By Rohan Gunaratna and Aviv Oreg“God willing, the end of America is imminent. Its end is not dependent on my survival. Even if Osama is killed or survives, the awakening has started, praise be to God. This was the point of the September 11, 2001 operation” (Statement by Osama Bin Laden, 27 December 2001).Osama bin Laden transported the transnational jihadist movement into a new era on 11 September, 2001. With the 9/11 attacks, Al Qaeda peaked as a vanguard seeking to lead the transnational jihadist movement. The primary role of Al Qaeda after 9/11 was in sustaining the transnational jihadist movement with its ideology and operational methodology. Al Qaeda nevertheless continued to carry out major attacks in the wake of 9/11, including the Ghriba Synagogue bombing in April 2002, the October 2002 bombing of the French tanker Limburg and the November 2002 Mombasa bombings.
Global to Local
The main source of the terrorist threat in the present has shifted away from Al Qaeda to groups that are ideologically or operationally linked to it. The core of the transnational jihadist movement has been weakened; its numerical strength has eroded from 2000-3000 members at the time of 9/11 to less than 200 members who are mostly located on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. The shift away from Al Qaeda has meant that the terrorist threat is now localized. Groups that adopted Al Qaeda’s ideology of transnational jihad and operated against western targets in their own vicinity – the “far” enemy – are now operating against their governments – the “near” enemy.
The shifting center of gravity in the transnational jihadist movement is related to a change in the way linkages between local groups and Al Qaeda are structured. Traditionally, these linkages were not institutional and relied instead on personal relations cultivated during mujahideen activity in Afghanistan in the 1980s. For instance, 9/11 mastermind and senior Al Qaeda leader Khalid Sheikh Mohamed developed close relations during the Afghanistan jihad in the 1980s with individuals who would eventually head Al Qaeda-linked groups in South and Southeast Asia. They included Riduan Isamuddin (also known as Hambali; Jemaah Islamiyah), Khadaffy Abubakar Janjalani (Abu Sayyaf Group) and Hafiz Saeed (Lashkar-e-Taiba).
Through strong personal relations, Al Qaeda’s leadership exercised a degree of influence that could replace leaders, initiate splits and change the broader direction of the groups linked to it. Its leverage over the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), for example, contributed to IMU abandoning its Uzbek orientation and adopting a more pan-Central Asian outlook influenced by Al Qaeda’s ideology of transnational jihad. More recently, however, the relationship between Al Qaeda and its associated groups has become more formal. In some cases, local groups adopted a new identity reflective of this relationship, such as Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), which grew out of the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC) in Algeria. This kind of regional “rebranding” has even spurred some groups to rename themselves in a similar fashion despite not being formally merged with Al Qaeda. Examples include Al Qaeda in Indonesia and Al Qaeda in the Malay Archipelago.
Online Threat
While the organizational structure of Al Qaeda may have undergone significant changes, what has remained constant is its presence on the Internet. Al Qaeda’s online communications platforms have been instrumental in propagating its ideology and indoctrinating individuals. This forced governments to come to terms with the possibility that any person could become independently radicalized and sufficiently motivated to mount a terrorist attack through the Internet. Online radicalization contributed to attacks and plots such as those carried out by US Army Major Nidal Malik Hasan, the Fort Hood shooter, Faisal Shahzad, who plotted to bomb New York’s Times Square in 2010, and the Tsarnaev brothers, who bombed the Boston Marathon in 2013.
The Internet has to a large extent supplanted the dawah (proselytizing/preaching) apparatus of Al Qaeda. This vast network consisted of imams (worship leaders) and religious clerics deployed in mosques located in non-Muslim majority countries in the west to promote Al Qaeda’s ideology and to serve as points of contact. With greater emphasis on the disruption of the dawah apparatus after 9/11, the Internet emerged as the main platform for logistical activities of the transnational jihadist movement. Funds are raised through hundreds of internet sites which also serve as information conduits for potential recruits. Some operational activities are also conducted with the help of the Internet as instructions and technical know-how are easily shared online. The Tsarnaev brothers who bombed the Boston Marathon, for instance, constructed the explosive device used with instructions from Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula’s online magazine Inspire.
Al Qaeda after Bin Laden
The neutralization of Osama Bin Laden has put Al Qaeda and the ideology of the transnational jihadist movement at crossroads. Bin Laden tended to favor a balance between the teachings of his mentor, the Palestinian Islamic scholar Abdullah ‘Azzam, and the demands of key constituent members such as the then Egyptian Islamic Jihad leader Ayman al-Zawahiri. ‘Azzam pioneered the notion of “global jihad” and promoted the idea that Islam was engaged in a “clash of civilizations” with the west, whereas Zawahiri was more focused on ridding Muslim-majority countries of secular and “un-Islamic” regimes. Bin Laden attempted to cater to both “global” as well as “internal” jihad, but his death in 2011 and the subsequent ascendancy of Zawahiri as Al Qaeda’s leader could mean a shift away from this approach. Zawahiri’s long-standing support for “internal” jihad and the opportunity presented by the Arab Spring in the Middle East are important factors to consider in this regard.
In addition to the changes within Al Qaeda itself, an external development that will significantly influence its future is the expected withdrawal of US-led NATO combat forces from Afghanistan at the end of 2014. The US-led coalition lacks public support to sustain its mission in Afghanistan. Furthermore, financial crises do not permit either the maintenance or deployment of large forces in future. It therefore appears likely that the US presence in the region will be limited to special operations forces, drone strikes and teams for training and advising. However, the Afghan security forces face a formidable challenge in taking over the responsibility of fighting the Taliban given their nascent capabilities and inexperience. In such circumstances, if a terrorist sanctuary similar to what existed under Taliban rule in the 1990s is recreated in the vacuum of the withdrawal, it will affect the stability of not only Afghanistan, but of the region and beyond. There is thus an incentive for Afghanistan’s neighbors and regional partners to work closely with the US-led coalition to stabilize Afghanistan post-2014. The failure of kinetic responses involving the capture, neutralization and disruption of terrorists and their activities in the Afghanistan context also necessitates a reexamination of strategies that have been employed. A full spectrum response that can make the ground environment more hostile for terrorists will be crucial in avoiding the recreation of a sanctuary that Al Qaeda is likely to benefit from given its proximity to Afghanistan.
About the authors: Rohan Gunaratna is Head, ICPVTR and Professor of Security Studies, S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies. Aviv Oreg is the founder of Civil Effort in Fighting International Terrorism (CeifiT). – Eurasia Review
