Al-Qaida: Condition and Prospect

In the tenth year of the “war of terror”, and almost fifteen years after a deadly bombing in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia  in June 1996 announced the external pagearrivalcall_made of a new Islamist armed nucleus in the middle east, what are the condition and prospects of the al-Qaida movement? Three developments in different parts of “greater west Asia” and beyond offer valuable evidence on which to make an assessment.

The first is in external pageYemencall_made, where a group that has long claimed external pageassociationcall_made with al-Qaida - the Aden-Abyan Islamic Army (AAIA) - now declares its intent to establish a substantial militia that aims to overthrow the government of external pageAli Abdullah Salehcall_made (see Associated Press, 12 October 2010). There may be an element of hubris in the assertion, but Yemen’s fraught circumstances - much of the external pagecountrycall_made is effectively out of the control of the central government, and there is deep poverty and insecurity - make it at least worthy of being noted (see Fred Halliday, "external pageYemen: travails of unitycall_made", 3 July 2009).

A number of major paramilitary assaults have already taken place in Yemen or its coastal waters - from the external pageattackcall_made on the USS Cole in Aden harbour in October 2000 which killed seventeen American sailors, to the firing on the Japanese super-tanker external pageM. Starcall_made in June 2010 (see "external pageAl-Qaida: the Yemen factorcall_made" [2 January 2010] and "external pageAl-Qaida's business jihadcall_made" [12 August 2010]). A rising curve of militancy has marked Yemen’s turbulent political evolution since 2007, and the ambition of the external pageAAIAcall_made is a further indicator that the al-Qaida “franchise” continues to extend itself to fresh outlets.

The second development is the external pagewarningcall_made issued by the United States on 4 October 2010 about the possibility of commando-attacks in western Europe (with France, Germany and Britain regarded as possible targets) which might follow the pattern of the Mumbai operation in November 2008 (see Saskia Sassen, "external pageCities and new wars: after Mumbaicall_made", 29 November 2009). The suggestion from Washington is that the originating source of this danger is western Pakistan, but for the security forces in France at least the current concerns are more external pagefocusedcall_made on north Africa, and especially Algeria (see Matthew Saltmarsh, “external pageFrance Faces Terror Threats At Home And Abroadcall_made”, New York Times, 11 October 2010). This follows the kidnapping of seven workers, including five French expatriates, at uranium-mines in northern Niger; in turn this is part of a pattern of spreading militancy across parts of the Sahel (see Stephen Ellis, "external pageThe Sahara's new cargo: drugs and radicalismcall_made", 14 April 2010).

The third development is a external pagedrone-strikecall_made in the North Waziristan region of north-west Pakistan that, according to a usually reliable source, had external pagetargetedcall_made other people but in the event killed Mohammad Usman, one of al-Qaida's most significant (if little-known) leaders (see Syed Saleem Shazad, "external pageAl-Qaeda takes a big hitcall_made", Asia Times, 9 October 2010). Most of the senior figures in al-Qaida have until recently come from Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Algeria and other points west, reflecting the ideological and military currents that gave birth to the movement. Usman, by contrast, belonged to a new and young generation of non-Arab al-Qaida leaders born in Pakistan which is attempting to forge links with radicalised Pakistanis.

The cost of success

Together, these three developments illustrate the diversification of the notably loose external pageentitycall_made referred to as “al-Qaida”. What it has been plausible to describe as the group’s heartland of western Pakistan and eastern Afghanistan has since 2008 been under even more intense pressure from multiple raids by pilotless US external pagedronescall_made operated largely by the CIA. 

The fact that these missions have regularly hit civilians as well as their militant targets has helped to make them very unpopular in Pakistan as well as provoking further resistance, as the closure of Nato-Isaf’s tanker supply-routes and the fire-bombing of convoys in early October 2010 indicate (see “external pageThe AfPak endgamecall_made”, 7 October 2010). But there is no doubt that the drone-raids have had a serious impact in forcibly dispersing what some call “al-Qaida central”, and sending the key external pageleaderscall_madesuch as Osama bin Laden and external pageAyman al-Zawahiricall_made into deep cover.

