Discussion 8
The Future of Terrorism
A. Understanding Today’s Terrorists
The motivations behind someone's decision to resort to violence, whether it be
picking up a gun or detonating a bomb, are complex and multifaceted, stemming from a
variety of factors including personal grievances, frustrations, religious beliefs, ideological
convictions, and aspirations for societal change. Indeed, individuals may be driven to
terrorism by a myriad of reasons, ranging from a sense of injustice and perceived
oppression to a fervent commitment to religious or political ideals. For some, joining a
terrorist organization may serve to provide a sense of collective purpose and
empowerment, amplifying their individual convictions and enabling them to effectuate
change on a larger scale.
It's crucial to recognize that the factors motivating individuals to become terrorists
are deeply rooted and often defy simplistic explanations based solely on socioeconomic
or demographic factors. While poverty, illiteracy, and marginalization may contribute to
a sense of disenfranchisement and resentment, they do not necessarily serve as direct
predictors of involvement in terrorism. Moreover, the motivations for terrorism are not
static and may evolve over time, shaped by personal experiences, social dynamics, and
broader geopolitical trends. As such, attempts to generalize and categorize terrorists
based on socioeconomic or demographic criteria are inherently flawed and fail to capture
the complex interplay of factors driving individual behavior. By acknowledging the
nuanced and multifaceted nature of terrorism, policymakers and counterterrorism
practitioners can better understand and address the root causes of violent extremism. This
requires a comprehensive and holistic approach that addresses not only the symptoms of
terrorism, but also the underlying grievances, grievances, and social dynamics that fuel
its spread. Only by addressing these underlying factors can we hope to effectively counter
the allure of terrorism and prevent individuals from being drawn into its destructive orbit.
J. Bowyer Bell's poignant reflection, penned in 1998, encapsulates a fundamental
truth about revolutionary movements: they are often spearheaded by young individuals
who are impassioned by a fervent desire for change and willing to challenge established
norms and authorities. Drawing from his extensive research spanning over four decades
studying various underground movements, Bell highlighted the predominant role of
youth in shaping and driving revolutionary struggles across different contexts and
historical periods.
Throughout history, young men and women have played pivotal roles in
revolutionary movements that have sought to challenge oppressive regimes, colonial
powers, and societal injustices. From the young Jewish insurgents in Palestine who
resisted British rule to the Muslim Algerians who fought against French colonialism, and
from the Palestinian fedayeen who revolutionized the tactics of terrorism to the radical
students of the "generation of 1968" who formed leftist terrorist groups in Europe and
America, youth have often been at the forefront of transformative social and political
movements. In many cases, the youthfulness of revolutionary actors reflects not only
their idealism and passion but also their willingness to take risks and confront entrenched
power structures. Young people, with their energy, resilience, and willingness to
challenge the status quo, have been catalysts for change, driving movements for
independence, social justice, and political reform.
However, it's important to recognize that while youth may be instrumental in
sparking revolutionary movements, sustained change often requires the involvement and
support of broader segments of society. Revolutionary struggles are complex and
multifaceted, shaped by a confluence of factors including ideology, grievances, historical
context, and strategic considerations. As we navigate the complexities of contemporary
global politics, Bell's reflection serves as a reminder of the enduring significance of youth
in driving social and political change. While the faces and contexts of revolution may
evolve, the spirit of youthful idealism and activism remains a potent force for challenging
injustice and advancing the cause of freedom and equality.
By the same token,4the leadership of terrorist groups has also crystallized both
historically and today at a remarkably consistent point in a fighter’s4life:4most often in
one’s late twenties and early thirties. Bin Laden, for instance, was age 27 when he first
arrived in Pakistan in 1984 to establish himself as a patron and supporter of the
mujahideen fighting the Red Army across the border in4Af ghan4stan. He was 30 when he
led his Arab Afghan fighters in the legendary battle at Jaji in41987,4and 32 when his lack
of combat experience contributed to their defeat two years later in the failed siege of
Jalalabad. ISIS’s leader and self-proclaimed caliph, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, had already
established himself as a competent “mid-ranking figure in the anti-US insurgency” by age
34, when he was arrested in 2005 and imprisoned at Camp Bucca, the American military
detention4facilIty near4Umm Qasr, Iraq. It was there that he began the process of
transforming the grievously weakened AQI organization into the powerhouse that
eventually emerged nearly a decade later as ISIS. Baitullah Mehsud, the late commander
of Tehriki- Taliban Pakistan and alleged mastermind of former prime minister Benazir
Bhutto’s 2008 assassination, was age 35 when he was killed the following year by an
American drone strike, and Maulana4Fazlullah, his successor, first acquired notoriety as
the “most powerful Taliban commander” in the Northwest Frontier Province’s Swat
Valley, when he was in his early thirties.
To a large extent,4those historically attracted to terrorism have4tended to be
reasonably well, if not highly,4educated;4financially comfortable, and in some
cases,4quite4well off; and often gainfully employed. Bin Laden, for instance, obtained
degrees in economics and public administration from Saudi Arabia’s King Abdul-Aziz
University, while4al-Baghdadi has both a master’s and a PhD in Islamic studies from the
University of Islamic Sciences at Adhamiya, a Baghdad suburb. A century ago, IRA
Volunteers in West Cork, according to Peter Hart, were similarly “more likely to have
jobs, trades, and an education than was typical of their peers.’ Menachem Begin,
who4as4Israel’s prime4minister4received the Nobel Peace Prize but previously commanded
the Irgun during the 1940s, received his law degree from Warsaw University in 1935.
Yasir Arafat, Begin’s Palestinian counterpart who4was awarded4his4own4Nobel Peace
Prize, was employed by the Kuwaiti Public Works Department as an engineer when he
founded al-Fatah, having graduated from Cairo’s Fouad the First University (now Cairo
University). George Habash, the founder, and leader of the rival PFLP, was the son of a
wealthy grain merchant who received his medical degree from the American University
in Beirut, as did his close friend and collaborator, Wadi Haddad, who directed the PFLP’s
most spectacular aircraft hijackings, including the 1976 hijacking of an Air France plane
to Entebbe, Uganda. Leila Khaled, the Palestinian airline hijacker cum heroine of the
1970s, was herself also the product of a comparatively well-off,4middle- class4family.
While it is4certainly4true that the rank-and-file Palestinian fedayeen were likely to be
from far less comfortable socioeconomic backgrounds, it is nonetheless clear that the
Palestinian movement’s leadership did not conform to the4stereo type4of4the poor,
uneducated, jobless fighter—as is the case with their terrorist4counter parts4across the
world today.
This4was the conclusion that Peter Bergen and Swati Pandey reached in their
study of madrassas (Islamic schools) and lack of education as a putative terrorist
incubator. Using a database of some 79 jihadis who were responsible for the five most
serious terrorist incidents between 1993 and 2005, they found that 544 percent of the
perpetrators either attended university or had obtained a university degree. The terrorists
they studied “thus appear, on average, to be as well educated as many Americans”—
given that only about half of the persons living in the United States have attended
university. They further note that two-thirds of the 25 terrorists involved in the planning
and hijacking of the four aircraft on September411, 2001, had4attended4university and that
2 of the 79 in their database had earned PhD degrees, while4two others were enrolled4in
doctoral programs. Finally, they observed that the most popular subject among those who
attended university was engineering, followed by medicine. Echoing Laqueur’s
previously quoted observation, Bergen and Pandey also observed, “While madrassas may
breed fundamentalists who have learned to recite the Koran in Arabic by rote, such
schools do not teach the technical or linguistic skills necessary to be an effective
terrorist” in today’s world.
