Al Qaeda - Evolution of leadership and organization

Al-Qaeda’s murder of 2,977 people in the 11 September 2001 attacks, in which it effectively used three hijacked commercial jetliners as cruise missiles to strike the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, and crashed a fourth in Pennsylvania, constituted the most lethal and spectacular terrorist operation in history. In the years following 9/11, al-Qaeda and its cognates tried in vain to match it with massive, indiscriminate attacks in Bali and Madrid, among other places. In fact, since US forces killed al-Qaeda founder and leader Osama bin Laden in May 2011, prompting his replacement by the far less charismatic Ayman al-Zawahiri, the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL – which arose from al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) but declared its independence from al-Qaeda central – has eclipsed al-Qaeda as the world’s most disruptive and high-profile jihadist terrorist group. Nevertheless, al-Qaeda probably remains the largest and most widespread jihadist terrorist organisation. Al-Qaeda central is repelling the Islamic State’s challenge in Afghanistan. Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) is the main jihadist player in Yemen, where it controls large areas of coastline and much of the highway system. Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) recently consolidated with several other highly active jihadist factions. Indeed, al-Qaeda overall appears to have exploited the Islamic State’s diversionary prominence and its claim on counter-terrorism resources to regroup. Now, with ISIS largely defeated in Iraq and Syria, al-Qaeda may be poised for a comeback.

In the past few weeks, the group has opportunistically asserted itself with respect to the Myanmar government’s brutal campaign against the country’s Rohingya people, a vulnerable, restive and mostly Muslim ethnic minority. Sparked by several attacks on security forces by Rohingya militants in late August, Myanmar’s actions have drawn condemnation from the United Nations and several humanitarian groups, which claim the measures taken amount to systematic collective punishment and ethnic cleansing, an assertion backed up by satellite imagery of burning villages. The Rohingya have periodically clashed with Myanmar’s Buddhist majority for years. Over 400,000 Rohingya have fled the country into Bangladesh in the last six weeks. This development has proven to be a propaganda coup and potential recruitment

spur for al-Qaeda. In a 12 September statement, al-Qaeda called for all Muslims to defend the Rohingya, disparaging the government’s purported ‘fight against terrorism’, and exhorting ‘all mujahid brothers from Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, and the Philippines to set out for Burma’ to secure the Rohingya’s rights ‘by force’. It remains uncertain how many jihadists will answer this call. But unless the international community adequately addresses the persecution of the Rohingya, the situation could drive the revival of Jemaah Islamiah, al-Qaeda’s once formidable affiliate in Southeast Asia, and more generally, is liable to energise al-Qaeda.

The post-9/11 evolution of jihadist terrorism Since 9/11, major powers have substantially relied on military force to counter jihadist terrorism. The United States’ December 2001 invasion of Afghanistan aimed to decisively defeat al-Qaeda and prevent that country from again providing a sanctuary for terrorism. Although American forces caught al-Qaeda off guard with the speed and scope of their response, the enterprise has been far from an unqualified success. Sixteen years later, the United States remains militarily committed and arguably bogged down in Afghanistan. The Taliban, al-Qaeda’s host, has gained strength against corrupt and inept US-backed governments. The war in Afghanistan has become the United States’ longest and one of its most expensive. While it has compromised al-Qaeda’s ability to plan and stage terrorist attacks from Afghanistan, it has also impelled the group to decentralise into regional ‘franchises’ – including AQI, AQAP in Saudi Arabia and then Yemen, and AQIM in North Africa and the Sahel, and more loosely, al-Shabaab in East Africa and Boko Haram in West Africa – and to focus on regional objectives. This dispensation has ensured the group’s overall viability. Al-Qaeda has also continued to demonstrate that it can selectively hit Western targets, as AQAP did in the attack on the Charlie Hebdo magazine offices in Paris in January 2015, in which twelve people were killed.

