Csis Alqaeda Future

7/27/2019 Csis Alqaeda Future

1/88

THE FUTURE OF AL-QAEDARESULTS OF A FORESIGHT PROJECT


2/88

World Watch: Expert Notesseries publication No. 2013-05-01

is report contains the results of a research project led by the academic outreachprogram of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) to explore the futureof the Al-Qaeda phenomenon. It consists of alternative future scenarios developed

during a workshop, as well as four original papers written by individual specialistsat the request of CSIS. e report is not an analytical document and does notrepresent any formal assessment or position of CSIS or the Government of Canada.All components of the project were held under Chatham House rule; therefore, theidentity of the authors and the participants is not disclosed.

www.csis-scrs.gc.ca

Published May 2013Printed in Canada

Her Majesty the Queen in Right of Canada

ink recycling

is document

is printed with

environmentally

friendly ink

Ph

otocredit:istockphoto.com


3/88

T HE FUT UR E OF AL QAEDA RESULTS OF A FORES IGHT PROJECT / / / 1


2012-2013, OTTAWA


4/88

2 /// THE FUTURE OF AL QAEDA RESULTS OF A FORES IGHT PROJECT


5/88

T HE F UT UR E OF AL QAE DA RE SULTS OF A FORE S I GHT PROJE C T / / / 3

TABLE OF CONTENTS

WHAT COULD AL-QAEDA LOOK LIKE IN 2018? 5

AL-QAEDA CENTRAL AND AL-QAEDA IN IRAQ IN 2018 21

Assumptions 21

Capacity 25

Change Drivers 30Al-Qaeda Core and Al-Qaeda in Iraq in 2018 37

AL-QAEDA IN THE ISLAMIC MAGHREB IN 2018 41

Infuence o ransnational Networks on AQIM 43

Current Polarisation and Challenges:Aqimlandor Not? 44

AQIM Structures and an Evaluation o their Development 47

AQIM and its Prospects or Regional and 49

Inter-regional Cooperation

owards Sub-jihadisation? 50

DEFEAT, DISPERSAL AND DECLINE: BLEAK PROSPECTS FOR 53AL-QAEDA IN EAST AFRICA IN 2018

A Brie History o AQEA 53

Harakaat Al-Shabaab Al-Mujaahidiin 57

Al-Hijra (Muslim Youth Centre) 61

Ansaar Muslim Youth Centre (AMYC) 65

Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP): 66

A Future Host or AQEA?


6/88

4 /// THE FUTURE OF AL QAEDA RE SULTS OF A FORE S I GHT PROJE C T

AL-QAEDA IN THE ARABIAN PENINSULA: PROFILE, PRESUMPTIONS 69AND PREDICTIONS TO 2018

Te Jihadist Milieu and the Rise o AQAP 70Te Role o the ribes 73

Future Prospects 76

ENDNOTES 79


7/88



WHAT COULD AL-QAEDA LOOK LIKE IN 2018?

Challenged or more than a decade by a determined global counter-terrorism

(C) campaign, Al-Qaeda (AQ) is acing an uncertain uture. Te death o

Osama bin Laden, the popular uprisings spreading across the Middle East

and North Arica, and the global recessionary pressures that are causing

governments to re-evaluate their C strategies are amongst the many ar-reaching

developments that will infuence AQs uture prospects.

How AQ adapts to the challenges and opportunities that will shape its next

decade is a source o spirited debate amongst government o cials, academic

experts, think-tank analysts and private consultants. Insoar as this lack o

consensus suggests that AQs path is not yet set, it creates a need to explore

its alternative utures. o this end, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service

(CSIS) launched a oresight project in September 2012 to explore how AQ

might evolve along any one o three model paths over the course o the nextve years: gradual decline; incremental growth; and rapid growth.

Te project was based exclusively on open-source inormation so as to combine

the expertise and imagination o participants representing a wide array o

proessional and personal backgrounds and several countries. o set the context,

our papers covering the AQ networks prominent actors were presented at

inormation sessions hosted by the CSIS Academic Outreach program. Written

by prominent specialists who took part in the entire project, the papers are

included in this report but the identity o their authors is not disclosed becausethe Chatham House rule was invoked throughout the exercise. Te oresight

workshop itsel took place on 24-25 January 2013 in Ottawa.