That engineers have disproportionately filled the ranks of violent Islamist
movements is4in4fact4the central argument of Diego Gambetta and Steffen Hertog’s book,
Engineers of Jihad: The Curious Connection Between Violent Extremism and Education.
They found that 694 percent of their sample of 335 violent jihadis had attended institutes
of higher education— including nearly half who studied engineering. “Relative to their
presence in the male population in their countries of origin,” Gambetta and Hertog note:
“the number of engineers among [Islamist] extremist groups is fourteen times what we
would expect, and relative to graduates with other degrees they are four times more
numerous than we would expect. Furthermore, the overrepresentation is evenly
distributed across all groups and across all countries of origin.”Among the more
notorious terrorists with this par tic4u4lar academic credential is Ramzi Ahmed Yousef,
the mastermind behind the 1993 bombing of New York City’s World Trade Center, who
studied electrical engineering at a technical institute in Wales; his uncle, Khalid Sheikh
Mohammad, the architect of the 9/11 attacks, who graduated with a bachelor of science
degree in mechanical engineering from a North Carolina state university; and Umar
Farouk Abdulmutallab, the so-called underwear bomber, the Nigerian national and son of
a wealthy banker who tried to blow up a Northwest Airlines flight enroute from
Amsterdam to Detroit on Christmas Day 2009.4His mechanical engineering degree was
awarded by University College London— one of Britain’s top universities.
The popularity of medicine as a terrorist vocation is, of course, also not new.
In4addition to the4aforementioned Drs. Habash and Haddad, Ayman al-Zawahiri, al-
Qaeda’s current leader, is a trained surgeon. Perhaps the best-known terrorists in recent
years with medical degrees were among the eight persons arrested in Britain following
the botched attempt to bomb a nightclub in central London and the4dramatic,4but
largely4ineffectual,4attack on Glasgow’s International Airport in June42007. Six were
either doctors or medical students; the seventh person4was employed4as a technician in
a4hospital4laboratory;4and the eighth member of the conspiracy was neither a medical
doctor nor employed in health4care,4but instead had earned a doctorate in design and
technology. By all accounts, the terrorist cell’s leader, British-born Dr.4Bilal Abdullah,
came from a comfortable, indeed privileged, background. His family was well
known4and4his father was a prominent doctor in Iraq, where Bilal4was raised. His mother
and sisters have degrees in pharmacy, and his brother is a medical doctor, too.
In the annals of terrorism, Abdullah’s profile is hardly unusual. Shahzad Tanweer,
one of the four July42005 London suicide bombers, drove a Mercedes, as did his father,
who was a prominent local4businessman,4and4indeed, the archetype of the successful,
hardworking immigrant. The elder Tanweer owned a slaughterhouse, a convenience
store, and a chain of fish- and- -chips shops.4The son graduated from Leeds Metropolitan
University,4where he obtained a degree in sports science.4The cell’s ringleader,
Mohammad Siddique Khan, who was age thirty at the time of the bombings, had a
business studies degree from the same university and was gainfully employed as a
community worker. Although the third and youngest member of the cell, Hasib Hussain,
had an undistinguished academic record and never completed his college course in
business studies, according to the official British parliamentary inquiry’s report of the
attacks, his family’s socioeconomic background, like that of Tanweer and Khan, “was not
poor by the standards of the area.”
Omar Khyam, the mastermind behind a 2004 bombing plot in London that
Scotland Yard code-named “Operation Crevice,” was the son of a wealthy businessman
and grew up in a comfortable, upper-middle-class environment. Similarly, Ahmed Omar
Saeed Sheikh, who was twenty- nine when he kidnapped and executed Wall Street
Journal reporter Daniel Pearl in 2002, attended an exclusive private school. He later was
admitted to the world-renowned London School of Economics (LSE), where he studied
applied mathematics, statistical theory, economics, and social psychology. Described as
“handsome, tall and muscular, very bright and charming,” his parents expected he
would4be knighted4someday, not languish in prison awaiting execution. Omar Khan
Sharif, who, with a fellow British Muslim named Asif Hanif, staged a suicide bomb
attack on a Tel Aviv seaside bar in 2003, also studied mathematics at a similarly
prestigious British university— King’s College, London. As Ed Husain, the former
British Islamic4extremist4recounts in his memoir, “Interestingly, neither Asif Hanif nor
Omar Sharif Khan came from an unemployed, disenchanted inner-city Muslim
community; both had middle-class backgrounds.” Indeed, Husain recalls his experience
that all the members of his radical circle were students at London’s top universities,
including the LSE, SOAS (the School of Oriental and African Studies), King’s College,
and Imperial College. Abdullah Ahmed Ali, the then twenty- seven- year- old who was
one of the ringleaders of the August42006 plot to bomb4si mutinously4U.S. and Canadian
passenger airliners departing from London’s Heathrow Airport, also hardly conformed to
the4stereo4type of the wild-eyed, fanatical, homicidal suicide bomber. A husband and
father of a two-year-old son, Ali held a bachelor of science degree in computer systems
engineering from a respectable British university. For all intents and purposes, he
appeared to be a solidly middle-class product of a successful first-generation immigrant
family.
Perhaps the seminal scholarly work to debunk the conventional wisdom that links
poverty and lack of education to terrorism is the 2003 article by Prince ton economist
Alan4B. Krueger and his Australian colleague, Jitka Malecková. Surveying American
white supremacists, members of the Israeli Jewish (right-wing) underground, Hez bollah
fighters, and Palestinian suicide bombers, and using a variety of data and different
methodological approaches, they concluded that not only is there little evidence for this
causality, but in fact, persons with higher incomes and more education are more, not less,
likely to join terrorist groups. In the case of the Israeli Jewish underground, they found, “
These Israeli extremists were disproportionately well-educated and in high-paying
occupations.4The list includes teachers, writers, university students, geographers,
engineers, entrepreneurs,4a4combat4pilot,4a chemist, and4a4computer4programmer.”4For
Hezbollah, they determined that fewer of its members came from impoverished
backgrounds compared with the general Lebanese population (284 percent versus 334
percent). They also noted that the movement’s ranks included more persons who had
attended secondary school than most other Lebanese had. Krueger and Malecková
determined that Palestinian suicide bombers were also “less likely to come from
impoverished families and are much more likely to have completed high school and
attended college than the general Palestinian population.”
It would4of4course4be wrong to conclude that all terrorist organizations are
populated exclusively by the financially comfortable and better educated. Indeed, an
inevitable bifurcation generally occurs across all terrorist movements whereby the top
leadership and mid-level command strata are populated by the educated (or relatively
well-educated) and financially well-off, while4the majority of4foot soldiers will be less
educated and often come from more modest socioeconomic backgrounds. A rule of
thumb is thus that the larger the movement, the more diverse its members’ socioeconomic
and educational backgrounds. For example, while the leadership and first generation of
the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) comprised4mostly4an elite of middle-class, university-
educated intellectuals, their efforts to mobilize the Kurdish population inevitably brought
into the PKK’s ranks recruits from the lowest economic stratum of the Kurdish minority
community. According to one account, the PKK’s foot soldiers were a representative of
“the uprooted, half-educated village and small-town youth who knew what it felt like to
be oppressed, and who wanted action, not ideological sophistication.”4
Even if AQI recruiters preferred Saudis and Kuwaitis because, according to a
Syrian who oversaw their infiltration into Iraq, citizens of those two countries came “with
enough money to support themselves and their Iraqi brothers,” considerably less4well-off
Syrian, Jordanian, Egyptian, Libyan, Yemeni, Algerian, Moroccan, and Tunisian
volunteers were also welcomed4into the organization’s ranks. Among Iraqis who joined
AQI, economic rather than ideological motivations predominated.4Major4Matt Alexander,
the U.S. Air Force interrogator who obtained the intelligence that led to the killing of
AQI’s founder and commander, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, and who personally conducted
more than 300 interrogations of Iraqi fighters and supervised those of over 1,000 others,
concluded that economic necessity and fear of Shi’a reprisal and not4fervent4religious
belief, much less the establishment of the caliphate, was behind the decision of the
average Sunni fighting for AQI a decade ago. His view4is borne out4by a U.S. military
survey of Iraqi detainees at the height of the insurgency against the United States there.