The United States’ invasion of Iraq in 2003 was monumentally ill-advised. Although designed to further blunt al-Qaeda’s strategic potential by denying it access to (non-existent) weapons of mass destruction, and to spread American democracy as a means of eradicating the root causes of

terrorism, the invasion gave rise to AQI, which has killed more Americans than any single jihadist group – let alone any al-Qaeda franchise – and ultimately to AQI’s successor, ISIS. It also paved the way for greater Iranian influence in Iraq and failed to usher in a stable and equitable government. In 2014, ISIS was able to establish control of sufficient territory in Iraq and war-torn Syria to claim a ‘caliphate’ with at least provisional credibility, and subsequently infiltrated other Muslim countries, notably Afghanistan and Libya. Several years after substantially withdrawing from Iraq and drawing down its presence in Afghanistan, the United States has increased its military presence and counter-terrorism operations in both countries as well as Syria.

While endeavouring to establish strongholds in Muslim lands, transnational jihadist terrorist groups have shown their adaptability by moving on from trying to replicate 9/11 in magnitude and symbolic impact, which the worldwide mobilisation of counter-terrorism after 9/11 rendered impracticable. For several years, al-Qaeda settled for smaller mass-casualty attacks on soft targets of opportunity. ISIS drove a more decisive shift towards more frequent, less technically and logistically burdensome urban terror operations. To some extent, the group and its followers have amplified the bombing techniques of more restrained ethno-nationalist groups like the Provisional Irish Republican Army, the Basque group Euskadi ta Askatasuna, Hizbullah and Hamas. Beyond that, ISIS has inspired, endorsed and assisted in attacks of even cruder varieties, instrumentalising cars and knives for mass murder.

Vis-à-vis their ‘far enemies’ outside the Islamic world, the objective of jihadists has evolved from generating fear in the general population by mounting directed terrorist operations that kill as many people as possible in a single stroke, to doing so by inspiring and assisting a loose global network of self-starting jihadists who may seemingly act spontaneously on their own initiative. Consequently, the higher incidence of attacks has raised fears of terrorism in Europe and the United States to levels comparable to the panic that ensued right after 9/11. To a significant degree, right-wing populist leaders on both sides of the Atlantic have cynically stoked these fears to stir up anti-immigrant and nativist sentiments that feed the jihadist narrative that all non-Muslims are irreconcilably

Al-Qaeda’s evolution since 9/11

www.iiss.org/stratcom Editor: Jonathan Stevenson

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hostile to all Muslims. The suppression and territorial defeat of ISIS in Iraq and Syria have not caused out-of-area attacks to diminish; in fact, the more besieged ISIS becomes in the Middle East, the more it seems determined to make its lethal mark farther afield, so as to confirm its resilience and relevance. Therefore, over the past 16 years, although jihadist terrorism has been compelled to morph, it has remained highly effective on its own terms.

Al-Qaeda’s rejuvenation in Syria After it split from al-Qaeda in 2014, ISIS manifested greater ambition and aggressiveness than the Syrian al-Qaeda affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra – rebranded Jabhat Fateh al-Sham in summer 2016 – and became the dominant jihadist group in Syria. Now, ISIS is collapsing there. On 5 September, forces of the regime of President Bashar al-Assad broke the Islamic State’s three-year siege of the city of Deir al-Zour, along the Euphrates River. ISIS is on its last legs in the battle for Raqqa with the mainly Kurdish, US-supported Syrian Democratic Forces. Idlib, the only remaining rebel-controlled province in Syria, is now host to jihadist infighting that could produce al-Qaeda’s resurgence in the region. Hayat Tahrir al-Sham – a group controlled by Jabhat Fateh al-Sham – has made inroads against the less extremist, Turkish-supported Ahrar al-Sham and now controls the city of Idlib and many of the northern villages near the Turkish border. At this point, Jabhat Fateh al-Sham constitutes al-Qaeda’s largest affiliate, with perhaps 20,000 fighters or more under its command.

Jabhat Fateh al-Sham’s ascendance at the expense of Ahrar al-Sham has alarmed Washington, Ankara and other capitals. Al-Qaeda’s sustained control of Idlib could increase US military activity in Syria, with geopolitical implications. In particular, US airstrikes on al-Qaeda targets there would run a greater risk of a clash with Russian aircraft than previous US air assaults on Raqqa, given that Idlib is farther east and closer to Latakia province, a stronghold of the Assad regime hosting a substantial Russian military deployment. At the same time, the United States presently seems to be segueing from a counter-terrorism policy in Syria based on mere ‘deconfliction’ with Russia to one of provisional cooperation.

