Hamas Leader killed

Ahmed Yassin, spiritual leader of the terrorist group Hamas, was killed this morning by Israeli helicopters.

Yassin, who was wheelchair bound, was obviously not directly involved in any of the suicide bombings. However, as the nominal leader of the organization, he was responsible for the actions of his disciples.

Obviously, Hamas is going to try and milk this as much as possible. Their leader is already trying to portray this as an attack on Islam:

"They are the killers of prophets and today they killed an Islamic symbol," said top Hamas political leader Abdel Aziz al-Rantissi. "It's a war on Islam...What happened was beyond the assassination of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, they wanted to assassinate the Palestinian cause

Of course, its not a war on Islam, its a war on people who believe that it is appropriate to kill innocent Israelis to prove a political point.

Previously, I have often thought that assassinating Yassin would be a bad move. However, now that Israel has actually done it, I am beginning to think that I might have been wrong. Symbols are powerful, and I think Israel sent a strong message today. The terrorists have nowhere to hide. They will be hunted and killed until they give up the fight against Israel.

I don't think Israel will be worse off for the attack, there is no shortage of volunteers for the suicide missions. Hopefully, without a figure to rally around, Hamas will be weakened as an organization.

But, that said, it doesn't even matter if Yassin's death doesn't help Israel in the long run. He was the leader of a terrorist organization that has killed hundreds of civilians. Today, he was killed.

Today, justice was served.

I can't think of anything wrong with that.

update
Hamas is already trying to respond. I hope they stay just as successful. Its too bad the wall isn't up on the West Bank, this would be a good time to shut everything down. (Update of an update, the link was changed on me, it used to refer to a bomb that went off near a border checkpoint soon after Yassin was taken down. Serves me right for using yahoo instead of google)

update#2
The Guardian is already chiming in with an obituary to the poor terrorist. I can't say that I'm surprised.