The majority4were found4to be “young, poorly educated men without jobs who accepted
money from al-Qaida in Iraq to serve as lookouts, or to build or plant roadside bombs.”4
Socioeconomic diversity is evident in large terrorist movements such as the PKK,
AQI, and the Taliban and can also be present in small, tightly-knit terrorist cells as well.
While three of the four members of the cell responsible for the suicide bombings of
London transportation targets on July47, 2005, came from the same small community of
Pakistani immigrants outside of Leeds and were essentially all products of the same
middle-class or upper- middle- class backgrounds (albeit atypical of that area), the fourth
bomber, Jermaine Lindsay was not. The Jamaican-born Lindsay, a convert to Islam, was
from a broken home and appears to have grown up without the benefit of either a good
education or comfortable financial circumstances. He left school while a teenager, and
although he intermittently worked as a carpet fitter, Lindsay4was mostly4unemployed.
Two other British Muslims who turned to terrorism— Richard Reid and Andrew Rowe—
were also converts, also hailed from Jamaica, and had dropped out of school. Both Reid,
the infamous al Qaeda shoe bomber who attempted to blow up an American Airlines
flight in December42001 while enroute from Paris to Miami, and Rowe, another al Qaeda
operative implicated in the 2003 plot to attack Heathrow Airport, had previously served
time in British prisons. As ex-convicts from broken homes, they were arguably the
antithesis of the pampered LSE student Omar Saeed Sheikh or his equally well-off
counterparts such as Omar Khyam and Shahzad Tanweer.
Of course,4people will always be attracted4to violence in different ways. The
diversity of radicalized Muslims who have gravitated toward terrorism in the United
States in recent years bears this out. We have seen terrorists of South Asian and North,
West, and East African descent, as well as those hailing both from the Middle East and
the Ca rib bean. They have been lifelong, devout Muslims, as well as recent converts—
including one Philadelphia suburban housewife who touted her petite stature and blonde
hair and blue eyes as being so atypical of the stereo-typical Muslim terrorist as to defy
any efforts at profiling. Radicalized over the Internet, she sought to use her self-described
ability to avoid detection to assassinate the Swedish artist who had drawn an offensive
cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad. These individuals, accordingly, seem to come from
every walk of life, including marginalized people working in menial jobs, some with long
criminal records or histories of juvenile delinquency, as well as people from solidly
middle4and upper-4middle- class4backgrounds, with university and perhaps even graduate
degrees and prior passions for cars, sports, rock music, and other completely secular,
material interests.
Relationships formed at work, at school, on sports teams, and other recreational
and religious activities, as well as over the Internet, have played an4important4role in their
radicalization. In some instances, first-generation sons and daughters of immigrants
embrace an interpretation of their religion and heritage that is more political, more
extreme, and more austere— and thereby demands4greater4personal sacrifices— than that
practiced by their parents. Existing social networks are thus a principal source of recruits
for terrorist organizations. Recruitment in this context occurs less4as a result of4a “top-
down”— direct process than because of “bottom-up” joining.4That is,4people gravitate to
these violent movements not in response to active organizational efforts but are instead
drawn into them by friends, relatives, neighbors, coworkers, and others who are already
members.4The odyssey of Harry Sarfo, a German national of African descent who served
in both ISIS’s elite special operations unit, the Quwat Khas, and in its external operations
force, the Amniyat al-Kharji (also known as “Emni” or “Amni”— the respective Turkish
and Arabic rendering of the word, “Amniyat,” or security service), illustrates this. He
recounts that the mosque he worshiped at in Bremen alone had already sent some twenty
persons to Syria to fight with ISIS. Hence, preexisting social ties appear to be as
significant as ideological affinity and commitment to the cause in the path to terrorism.
In addition to these “friends and family” social network pathways, there is often
also a group dynamic behind recruitment. In other words, a cluster of individuals
previously connected in some manner— whether by a sports club, a social organization,
their school, or a religious worship group— decide collectively to join a terrorist
movement. Marc Sageman, for instance, points to the eight postgraduate students who
were friends and attended the same Hamburg mosque, and all decided to join al-Qaeda.
They then made good on that commitment by traveling in two separate parties to
Afghanistan for this purpose. The4same4process has4been noted4in connection with AQI’s
recruitment of foreign volunteers for the insurgency in Iraq. Paz discovered that “[m]any
of the Arabs killed in Iraq, especially the Saudis, went to Iraq in groups, consisting
mainly of friends.” According to Hafez, preexisting networks of Saudi youths, including
the members of an entire soccer team, were recruited. Ami Pedahzur points to a similar
phenomenon in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, where seven Palestinian players from the
same Hebron soccer team became suicide bombers.4This4is by no means a new
development, however. In The4I.R.A.4and Its Enemies, Peter Hart notes how in County
Cork during the late 1910s and early 1920s, soccer and Gaelic hurling teams were an
important source of recruits for the4IRA. “It was a small leap from playing4together4to
marching or drilling together.”4Finally, the violence inflicted on Muslims around the
world, and on Muslim women and children especially, have been cited by many
homegrown terrorists both in the United States and other countries as a salient motivating
factor in their politicization and radicalization, and may explain why the4U.S.- led
invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan was cited by Dzhokhar Tsarnaev as the main reasons
behind his and his brother’s bombing of the 2013 Boston Marathon.
The4multiplicity4of factors that nowadays swiftly impel someone along the path of
radicalization to terrorism also doubtless accounts for the tens of thousands of foreign
fighters who4in4recent4years4have answered either al-Qaeda’s or ISIS’s clarion calls to
battle in countries as diverse as Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia,
Libya, and Mali. This concerted flow of fighters to these many conflicts has also raised
new concerns that the survivors will return to their native or adopted homelands to carry
out terrorist attacks. The experience of the Afghan Arabs following the end of the
U.S.S.R.’s occupation of Afghanistan in 19894is often invoked4to justify this grim
potentiality. Rather than laying down their arms and quietly resuming their ordinary lives
back home, these foreign veterans of the holy war waged against the Red
Army4simply4continued fighting elsewhere, establishing the foundation of the al-Qaeda
movement and setting in motion the concatenation of circumstances that eventually
produced the September411, 2001, attacks. Whether in the Balkans or the Caucasus, on
Mindanao or in Kashmir, in Algeria and Saudi Arabia, as well as Egypt and Yemen, these
“wandering mujahidin,” as an especially prescient 1993 U.S. intelligence analysis termed
them, infused local terrorist groups such as Egypt’s Gama’at Islamiya and Islamic Jihad,
Algeria’s Armed Islamic Group (GIA), and al- Qaeda, with their newly acquired martial
capabilities and enthusiasm for jihad.
