandestine operations to target terrorist groups and their leaders, when coupled with programs to resolve the fundamental causes of terror, is an effective, if off-putting, way to go about accomplishing an unpleasant burden.