But the other side of the “dispersal” coin is al-Qaida’s ability to survive, adapt, evolve - and where necessary relocate - amid pressing circumstances. This has been necessary not just in response to the challenge of the “external pagefar enemycall_made”, the United States, but in relation to internecine conflicts among radical Islamist movements operating in Pakistan and Afghanistan. The al-Qaida leadership has generally been careful to maintain a degree of neutrality here, though this too carries a cost in that its influence in Afghanistan (where it was never as dominant as may have appeared around the time of the external page9/11call_made attacks when the Taliban was in power in Kabul) is now even more limited. 

The Taliban and related external pagefightingcall_made groups in Afghanistan have in the course of the war become motivated more by a broadly nationalist, anti-foreign agenda than by the notion of a long-term global external pagejihadcall_made aimed in the first instance at ejecting “corrupt” and “anti-Islamic” rulers across the middle east and southwest Asia - nor even of crippling the United States (other than forcing it to leave Afghanistan). Here is a genuine faultline, for al-Qaida’s ultimate external pageaspirationcall_made - to recreate a global caliphate based on rigorous Islamist doctrine - sits uneasily with the more conventional aspirations of a (mainly external pagePashtuncall_made-based) insurgency.

It is not clear whether al-Qaida can keep this idea external pagealivecall_made and in what form. But what does seem to be happening is that paramilitary Islamist cells which evolve relatively independent of each other and in external pagedifferentcall_made areas - Algeria, external pageYemencall_made, external pageIraqcall_made, parts of the Sahel (and even to an extent Somalia) - combine an intense focus on their local cause with the sense of partnership in a common vision of which “al-Qaida” is a principal signifier.

In overall terms these groups are holding their own external pagewithoutcall_made necessarily posing a more active threat (though the western security agencies’ reaction to Washington’s warning reveals a degree of nervousness). Indeed, for western states here is the difficulty: the US may be able to inflict damage on “external pageal-Qaida centralcall_made” in Pakistan, but this very “success” carries a material cost in terms of increased public anger (and thus possible radicalisation) and dangerous if small-scale proliferation.

The weapon of change

The core political element is that the now decentred and external pageamorphouscall_made al-Qaida movement most certainly gains from being attacked by the United States and its coalition partners. In this respect, many western analysts routinely forget the impact of modern media when it publicises (for example) the external pagedeathscall_made and injuries that result from military actions in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and (rising up the agenda) Yemen and Somalia.

The stories themselves may be presented in a fragmentary way, but they provide rich material for skilled and sophisticated external pagepropagandistscall_made to select from the paraphernalia of the digital age to present a relentless and (to many, including diasporas in the west) highly plausible external pagenarrativecall_made of Islam under attack.

Al-Qaida is at root, to an extent which is rarely recognised, a reactive rather than a proactive entity which relies consistently on western actions to give it more vitality and purpose. The positive external pageaspectcall_made of this reality from a western perspective is that a substantive change of policy - towards a full military evacuation from Iraq, a negotiated withdrawal from Afghanistan, and (not least) genuine progress on a just settlement for the external pagePalestinianscall_made - would place even the devolved and localised al-Qaida in very serious and possibly even external pageterminalcall_made difficulty.

The George W Bush administration was always external pageblindcall_made to this logic - indeed, even to articulate it was seen as deeply suspect. Barack Obama, and some of the people around him, may recognise the force of this analysis; but the anti-incumbent domestic external pagemoodcall_made and the toxic legacy of his predecessor mean that the president may prove unable to move beyond the practice (as opposed to the terminology) of “war on terror”. Therein lies the best prospect for external pageOsama bin Ladencall_made, Ayman al-Zawahiri and their decentred yet still active movement.