The Trump administration’s Syria policy remains very unclear. Following the United States’ Tomahawk cruise missile strikes on regime targets in April, in retaliation for its chemical weapons attacks on civilians,

some senior US officials suggested that the administration might tilt more towards regime change and more directly confront Iran and Hizbullah, which both closely support the regime on the ground. But indications from the White House that counter-terrorism remains its top priority in Syria and its apparent shift towards greater cooperation with Russia, along with the cancellation of a CIA programme for arming moderate Syrian rebel groups, cut in the other direction. More aggressive and concerted major-power confrontation of jihadism in Syria could enhance al-Qaeda’s global prominence, as it did in Iraq.

A new inspirational leader? Shortly after the sixteenth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, al-Qaeda released an audio message from Osama bin Laden’s son Hamza – one of several from him since May 2015. Although he has never been a front-line fighter, he has a charismatic presence, close relationships with senior al-Qaeda leaders and, obviously, a rich pedigree. Entitled ‘The Cause of al-Sham is the Cause of Islam’, using the Arabic name ‘al-Sham’ for Syria, the message illuminated the importance of Syria in al-Qaeda’s plans. ‘The cause of Syria is the cause of the entire worldwide Muslim community’, he said. ‘In order for the people of Syria to resist the Crusader, Shia and international aggression, Muslims – all Muslims – must stand with them, support them and give them victory.’ He exhorted the rebels to reject any result except victory:

So do not waver, nor grieve. Do not accept half-baked solutions, nor stop mid-way in your path before you have reached your destination, for this will be nothing but a waste of your tremendous sacrifices and a premature termination of your brilliant revolution. Weigh your affairs in the scales of the Hereafter, your difficulties will seem trivial to you.

Hamza undertook a public leadership role in al-Qaeda after its split with ISIS, but has never strongly rebuked the newer group. Like his father, Hamza seeks to avoid internal divisiveness in the belief that it plays into enemy hands. But unlike Osama bin Laden, who often disapproved of overt al-Qaeda savagery against Shia Muslims, Hamza has stoked sectarian conflict between Sunnis and Shi’ites. Although his earlier messages identified ‘Crusader and Jewish’ adversaries, the latest one highlighted ‘international Crusader-Rafidhi aggression’ – ‘Rafidhi’

being a derogatory term for Shi’ites. He also implicitly rejected the notion that, at least from the jihadist point of view, there is any daylight between the United States and Russia, casting any such appearance as a ruse:

The International System and the states of the West and the East that are fighting against you do so because you seek to establish a true Islamic government. They have divided the roles amongst themselves to deceive you. Do not obey them, for they are deceivers. Do not obey them, for they are criminals. Do not obey them, for they are insolent disbelievers who will break every oath and promise.

He has thus labelled Russia and the United States ‘the pharaohs of the age’, and cast Iran and the Assad regime as their ‘Rafidhi allies’ – that is, their Shia stooges.

Outlook Hamza bin Laden, who is in his late twenties, may soon replace the 66-year-old Zawahiri as al-Qaeda’s leader. Al-Qaeda has upgraded its techniques for recruiting jihadists via social media, which had lagged behind those of ISIS. Al-Qaeda is also more nuanced and restrained than ISIS in its treatment of Muslims, employing proselytisation more than coercion, and therefore reducing the risk of backlash, which has hurt ISIS in Syria and Iraq. In addition, Hamza has reiterated his father’s condemnation of Saudi Arabia’s leadership as apostate by virtue of its strategic relationship with the United States. At the same time, his avoidance of direct criticism of ISIS has left the door open for a reunification that would inevitably strengthen the jihadist movement overall. ISIS leaders would be more inclined to pledge fealty to the son of Osama bin Laden, a venerated Gulf Arab for whom they maintain deep respect, than Zawahiri, an Egyptian with whom they have openly clashed and regard as an unworthy inheritor of bin Laden’s mantle. As the Islamic State’s notional caliphate implodes, al-Qaeda’s lower-key, decentralised approach appears more realistically and strategically in line with present jihadist capabilities. ISIS may still pose the most active and dangerous out-of-area jihadist threat. But by releasing Hamza’s message at a time when ISIS is maximally embattled in the Middle East, and enunciating a focus on Syria, al-Qaeda seems to be positioning itself once again as the rightful steward and spearhead of the global jihadist movement.