U.S. air strikes on Somalia are said to have killed a top al-Qaida leader. The United States, however, has claimed to have killed many of the terrorist group’s leaders since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks yet al-Qaida remains intact and functional and may even be gaining strength in Afghanistan, where U.S. officials said they were on the run years ago.

Disrupting, or eliminating, terrorist networks is much more difficult than dropping bombs or even a limited ground offensive. These networks are spread across the world, so picking off a leader here and there when they emerge – or a change in government makes it easier – is a reactive, and likely ineffective, way of combating terrorism. Ensuring peace and a stable government in countries like Somalia is a better hedge against terrorism.

Several news outlets reported that Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, suspected of masterminding the 1998 bombings of the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania that killed 225 people, was killed in Monday’s air strikes on southern Somalia.

Because Somalia has essentially been without a government for more than a decade, terrorists have been using this country as a safe haven and as a base for their operations for years. While terrorist safe havens should be eliminated and leaders stopped from planning attacks, ensuring stable government can help ensure they don’t take hold in the first place.

American forces are credited with driving the Taliban from Afghanistan, thereby denying al-Qaida a base of operations in that country. Recent reports, however, suggest that because the U.S.-backed government is weak, the Taliban is re-emerging and that terrorists are increasingly active along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.

Islamists who took control of much of Somalia last year were credited with bringing order and peace, but they were criticized for imposing harsh Islamic rule. They were driven out by Ethiopian troops two weeks ago and the western-backed transitional government returned to power. Ethiopian officials say their troops will quickly leave the country and have asked for peacekeepers to replace them.

There is not much support among African countries for an African peacekeeping force and western countries are hesitant to send forces there. United Nations and U.S. peacekeepers were sent to Somalia to quell the anarchy left by the 1991 ouster of a the country’ military dictator. The United States abandoned the mission 18 months later after two American helicopters were brought down and 18 soldiers killed and some dragged through the streets of Mogadishu, the basis for the film “Black Hawk Down.”

No one wants a similar outcome this time, but it will take more than bombing runs to dismantle al-Qaida and other terrorist networks.