The number of foreign recruits fighting under ISIS’s aegis, Comey continued,
already exceeds by more than ten the flow of foreign fighters to Iraq at even the height of
the war there a decade ago. According to a report issued by the U.S. House of
Representatives Homeland Security Committee in September42015, three times as many
volunteers had already arrived in Syria and Iraq that year compared with 2014. Among
them was Omar Abdul Azis of Indonesia— the son of Imam Samudra, one of the al-
Qaeda– affiliated terrorists convicted of the 2002 Bali bombings— who died that autumn
fighting for ISIS. Moreover, by February42016, the number of foreign fighters estimated
by the U.S. government to have traveled either to Syria or Iraq had jumped from 25,000
to 36,500. And in July42016, that number had climbed to 43,000. They hail from 120
countries, compared with the 80 countries cited less than a year previously by the
Homeland Security Committee’s report. Among them are some 7,400 citizens or
residents of Europe, North America, and Australia, including more than 250 Americans.
As the U.S. Director of National Intelligence (DNI), General (retired) James4R. Clapper,
explained in his annual worldwide threat assessment presented before the U.S. Senate
Armed Services Committee in February42016, “Foreign fighters who have trained in Iraq
and Syria might potentially leverage skills and experience to plan and execute attacks in
the West. Involvement of returned foreign fighters in terrorist plotting increases the
effectiveness and lethality of terrorist attacks.” Clapper cited the November42015 attacks
in Paris, which included European citizens or residents who had returned from Syria with
the skills and4wherewithal4to mount simultaneous assaults that claimed the lives of 137
persons and wounded more than a hundred others. That this has become standard
operating procedure for ISIS’s external operations arm, the Amniyat al-Kharji, was
revealed by the4aforementioned defector, Harry Sarfo. “Many of them [ISIS foreign
fighters and recruits] have returned [to Europe],” he confirmed. “Hundreds4definitely.”
U.S. intelligence and defense officials agree. According to the New York Times, they
believe that ISIS has already sent “hundreds of operatives” into the European Union, and
“hundreds more” have been dispatched to Turkey. If accurate, this investment of
operational personnel ensures that ISIS will retain an effective international terrorist
strike capability in Europe irrespective of its battlefield reverses in Syria and Iraq.
Indeed, ISIS’s leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, has already instructed potential foreign
fighters who are unable to travel to the Caliphate to instead emigrate to other vilayets
(Arabic for “provinces,” or in this context, branches or affiliates)— where Islamic State
branches4are located.4This4suggests that these other branches could develop their own
external operations capabilities in4de pendent4of the parent organization and present
significant future threat(s)— much as al-Qaeda’s franchises have over the past decade in
Yemen, North Africa, and South Asia, among other places.
As the 2015 Paris attacks demonstrated, this unprecedented pool of foreign
recruits has given ISIS the capability to undertake Mumbai-style attacks, modeled on the
previously mentioned simultaneous assaults and running gun battles that occurred in that
Indian city in November42008. Less complex operations— such as the 2016 Brussels
Airport bombing and the assault mounted by the Somali jihadi terrorist group,
al-4Shabaab,4in September42013 that targeted Nairobi’s Westgate Shopping Center— are
arguably well within the capacity of ISIS’s external operations group to undertake. Any
notion that the potentiality to export these types of attacks to the United States by either
ISIS or al-Qaeda was put to rest by the American journalist Theo Padnos (Peter Theo
Curtis), who spent two years in Syria as a hostage of al-Qaeda's local affiliate, which4was
then called Jabhat al- Nusra4but was also known as the Nusra Front. Padnos relates how
“The Nusra Front higher-ups were inviting Westerners to the jihad in Syria not so much
because they needed more foot soldiers— they didn’t— but because they want to teach
the Westerners to take the struggle into every neighborhood and subway back home.”
Fifty- four4years ago, Jean-Paul Sartre warned of the “boomerang” effect in his
preface to Frantz Fanon’s classic treatise on revolutionary warfare, The Wretched of the
Earth. “It is the moment of the boomerang,” he wrote, a new phase “of violence; it comes
back on us, it strikes us, and we do not realize any more than we did the other times that
it’s we that have launched it.” More than half a century later, we4are again confronted4by
the “boomerang”— this time from a hard-core of battle- hardened terrorists drawn from
the thousands of foreign fighters trained and commanded by both ISIS and al-Qaeda,
who, according to both ISIS defector Harry Sarfo and the unnamed American senior
intelligence and defense officials quoted in the same New York Times article, are
supposedly awaiting orders to execute a variety of preplanned attacks in Europe as well
as the United States.
B. Al- Qaeda’s Enduring Threat
Meanwhile, for more than a decade, our unalloyed triumph over al-Qaeda, and by
extension, the Salafi- Jihadi terrorist movement, has been repeatedly heralded. “Al-
Qa’ida’s Top Primed to Collapse,4US4Says,” trumpeted a Washington Post headline two
weeks after Khalid Sheikh Mohammed4was arrested4in March42003. “I believe the tide
has turned in terms of al-Qa’ida,” Congressman Porter4J. Goss, then chairman of
the4U.S.4House of Representatives Intelligence Committee and himself a former CIA case
officer who became its director a year later, was quoted in that same article. “We’ve got
them nailed,” an unidentified American intelligence expert also boasted that
same4month,4before more expansively declaring, “ We’re close to dismantling
them.”4Identically upbeat assessments were voiced4following the nearly bloodless capture
of Baghdad a month later and the failure of al Qaeda to make good on threats of renewed
attacks in retaliation for the U.S.-led invasion. Citing Bush administration sources, an
article in the Washington Times on April424, 2003, for instance, reported the prevailing
view in official Washington that al-Qaeda’s “failure to carry out a successful strike
during the4U.S.- led military campaign to topple Saddam Hussein has raised questions
about their ability to carry out major new attacks.”Then, in rapid succession came the
March4 2004 commuter train bombings in Madrid; the suicide attacks against London
transportation targets the following year; and, among the most serious of the various post-
9/11 al- Qaeda Central– commanded plots, the planned in-flight suicide bombings of
seven American and Canadian passenger aircraft departing from London in August42006.
Not two years later, though, similar assertions of al Qaeda Central’s demise were
being voiced. Juan Zarate, the Bush administration’s deputy national security advisor for
combating terrorism and one of the most perceptive and knowledgeable observers of the
entire al-Qaeda phenomenon, offered an unusually nuanced and balanced assessment of
the movement and the core leadership in a speech presented in April42008. Carefully
calibrating recent progress in the war on terrorism against remaining challenges, Zarate
nonetheless drew attention to a “number of important developments that signal that al
Qaeda and the movement it represents are under greater stress and finding more
opposition to its program, in par tic u lar by Muslims affected directly by al Qaeda’s
tactics.” Zarate’s remarks were amplified two weeks later by an anonymous senior
American counterterrorism official quoted in an interview with London’s Daily
Telegraph: “[T]he end of the global threat al Qaeda poses,” he stated, “is now as visible
as it is foreseeable.” Then there was the statement by Ryan Crocker, the
then4U.S.4ambassador to Iraq, who told reporters on a visit to the Shi’a holy cities of
Najaf and Karbala in May42008, “You are not going to hear me say that al Qaeda is
defeated, but they’ve never been closer to defeat than they are now.” And finally, under a
front-page headline in the Washington Post, “US4Cites Big Gains Against al Qaeda,” then
CIA4director Michael Hayden ticked off a list of indicators that, he argued, portended al-
Qaeda’s imminent demise: “Near strategic defeat of al Qaeda in Iraq.4Near strategic
defeat for al Qaeda in Saudi Arabia.
