Terrorists Who Get the Job Done

The Wall Street Journal
By: Ali Soufan

.

I have interrogated many terrorists, and with few exceptions I have found them steadfast in their anticipation of ultimate victory. Fahd al-Quso, who helped plan the suicide speedboat attack that killed U.S. Navy personnel aboard the USS Cole 16 years ago this month, told me after he had been arrested and confessed to the crime that America’s expulsion from the Arab world was inevitable. On his release in 2007 from a Yemeni jail, Quso quickly returned to the fray as a leader of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, where he was doing his part to make sure that the inevitable occurred until he was killed by a U.S. drone strike in 2012.

Despite their best efforts and fervent beliefs, most terrorist organizations fail to achieve their ultimate political goals. One of the few quantitative studies of terrorist efficacy, byAudrey Cronin of American University, puts the relevant success rate at around 6%. In part, this poor success rate is a function of such groups’ tendency to reach for the stars in stating their objectives: Hamas would attract substantially fewer recruits if it demanded a reasonable accommodation with Israel, rather than the Jewish state’s complete annihilation…

.

To read the full article please click on the link below:
http://www.wsj.com/articles/terrorists-who-get-the-job-done-1477353420