Why we will never ‘eradicate’ terrorism

Declaring victory against terrorism also suffers from the challenge of waging war against common nouns. These wars never end because one of the protagonists cannot surrender. Did you ever hear a bag of heroin say, 'Don’t shoot! I give up!'?
Al-Qaeda founder Abdullah Azzam, who was killed in a car bomb in 1989, summed up this view very well when he proclaimed: 'Jihad and the rifle alone; no negotiations, no conferences, and no dialogues.' It is really hard, after all, to defeat a tactic.

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