At the time, these views fit neatly with the prevailing consensus among
government officials, academicians, and pundits alike that al-Qaeda had ceased to exist as
an organizational entity and had become nothing more than a hollow shell—an ideology
without an organization to advance it— and a leaderless entity of disparate individuals
unconnected to any central authority. Bin Laden was said
to4be4completely4estranged4from the movement he created, isolated from his fighters,
sympathizers, and supporters, and unable to exercise any meaningful role in the
movement’s operations and future trajectory. Terrorism, it4was argued, had therefore
become primarily “bottom-up” and not “top-down”—to the extent that terrorist
organizations themselves and the command and control functions that they had
traditionally exercised were said to no4longer4matter. Instead, it4was argued, the threat
now came from self-radicalized, self- selected “lone wolves” and “bunches of guys,” and
not from actual, existing identifiable terrorist organizations. Then the plot to stage
simultaneous suicide attacks on the New York City subway4system,4to coincide with the
eighth anniversary of the September411, 2001,4attacks,4came to light the following year.
The ringleader, an Afghan-born green card holder who lived in4Queens,4named
Najibullah Zazi, testified that both he and two fellow conspirators had4been trained4at an
al Qaeda camp in Pakistan.
Three senior Core al- Qaeda commanders— the late Rashid Rauf and Saleh al-
Somali, who were respectively killed in U.S. drone strikes in 2008 and 2009, together
with Adnan al-Shukrijumah, who is still at large— had overseen and directed the plot,
which4was also linked4to two other ambitious sets of attacks planned for April42009 in
Manchester, England, and July42010 in Scandinavia. May42010 brought additional
refutation of the “bottom-up” argument when a naturalized U.S. citizen of Pakistani birth
named Faisal Shahzad nearly succeeded in staging a massive car bombing in the heart of
New York City’s Times Square. Shahzad had4been recruited4by a close core al-Qaeda
ally, the Tehrik- e- Taliban (TTP, or Pakistani Taliban), which had also trained him in
bomb-making at a camp in North Waziristan before sending him back to the United
States on this mission. In sum, despite repeated claims about the irrelevance or
impending demise of al-Qaeda, virtually every major terrorist attack or plot against either
the United States or Europe— and especially in Britain— during the period between
2002 and 2009 either directly emanated from al-Qaeda or was undertaken by affiliated
terrorist groups acting on its behalf.
From bin Laden documents reportedly leaked to the British press, we also know
that as far back as 2003, he had taken an interest in expanding al Qaeda’s operations to
West Africa, and in fact was in direct contact with leaders of Nigeria’s Boko Haram. We
also know that both he and his successor and cofounder of al Qaeda, Ayman al-Zawahiri,
maintained close relations with both the Afghan and Pakistani Taliban. Both men
reportedly regularly conferred with the late Taliban commander Mullah Omar and
discussed the opportunities that the eventual U.S. and International Assistance Force’s
(ISAF) withdrawal from Afghanistan would present to their respective organizations.
Indeed, that al-Qaeda has already taken advantage of these opportunities is evident in the
October42015 discovery of a vast al-Qaeda munitions storage complex carved into a
hillside in the Shorabak District near Kandahar, where the group was stockpiling
weapons and husbanding its resources in preparation for a revived terrorist campaign.
Only the most inveterate4optimist4would believe that the Shorabak facility was the only
one of its kind that al-Qaeda has built along the remote border area straddling the Durand
Line. Perhaps the most remarkable bin Laden communication, however, is one dated
August427, 2010. In it, the al-Qaeda leader expresses his concerns for the safety of his
fighters and followers in Pakistan— not because they might be arrested or detained by the
authorities, but because of the torrential rains and flooding then afflicting that country.
Bin Laden, accordingly, was more fearful that his men might be affected by the weather
than by any effort of the Pakistani government to apprehend them. This assertion alone
speaks volumes about how amenable he and his minions found their refuge in Pakistan—
a comfort level that is unlikely to have changed in the years since bin Laden was killed.
Although it may be tempting to dismiss bin Laden’s grand plans and ambitious
strategy, as former National Security Council official Mary Habeck has cogently argued:
“No al Qaeda affiliate or partner (including the Taliban, al Qaeda in Iraq, or the Shabaab)
has been deposed from power by an uprising of the local population alone. They have
needed outside intervention in order to expel the insurgents, even when the people have
hated al Qaeda’s often brutal rule.” Two salient conclusions thus emerge from this period
of time following bin Laden’s killing. First, one could draw tentative4conclusions4that
have since4been validated4and which were at odds with the conventional wisdom, or at
least the manner in which many analyses precipitously embraced al Qaeda’s
defeat.4Second, given that this contrarian view has been proven correct, the inescapable
conclusion is that4today4al Qaeda’s demise is neither ordained nor imminent.
Moreover, much like bin Laden’s killing, at the time the Arab Spring was widely
believed to have provided the final nail in al- Qaeda’s coffin. However, while the mostly
nonviolent, mass protests of the Arab Spring were successful in overturning hated
despots and thus appeared to discredit al-Qaeda’s long- standing message that only
violence and jihad could achieve the same ends, in the years since these dramatic
developments commenced, evidence has repeatedly come to light of al- Qaeda’s ability to
take advantage of the instability and upheaval in these same countries to reassert its
relevance and revive its waning fortunes. Nowhere is this more patently clear than in
Syria, Libya, and Yemen. Tunisia alone appears to be the only country to have truly
realized the promise of democratic reforms raised by the Arab Spring— even while it
ironically provides more foreign fighters to the conflicts in Syria, Iraq, and Libya than
any other Middle Eastern or North African country. On the periphery of those countries
most directly affected by the Arab Spring, the continued antipathy in Pakistan toward the
United States, coupled with the increasing activity of militant groups there— most of
whom are already closely affiliated with al- Qaeda— has already largely undermined the
progress achieved in recent years against terrorism in South Asia. Indeed, al- Zawahiri’s
stunning announcement in September42014 of the creation of a new al- Qaeda franchise
— this time in the Indian subcontinent (AQIS)—is further proof of both the movement’s
revitalization and its interest in cultivating new opportunities for expansion.
Taking advantage of the resurgence of Hindu nationalism in a country with the
world's second-largest Muslim population, recruits from India, alongside individuals
from Pakistan, Bangladesh, the Maldives, and Burma, are reshaping the demographic
profile of al-Qaeda, transitioning it from its once predominantly Arabian and Middle
Eastern composition to one that is distinctly South Asian. This shift in al-Qaeda's
demographic makeup reflects a broader trend of regionalization and diversification within
jihadist movements, as groups seek to adapt to local dynamics and capitalize on existing
grievances and fault lines. In the case of South Asia, the rise of Hindu nationalism and
the marginalization of Muslim communities have created fertile ground for extremist
ideologies to take root and flourish.