Workshop participants recognised that part o the challenge in imagining

AQs uture lies in the very denition o AQ. At its broadest, the phenomenon

includes a central group o senior leaders commonly reerred to as AQ Core,

regional a liates which together with that core make up the AQ network,

like-minded groups in the networks key operating areas (eg, ellow travellers),homegrown Islamist extremists in Western countries, sympathisers across the


8/88


globe and the AQ ideology itsel. While remaining mindul o this complexity,

participants ocussed the scenarios on the AQ elements that will have the most

proound eects on the broader phenomenons uture prospects: AQ Core and

its network a liates (specically: Al-Qaeda in Iraq, or AQI; Al-Qaeda in theArabian Peninsula, or AQAP; Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, or AQIM; and

Al-Qaeda in East Arica, or AQEA).

Participants similarly appreciated that a wide range o external orces will play

an important role in shaping AQs uture prospects, including shits in the

world economy and changes in the Western worlds counter-terrorism posture.

Accordingly, they kept this broader environment in mind while concentrating on

the variable that repeatedly emerged as a powerul point o ocus across the AQ

network: uncertainty in the uture stability and governance o the regions where

AQ maintains its primary operational bases.

Workshop participants recognised that the Wests response to AQ, whether or

not it wanes, will continue to have direct repercussions on the uture o AQ.

Regardless o its uture operational prole, be it strong or weak, AQ will not

(and cannot) accept deeat so long as its strategic purpose is to wage war against

the West. For AQ, to admit deeathowever one denes the latteris to cease

to have a reason to exist.

Tis paper presents the results o the oresight project. A number o important

caveats apply to the scenario-building process and to this report. Te most

important are:

i) Te points of focus set out above apply in all scenarios, which is to say

that the scenarios:

a. concentrate on the AQ network (ie, AQ Core and itsa liates); and

b. treat stability and governance in the networks most important

operating areas as a major orce that will shape its uture

prospects;

ii) Te scenarios are not intended to predict AQs future. Tey provide a

range o credible alternative utures and describe contexts within which to

explore the signs and implications o the evolution o AQ to the year 2018;


9/88


as such, they constitute an additional tool to support analysts and decision-

makers understanding o the AQ threat and may inorm the long-term

allocation o resources by countries acing it.

iii) Te scenarios project out to 2018. Tis ve-year horizon played a critical

role in determining which points o ocus emerged as the most essential (eg,

stability and governance vs. the long-term implications o transormational

political and economic change);

iv) Te scenarios are drated in the present tense. Te use o this tense is not

meant to imply inevitability.

rue to the practice o intelligence, this paper does not oer prescriptions to

respond to any o the scenarios, a prerogative naturally let to policy-makers.

Tat being said, the participants determined that the second scenario o

incremental growth represents the most expected, or likeliest, one. All three

scenarios are oered to support urther discussions by other AQ observers.

BUILDING THE SCENARIOS: AN ANALYTICAL BACKGROUND

Te scenarios presented in this report imagine alternative utures or the AQ

network. o understand how AQ could evolve in such dierent ways, the

scenarios are built on the same analytical starting points. Teir most basic

assumption is that the network will evolve in ways that align with both its

external environment and its nature. Tis assumption centres on three areas o

ocus: AQs external environment; AQs network eatures; and AQs character.

Descriptions o each ocus area are set out below.

THE EXTERNAL ENVIRONMENT

An exhaustive study o the many variables that will infuence AQs external

environment over the next ve years ell outside the scope o this project. In

considering which orces will have the most direct and ar-reaching impacts on

AQ, participants refected on the signicant extent to which AQ seeks out and is

nurtured by unstable or weakly governed spaces. Accordingly, the scenarios holdthat the relative stability and governance o the regions in which AQ maintains


10/88


its primary physical presence is the variable most likely to aect its uture

prospects.

Uncertainty surrounds the uture stability and governance o AQs base regions.In the Middle East and North Arica, or example, a wave o unrest that began

in early 2011 has ushered in new regimes, sparked violent revolts and given rise

to mass protests. Insoar as the orces driving this unrest are common across the

regions where AQ is based, so too is the uncertainty they represent.

Uncertainty in AQs base regions will have a signicant eect on its uture

prospects. It will, or example, aect AQs popular appeal in those regions and

Western countries alike. It will similarly have an impact on AQs ability to escape

(C) pressures. In particular, it will aect the extent to which regional and

Western security services are preoccupied by other security and order concerns

(mass violence, intercommunal violence, regime collapse, etc.). aken together,

these eects will have ar-reaching consequences or AQ. At a minimum, they

will aect its ability to cultivate popular support; attract new recruits; inspire

homegrown Western terrorists; acquire new weapons and unding; secure

existing sae havens; and reach into new operating theatres.

