The leaders of the medieval Islamic spiritual order known as the Assassins were certainly not the first people to come up with the idea of murdering one’s political opponents. But the reason why the murder of a political leader is known as an “assassination” today is because these guys were very, very good at it. It didn’t matter how powerful or famous or presumably well-protected somebody was–if the Assassins targeted him, either for death or a stern warning (the warnings became pretty effective once they’d done a few murders and gotten a reputation), then they rarely failed to get to him.
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The Foreign Exchanges Companion 