The recruitment of individuals from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, the Maldives,
and Burma into al-Qaeda's ranks underscores the organization's strategic imperative to
expand its reach and influence beyond its traditional strongholds in the Arab world. By
tapping into local grievances and exploiting sectarian tensions, al-Qaeda seeks to broaden
its support base and operational capabilities in South Asia, a region that is increasingly
seen as a battleground for jihadist groups seeking to challenge the existing order and
assert their vision of Islamic governance. Moreover, the involvement of recruits from
diverse backgrounds and nationalities reflects the global nature of contemporary jihadist
movements, which transcend traditional boundaries and affiliations. In the interconnected
world of today, individuals are drawn to extremist ideologies not only based on religious
or ideological motivations but also due to factors such as social marginalization,
economic disenfranchisement, and geopolitical grievances.
The remaking of al-Qaeda into a distinctly South Asian entity poses significant
challenges for regional security and stability, as governments grapple with the threat
posed by homegrown extremism and transnational jihadist networks. It underscores the
need for comprehensive and coordinated efforts to address the root causes of
radicalization, strengthen border security, and enhance intelligence-sharing and
cooperation among regional actors. Furthermore, it highlights the importance of
countering extremist narratives and promoting inclusive and tolerant societies that respect
diversity and uphold the rule of law. By addressing the underlying grievances and
vulnerabilities that fuel extremism, governments can mitigate the appeal of jihadist
ideologies and prevent the spread of violence and instability in South Asia and beyond.
Accordingly, the instability and disorder generated by the Arab Spring created
new opportunities for al-Qaeda and its allies in the region to regroup and reorganize,
which also led directly to the rise of ISIS. Indeed, the number of failed or failing states or
ungoverned spaces now variously found in the Sahel, in the Sinai, in parts of Syria, Iraq,
Libya, and elsewhere, has in fact increased in the aftermath of the changes that swept
across North Africa and the Middle East in 2011. In no place is this clearer or more
consequential than in Syria. The priority that Core al- Qaeda has attached to Syria may be
seen in the special messages conveyed in February and June42012, respectively, by al-
Zawahiri and the late Abu Yahya al-Libi in support of the uprising against the regime of
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and calling on Muslims in Turkey, Iraq, Jordan, and
Lebanon to do everything within their power to assist in the overthrow of Syria’s hated
minority Alawite rulers. The leading thread in the top three sites in the most relevant and
important password-protected/access-controlled jihadi websites at the time— al-
Shumukh al- Islam, al- Fida’, and Ansar al- Mujahideen— was Syria. Typical of these
was the February414, 2012, message posted on al-Fida that described Syria as presenting
an ideal opportunity for those mujahideen who lament having missed the Afghan and
Iraqi jihads. “Since the launch of the Syrian revolution and since the barbaric Nusayri
[Alawite] regime began killing our people there,” it stated: “[T]he mujahideen and praise
and gratitude belong to Allah, took the initiative to help those weak ones in the East and
West of the earth. We ask Allah to grant them success in liberating the Muslims in Syria
from the disbelieving regime. There must be weapons to stop the harm of these
aggressors. The Ummah will not get out of humiliation and weakness except through
Jihad.”
Al-Qaeda’s intense interest in Syria is neither recent nor ephemeral. As Ed Husain
has argued, “The territory in the Middle East that al Qaeda covets most is of course Saudi
Arabia, but Syria is next on the list.” Indeed, Syria is not known by the name Syria to al-
Qaeda and its minions but rather as al Bilaad al- Shaam— “The Land of the Levantine
People”— treasured Muslim territory that was once administered by the Ottoman Empire
as a single, unitary entity encompassing present-day Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and
Israel/Palestine. Bin Laden often referred to the events following World War I that
resulted in the dismemberment of Turkey’s empire and the end of both Islamic rule of
Muslims and the demise of the caliphate. His famous statement on October47, 2001, in
response to the commencement of U.S. military operations to liberate Afghanistan
referred specifically to the 1920 Treaty of Sèvres, which detached these Arab provinces
from Muslim rule.
In one of his significant addresses prior to the American-led invasion of Iraq in
2003, Osama bin Laden referenced the 1916 Sykes-Picot Agreement, a clandestine
accord between France and Britain that delineated spheres of influence in the Levant and
surrounding regions. Bin Laden's invocation of the Sykes-Picot Agreement underscored
the deep-rooted grievances and historical resentments that jihadist movements like al-
Qaeda harbored towards Western colonial powers. The agreement, which carved up the
territories of the Ottoman Empire in the aftermath of World War I, epitomized the
imposition of foreign domination and the arbitrary division of lands inhabited by diverse
ethnic and religious communities.
For bin Laden and other jihadist leaders, the Sykes-Picot Agreement served as a
potent symbol of Western imperialism and betrayal, fueling a narrative of resistance and
struggle against perceived foreign occupation and interference. By invoking this
historical episode, bin Laden sought to mobilize support for his jihadist agenda, framing
the struggle as a continuation of the anti-colonial struggle against Western hegemony in
the Muslim world. Moreover, bin Laden's reference to the Sykes-Picot Agreement
highlighted the enduring relevance of historical grievances in shaping contemporary
conflicts and jihadist narratives. By evoking events from the past, bin Laden sought to
contextualize the struggle against the United States and its allies within a broader
historical framework, appealing to notions of national pride, dignity, and resistance.
In doing so, bin Laden sought to galvanize support from Muslims worldwide,
portraying al-Qaeda's campaign against Western powers as a righteous struggle to
reclaim sovereignty, dignity, and self-determination. The Sykes-Picot Agreement thus
became a potent symbol and rallying cry for jihadist movements, serving to mobilize
support and justify acts of violence against perceived enemies of Islam. Overall, bin
Laden's reference to the Sykes-Picot Agreement in his pre-invasion addresses
underscored the deep-seated historical grievances and ideological motivations that
underpinned al-Qaeda's campaign against Western powers. By framing the conflict
within a historical narrative of resistance against colonialism and imperialism, bin Laden
sought to garner support and legitimacy for his jihadist cause among Muslims worldwide.
Under the Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1916, France and Britain divided the
territories of the Ottoman Empire in the Middle East into spheres of influence. France
was allocated control over Syria and Lebanon, while Britain was assigned Palestine,
Jordan, and Iraq. This division of territories laid the foundation for the modern
geopolitical landscape of the Middle East and had far-reaching implications for the
region's future. The arbitrary borders drawn by European colonial powers disregarded
ethnic, religious, and tribal divisions, sowing the seeds of future conflicts and instability.
Syria, in particular, has been a focal point of jihadist groups like al-Qaeda due to its
strategic location, historical significance, and perceived grievances against Western
intervention and influence. The country's complex sectarian and political dynamics,
exacerbated by decades of authoritarian rule and external meddling, have made it a fertile
ground for extremist ideologies to take root.
For groups like al-Qaeda, Syria represents both a symbolic and strategic
battleground in their broader jihadist agenda. The country's status as a former French
mandate and its strategic location at the crossroads of the Middle East make it a highly
desirable target for extremist groups seeking to challenge Western dominance and
influence in the region. Moreover, the ongoing conflict in Syria, which erupted during the
Arab Spring protests in 2011, has provided jihadist groups with a unique opportunity to
exploit the chaos and instability for their own ends. Al-Qaeda and its affiliates have
capitalized on the power vacuum created by the civil war to establish a foothold in the
country, attract foreign fighters, and expand their influence. In this context, Syria has
indeed been a recurring fixation for al-Qaeda and other jihadist groups, driven by both
historical grievances and strategic imperatives. The country's tumultuous history,
strategic importance, and ongoing conflict have made it a central theater in the broader
struggle for supremacy between extremist ideologies and the forces of moderation and
stability.
