sever connections

Dong’s case highlights the extreme lengths Chinese authorities are going to sever connections between Chinese citizens and foreigners, seen as a destabilizing force.

There was a time when people with severe mental illness might be given an operation to sever connections in the brain.

Some American analysts said Mr. al-Masri’s death would sever connections between one of the last original Qaeda leaders and the current generation of Islamist militants, who have grown up after Bin Laden’s 2011 death.

Some American analysts said al-Masri’s death would sever connections between one of the last original Qaida leaders and the current generation of Islamist militants, who have grown up after bin Laden’s 2011 death.

The notorious lobotomies, which doctors performed for decades in the mid-20th century, involved the insertion of an instrument resembling an ice pick through patients’ eye sockets to sever connections in their brains, usually destroying their personality as a result.