Quora Answer: If Someone Bombed a Hypothetical ISIS Headquarters Illegally, What Would Happen to Them Legally?

The following is my answer to a Quora question: “If someone bombed a hypothetical ISIS headquarters illegally, as in under no military orders, what would happen to them legally?”

The premise of the question is wrong.  ISIS is a terrorist group, and is not structured the same as a conventional military.  Terrorist groups function in cells, a diffuse leadership structure, such that taking down the leadership does not compromise the combat capability of the entire group.  There is no ISIS headquarters to bomb.  If that were the case, the US or the Russians would have bombed it already.  This is why taking out terrorist groups are so difficult.  A military campaign by itself would not take out an insurgency.  For an insurgency to be defeated, its source of funds and supplies, the underlying socioeconomic issues that push people to join the cause, have to be addressed.

The Tamil Tigers fought a guerrilla war for a quarter of a century.  Their defeat came when they assassinated the Indian Prime Minister, Rajiv Ratna Gandhi, which caused India to clamp down on tacit support and funding from the Tamil community in India.  They lost the war by losing their sponsor.  The Communist Insurgency in Malaya was defeated when the British starved them of support by relocating villagers to compounds that could be defended, and countering their propaganda through economic reform.

We cannot bomb ISIS into oblivion without countering their propaganda.  Otherwise, we will be sucked into a succession of increasingly more violent and sophisticated jihadist groups, all evolved from ISIS, and Al Qaeda, before them.