THE INTERNAL ENVIRONMENT

Determining how the AQ network might be re-shaped in ways that align with

both its external environment and its nature requires understanding todays AQ.

Te networks key eatures are described below.

Ideology/Goals: AQ holds that the West is waging a crusade against Islam and

that it is the religious duty o every Muslim to join in what AQ ideologuesterm a deensive jihad (struggle). Sel-appointed as the vanguard o this jihad,

AQs goal is to drive the West out o ancient Muslim lands so as to establish

a community o states based on Islamic law and restore the Islamic caliphate.

o this end, AQ aims to exploit conficts between the ummah (worldwide

Muslim community) on the one hand, and the West and regional apostate

governments on the other (ie, Muslims vs. the ar and near enemies). Te

pursuit o that objective has uelled internal debate in a number o AQ a liates

as to the importance to ascribe to global and local jihad respectively.


11/88


Leadership: AQs leadership is in fux. C operations have cost it mid-level

leaders throughout the network and many o its most senior leaders, including

co-ounder Osama bin Laden. It is not yet clear whether AQs new and emerging

leaders will have the operational skill, strategic oresight and personal rapportthat lent important strengths to its ormer leadership cadre.

Structure: Te AQ network comprises a core made up o senior leaders and a

collection o a liated groups. It is generally accepted that AQ Core provides

ideological guidance to the a liates, but that the a liates, borne out o local

political realities, control their own logistics and operations. odays main

a liates already existed when their relationship with AQ Core was established.

Te AQ groups that may arise rom ungoverned spaces in the uture may not

have the same origins or organisational structure, adding complexity to the AQ

network.

Resource Profle: Recruits, unds and sae havens in which to operate are the

mainstays o AQs operational capabilities. Recruits are drawn rom local and

oreign areas; unding is acquired by a variety o means (including kidnappings,

tra cking and donations rom supporters in the Gul and elsewhere); and

sae havens are made available by a lack o strong central authority, weak or

permissive security services and complicit or repressed local populations.

CENTRAL ASSUMPTIONS

AQs character will play an important role in determining how its network

evolves in tandem with changes in its external environment. Accordingly,

the scenarios analytical oundation included assumptions on AQs nature.

Participants in the workshop posited that AQ:

i) will retain its global aspirations;

ii) will accommodate greater uidity within its network;

iii) might participate in popular political processeson its own terms;

iv) will not accept deeat.


12/88


LOSING THE WAR OF IDEASSCENARIO NO. 1: GRADUAL DECLINE


AQs uture prospects are aected by stability and governance (or lack thereo )

in its most signicant operating environments.

Tis scenario assumes that, where local governments are seen to be addressingthe causes o instability and weak governance, they beneft rom widespread

legitimacy and support. By alleviating the orces that drive unrest, these

developments reinorce the mainstream political system. Tey also make it

possible or the local security services C resources to be allocated to more

traditional security and law enorcement concerns. Caught by political orces

that clash with its interests, AQ sees a gradual decline in its uture prospects.


All aspects o the AQ network are aected by the interplay between its nature

and changes in its external environment. Te networks key eatures under this

scenario are set out below.

Ideology/GoalsAQs ideology promotes unity across the network by continuing to instil a

common sense o purpose: to deend the ummah rom near and ar enemiesalike. Despite consensus on its raison dtre, AQs ideological unity becomestested as the a liates respond to popular support or emerging mainstream

political institutions. Amongst other reactions, they reinterpret aspects o

AQs ideology in a bid to shore up their local appeal and dampen support or

non-violent political lie. Because these ideological deviations are not perectly

compatible with one another, they cause growing tensions across the network.

As the AQ ideology is urther diluted, its ability to uniy and inspire operatives

across the network starts to weaken.


13/88

T HE F UT UR E OF AL QAE DA RE SULTS OF A FORE S I GHT PROJE C T /// 11

LeadershipAQs leadership sees that new pressures have an impact on its already stressed

unity. Te main causes o its current tensions are three-old: i) the transition

rom a hierarchical organisation to a network system has eroded AQs lines oauthority; ii) the killing o Osama bin Laden has deprived AQ o his unique

authority; and, iii) the loss o mid-level leaders across the network has destroyed

the personal ties that rst brought AQ together.

Te orces driving AQ leaders apart are exacerbated by eorts to reverse

AQs declining ortunes. For example, the a liates magniy ideological

incompatibilities that emerge as they reinterpret AQ messaging to suit their local

interests. Tey also grow more disconnected rom one another as their eorts

to evade C strikes lead them to step back rom intra-network activities that

can be tracked by security services. aken together, these old and new ault lines

make AQs leadership more susceptible to the corrosive eects o interpersonal

competitions and antagonisms.