According to Husain, the country in question exhibits even more of the
characteristics that made Afghanistan a perfect storm for jihad three decades ago. These
include widespread support among Arab nations, financial backing from affluent Gulf
patrons, a compelling cause that attracts foreign volunteers, and a contiguous border that
facilitates the movement of fighters in and out of the conflict zone. This assessment
underscores the potent combination of factors that can contribute to the emergence and
proliferation of jihadist movements within a particular country or region. Widespread
support among Arab nations provides a fertile recruiting ground and a sense of legitimacy
for extremist ideologies, while financial assistance from wealthy Gulf supporters
provides the resources necessary to sustain and expand militant activities. Furthermore,
the existence of a popular cause, whether it be rooted in perceived grievances, sectarian
tensions, or geopolitical ambitions, serves as a rallying cry for foreign volunteers drawn
to the allure of jihad. This cause can range from resisting foreign occupation to defending
Sunni Muslim communities against perceived threats or injustices. Additionally, a
contiguous border with neighboring countries facilitates the movement of fighters,
weapons, and supplies, enabling jihadist groups to operate with relative ease and
impunity across porous borders. This unrestricted movement allows for the influx of
foreign fighters seeking to join the conflict, as well as the export of violence and
instability to neighboring regions.
In combination, these factors create an environment conducive to the growth and
proliferation of jihadist movements, reminiscent of the conditions that fueled the Afghan
jihad against Soviet occupation in the 1980s. The parallels drawn by Husain highlight the
enduring appeal of jihad as a concept and the cyclical nature of conflict in regions where
these factors converge. Understanding and addressing these underlying dynamics is
essential for policymakers and security officials seeking to counter the spread of jihadist
extremism and mitigate its impact on regional stability and security. By addressing root
causes, disrupting financial networks, and strengthening border security, governments
can work to prevent the emergence and expansion of jihadist movements before they gain
momentum and pose a broader threat to international security.
C. The al- Qaeda Movement Today and Tomorrow
Bin Laden would arguably be a happy man were he still alive. In a long-forgotten
1998 interview with a Pakistani newspaper, the al-Qaeda leader declared: “I am not afraid
of death. Rather, martyrdom is my passion because martyrdom would lead to the birth of
1,000s of Osamas.” With the tens of thousands of foreign recruits from over a hundred
countries now fighting for al-Qaeda and ISIS and their respective franchises and branches
in Syria, Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, and Mali, bin Laden’s
death wish has arguably been achieved. Moreover, unlike on September411, 2001, the
threats these fighters pose are now internal as well as external. No longer it is a matter of
having to infiltrate attack teams into targeted countries.
The emergence of homegrown violent extremism, fueled by the pervasive reach
and influence of contemporary social media platforms, has fundamentally transformed
the landscape of national security in unprecedented ways. This convergence of factors
represents a paradigm shift in how governments and security agencies perceive, assess,
and respond to threats posed by individuals radicalized within their own societies. Unlike
traditional forms of terrorism, which often originated from external actors or
organizations, homegrown violent extremism involves individuals who are radicalized
and mobilized to commit acts of violence within their own countries, often without direct
contact or coordination with established terrorist groups. This decentralized and diffuse
nature of the threat presents unique challenges for law enforcement and intelligence
agencies, requiring a reevaluation of traditional counterterrorism strategies and tactics. At
the heart of this transformation is the role played by contemporary social media platforms
in facilitating the radicalization and recruitment of individuals into violent extremist
ideologies. These platforms provide a virtual breeding ground where extremist
propaganda, ideologies, and narratives can be disseminated and amplified with
unprecedented speed and reach. Through targeted messaging, online forums, and social
networks, extremist recruiters can exploit vulnerabilities, grievances, and vulnerabilities
of individuals, luring them into the fold of violent extremism. Moreover, social media
platforms enable individuals to self-radicalize in isolation, without the need for physical
contact or direct communication with extremist networks. This phenomenon, often
referred to as "lone wolf" terrorism, poses significant challenges for traditional
intelligence-gathering and surveillance methods, as individuals can operate under the
radar and evade detection until they carry out their attacks.
In response to this evolving threat landscape, governments and security agencies
have been forced to adapt and innovate their approaches to national security. This
includes enhancing monitoring and surveillance of online activities, strengthening
partnerships with social media companies to identify and remove extremist content, and
investing in community engagement and prevention programs to address the root causes
of radicalization. Furthermore, efforts to counter homegrown violent extremism require a
multidimensional approach that addresses not only the symptoms but also the underlying
factors driving individuals towards violent extremism. This may involve initiatives aimed
at promoting social cohesion, fostering resilience, and empowering communities to resist
extremist influences and ideologies. In conclusion, the convergence of homegrown
violent extremism and contemporary social media represents a profound shift in the
national security landscape, posing complex challenges that require innovative and
multifaceted responses. By understanding the dynamics of radicalization and leveraging
the power of technology and community engagement, societies can mitigate the threat
posed by violent extremism and safeguard their collective security and well-being.
But perhaps bin Laden would have been most satisfied with the opportunity
created by the Syrian civil war to rebrand al-Qaeda and thus endow it with an image of
comparative moderation—in contrast to the unrestrained ISIS. Among the documents
seized by U.S. Navy SEALS in bin Laden’s Abbottabad villa was one from 2011 in
which a supplicant expressed his concern that the al-Qaeda brand would more accurately
reflect its ideological pretensions and self-appointed role as defender of Muslims
everywhere. This calculated assessment of al Qaeda’s public relations shortcomings is
thus very different from the desperate hand- wringing described by news accounts when
the documents were released in 2012.ad outlived its usefulness, complaining to bin Laden
that the group’s name had become universally associated with violence—to the extent
that its core ideological and political goals were being completely ignored.
The familiarity implied in the letter suggests that its author was addressing an
issue that Osama bin Laden himself had deemed significant. This notion speaks volumes
about the hierarchical structure and internal dynamics within al-Qaeda, where directives
and concerns voiced by its leader carry considerable weight and influence. The fact that
the author of the letter presumed such familiarity with bin Laden indicates a level of
proximity or access to the upper echelons of the organization. It suggests that the author
was likely a trusted member of bin Laden's inner circle or someone who held a position
of authority within al-Qaeda's hierarchy. Moreover, the content of the letter itself, and the
issue being raised, likely pertained to matters of strategic importance or ideological
significance to bin Laden and the broader leadership of al-Qaeda. It may have addressed
operational planning, ideological guidance, or broader strategic objectives in the context
of the global jihadist movement.
In this context, the familiarity implied in the letter serves as a testament to the
centralized nature of al-Qaeda's decision-making processes and the degree of deference
and respect accorded to bin Laden as its leader. Even in his absence, bin Laden's
influence and legacy continue to shape the actions and priorities of the organization, as
evidenced by the careful consideration given to issues he deemed important. Overall, the
familiarity implied in the letter offers a glimpse into the internal dynamics and leadership
structure of al-Qaeda, highlighting the significance of bin Laden's role as a guiding figure
and the enduring impact of his directives on the organization's activities and priorities.
