The Islamic State (ISIS) is just one of several terrorist organizations overseas that puts a premium on murdering Americans, and any U.S. plan to neutralize anti-Western jihadists will have to go after all of them, a former CIA analyst told
Newsmax TV on Monday.
"It is this hydra," Lisa Ruth, intelligence analyst now with the private firm LIGNET, told "MidPoint" host Ed Berliner. "You cut off the head of one and ten more grow in their place."
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Ruth said that to conduct a global campaign against radical Islamist ideologies — whether we call it a counter-terror action or a war — "we have to be looking far beyond ISIS or far beyond al Qaida."
She said the U.S. has made "some advances" against these enemies, but cited Boko Haram and al Shabab in Africa, al Nusrah in Syria, and remnants of the Taliban in Pakistan and Afghanistan among the multiple threats still confronting the United States.
Using drone strikes to take out group leaders — as with
al Shabab commander Ahmed Abdi Godane — won't put an end to the groups themselves, Ruth added.
Godane's replacement already has been named, and Al Shabab — perhaps now more than ever — "absolutely wants to kill Americans," said Ruth, who described the inflicting of U.S. casualties as a "status symbol" for jihadists.
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