Hi Rob,

Interesting and very gratifying to hear! BTW, the "hydra" also shows up in the old Sumerian (southern Iraq from Babylon south) mythography as the dragon "Tiamat". Interestingly enough, in the Enuma Elish, the Babylonian Creation epic, Tiamat is "killed" by Marduk (the God of Babylon) and her body is used to create / stablize the world. In effect, "killing the hydra" is a metaphor for the establishment of stability, law and order. I don't know if that particular story ended up in local Islamic myth or not - it would be interesting to find out.

On neutralizing the cells / nodes to destroy the network, that is a very interesting question. Since, from the sounds of it, most of them are based on kinship ties, it may be difficult to actually "destroy" them or plant infiltrators; at least in the ones that are "local" (the AIQ ones are another matter entirely). One metrics, I would actually use something along the lines of the consumer price index coupled with availability measures.

Marc