The writer's suggestion of potential new names for the movement, aimed at more
accurately reflecting its ideological aspirations and self-proclaimed role as the defender
of Muslims worldwide, underscores a calculated assessment of al-Qaeda's public
relations strategy. This approach stands in stark contrast to the initial reactions of news
accounts when the documents were first released in 2012, which often portrayed the
revelations as a cause for desperate hand-wringing. By proposing alternative names that
align more closely with al-Qaeda's ideological objectives and perceived mission, the
writer suggests a strategic rebranding effort that seeks to reshape the organization's public
image and messaging. This approach acknowledges the importance of perception and
messaging in shaping public opinion and garnering support, both domestically and
internationally. Furthermore, the writer's analysis reflects a deeper understanding of the
challenges facing al-Qaeda in the realm of public relations and strategic communication.
Rather than viewing the release of documents detailing the organization's internal
deliberations as a setback, the writer sees an opportunity to reassess and refine al-Qaeda's
messaging and branding in light of evolving geopolitical dynamics and ideological
imperatives.
In essence, the writer's perspective highlights the strategic sophistication of al-
Qaeda's leadership, who recognize the importance of narrative and perception in the
broader struggle for hearts and minds. By engaging in a calculated assessment of its
public relations shortcomings and proposing concrete steps to address them, al-Qaeda
demonstrates a willingness to adapt and evolve in response to changing circumstances
and challenges. Ultimately, the writer's analysis underscores the complex interplay
between ideology, propaganda, and strategic communication in the context of modern
terrorism. It serves as a reminder that even organizations committed to violent extremism
are not immune to the imperatives of public relations and strategic messaging, and that
their effectiveness depends, in part, on their ability to shape and control the narrative
surrounding their actions and objectives.
Accordingly, bin Laden would have been very pleased that until recently al-
Qaeda’s Syrian wing was widely known as Jabhat al-Nusra— the very anodyne-sounding
“Support Front.” Rarely is it ever referred to as al Qaeda’s Syrian arm, or, it often seems,
directly associated with its justly maligned parent organization. The group has now, in
fact, further distanced itself from al-Qaeda with the July42016 announcement of its
severing of “external ties”—as distinct from a complete break— with al Qaeda and its
rebranding as Jabhat Fateh al-Sham. This is actually a long-standing al- Qaeda gambit to
portray its satraps as more in de pen dent than they are and thereby avoid the pejorative
implications that a more blatant relationship raises. Al- Qaeda has repeatedly, and
successfully, used this ploy numerous times in the past to mask its continued close
relations with groups such as Arar al-Sham, the Afghan Taliban, al-Shabaab, Ansar al-
Din, and the variety of Ansar al-Shariah entities that surfaced following the Arab Spring.
Despite being designated as a terrorist organization by various countries and
international bodies, Jabhat al-Nusra, also known as Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), has
managed to carve out a significant presence in the complex landscape of the Syrian
conflict. With its origins rooted in the early days of the Syrian civil war, Jabhat al-Nusra
has emerged as one of the most formidable and influential jihadist groups operating in the
region. What sets Jabhat al-Nusra apart from its counterparts, including ISIS, is its
strategic pragmatism and nuanced approach to governance and conflict. While sharing
ideological similarities with other jihadist groups, Jabhat al-Nusra has demonstrated a
willingness to cooperate with various rebel factions and local communities, positioning
itself as a more moderate and pragmatic alternative to the more brutal and
uncompromising tactics employed by ISIS. This perceived moderation, coupled with its
military prowess and ability to deliver basic services in areas under its control, has earned
Jabhat al-Nusra a degree of tacit support and even partnership from certain regional
actors. Some governments and rebel factions, disillusioned with the failures of
mainstream opposition groups and wary of ISIS's extreme ideology, have viewed Jabhat
al-Nusra as a pragmatic ally in the fight against the Assad regime.
However, the fact that Jabhat al-Nusra remains affiliated with al-Qaeda has not
gone unnoticed, and its designation as a terrorist organization by key international players
complicates efforts to openly support or engage with the group. Despite this, the group's
strategic significance and battlefield capabilities have led some actors to turn a blind eye
to its affiliations, viewing it as a necessary ally in the broader struggle for control and
influence in Syria. The regional calculus surrounding Jabhat al-Nusra is further
complicated by the fluid and dynamic nature of the Syrian conflict, which has seen
shifting alliances and allegiances among rebel factions, external backers, and regional
powers. As such, the fact that Jabhat al-Nusra is perceived as more dangerous and
capable than ISIS by some actors may be immaterial in the face of broader geopolitical
considerations and strategic imperatives.
In navigating the complexities of the Syrian conflict, it is essential for
policymakers and stakeholders to critically assess the motivations and actions of groups
like Jabhat al-Nusra, recognizing the nuanced dynamics at play and the potential
implications for regional stability and security. By understanding the complex interplay
of factors driving support for and engagement with such groups, efforts to address the
root causes of extremism and violence in the region can be more effectively formulated
and implemented.
It is disturbing to map the accuracy of this strategic trajectory dating from 2000 to
the present and to understand why al-Baghdadi was so desperate to declare the caliphate
to stay on schedule in June42014, and thus attempt to enhance his own reputation and
buttress his credentials by implementing al- Qaeda’s strategy— and not least by stealing
its thunder. Indeed, the apocalyptic elements of the seventh and final stage are clearly
evident in both al-Qaeda’s and ISIS’s ideology and strategy. Their mutually apocalyptic
visions ineluctably entail an eventual epic clash between Islam and the infidels
prophesized to occur at Dabiq, Syria— which is the name that ISIS chose for its online
magazine.
At the heart of al-Qaeda and ISIS's ideologies lies a fervent belief in the defense
of the Sunni umma, or global Muslim community, against what they perceive as a
multitude of existential threats. These threats, as articulated by both groups, include
perceived aggression and oppression by apostate Iraqi and Lebanese Shi’a factions, the
influence of Iran in the region, as well as Western intervention led by the United States
and its allies. This perception of being under siege fuels a sense of urgency and solidarity
among adherents, compelling them to take up arms in defense of their faith and
community. Crucially, both al-Qaeda and ISIS frame their struggle within a broader
narrative of cosmic significance, viewing their actions as part of a divine mandate to
confront and ultimately triumph over their adversaries. This narrative is deeply rooted in
religious prophecy, with both groups invoking apocalyptic visions of a final showdown
between the forces of Islam and the perceived enemies of the faith. This prophesized
clash, they argue, is not only inevitable but also ordained by a higher power, imbuing
their struggle with a sense of righteousness and inevitability. The global ambitions of al-
Qaeda and ISIS are thus deeply intertwined with their ideological worldview and
strategic objectives. Far from being confined to the Levant and Iraq, both organizations
view themselves as vanguards of a global Islamist movement, with aspirations to expand
their influence and operations far beyond their current strongholds. This ambition is
underscored by their transnational networks, which span across continents and facilitate
recruitment, fundraising, and coordination of terrorist activities on a global scale.
Moreover, the rise of social media and digital communications has enabled al-
Qaeda and ISIS to propagate their message and recruit followers from around the world,
amplifying their reach and influence beyond traditional boundaries. The allure of their
extremist ideology, coupled with sophisticated propaganda tactics, has attracted
individuals from diverse backgrounds and regions to join their ranks, further fueling their
global ambitions. In light of these factors, it is clear that al-Qaeda and ISIS's aims
transcend regional boundaries and are inherently global in nature. Their adherence to a
divinely prophesized clash with their perceived enemies, combined with their expansive
networks and ideological appeal, ensures that their impact and influence extend far
beyond the confines of the Levant and Iraq. As such, the challenge posed by these
organizations demands a coordinated and comprehensive response from the international
community to effectively counter their global ambitions and safeguard global security
and stability.