StructureStrategies intended to reverse AQs declining appeal and capabilities accelerate its

decentralisation. In particular, tensions emerge across the networkand within

the a liatesas leaders struggle over how to arrest their decline. Te result area prolieration o small break-away actions. Some uphold AQs ideology and

strategies; some modiy them; and some selectively parrot them. Distinguishing

the believers rom the pragmatists and the opportunistsand anticipating the

shiting operational alliances and antagonisms between themhas become a

complicated task or local authorities and Western governments.

ResourcesPopular support or mainstream eorts to correct the causes o instability and

weak governance has a negative impact on AQs resource prole. It generallydampens the civil unrest that had ed AQs popular appeal and bolsters the local

security services that target AQs unds and sae havens. It does not, however,

leave AQ destroyed by a lack o basic resources. Residual political and economic

grievances, as well as the networks own resourceulness, continue to give AQ the

opportunities it needs to ensure its organisational survival.


14/88


IMPLICATIONS

Where governments in AQs base regions are seen to be addressing the causes

o instability and weak governance, they set in motion orces that confict withAQs interests. AQs eorts to counter those orces seed small but growing

deviations within its ideology, uel tensions amongst its leaders and ampliy

the existing decentralisation pressures in its network. Although these dynamics

urther erode its abilities to penetrate Western deences and execute sophisticated

attacks, AQ does not accept deeat. It shits its ocus to small rudimentary

attacks and makes it a priority to increase their requency. Its strategy is

straightorward: it continues to inspire homegrown terrorists in Western

countries and strike transitory alliances with its break-away actions and ellowtravellers in the regions where it is based. Te narrative directed towards AQ

audiences is simple and compelling: more AQ-linked groups + more attacks on

AQs enemies = more success or AQ.

Because AQs gradual decline can be re-packaged as a success, Western countries

risk mistaking it or victory. I they respond with a new wave o intensive C

operations, their approach can inadvertently validate AQs worldview, breed

hostility toward its mainstream regional partners and stife productive economic

growth. With a little help rom AQ propagandists, the West thereore empowersAQ.

Alternatively, the West does nothing to reinvigorate AQ, the networks reusal

to accept deeat sees it split between those who remain committed to violent

jihad and those who join mainstream politics in a bid to remain relevant. o the

extent that anti-Western sentiment continues to resonate amongst the general

population, AQs political members and supporters still succeed in embedding

the networks extremist views in state institutions. AQs hostility towards the

West is then expressed through both terror attacks and indirect state-to-state

tensions.


15/88


EXPANSION AND DIFFUSION OF THE AQ BRANDSCENARIO NO. 2: INCREMENTAL GROWTH


AQs uture prospects is aected by stability and governance (or lack thereo )


Tis scenario assumes that, where local governments are slow and/oruncertain in their eorts to correct the causes o instability and weak

governance, their legitimacy is coloured by rustration and disillusionment.

Tese conditions legitimise AQ arguments that the system is monopolised by

small groups o corrupt elites and cannot be changed by popular protest. Tey

also nurture resentment that the system cannot (or will not) correct widespread

poverty, inequality and lack o opportunity. ogether, these dynamics give rise to

more lawlessness and violence. Local security services eventually nd themselves

preoccupied by other security and order concerns (growing civil unrest, regime

instability, etc.), and as a result relieve their C pressures on the AQ network.

AQ capitalises on the opportunities sparked by popular rustration with the

mainstream system to popularise its worldview and ortiy its capabilities. Te

results are slow but steady improvements in AQs uture prospects.


Te scenarios hold that AQ is re-shaped by dynamic interplays between its

character and its external environment. Te networks key eatures under this

scenario are set out below.

Ideology/GoalsBecause AQs worldview is essential to its raison dtre, AQ Core and the a liatesall continue to have a stake in upholding it. However, the a liates also ace

growing incentives to reinterpret AQ messages in ways that position them to

exploit local grievances, as has already been observed or example in West Arica,


16/88


the Horn o Arica and the Sinai Peninsula. Multiple a liates make adaptations

suited to their unique local conditions, resulting in ideological divergences

across the network and a growing number o debates as to which near and/or ar

enemies AQ should seek to strike.

LeadershipAQs leadership becomes more unpredictable as growth opportunities, high

turnover and the need to replace a senior cadre decimated by C operations

together usher in a new leadership cohort. As popular rustration with

mainstream politics creates new opportunities or AQ a liates, the next

generation o leaders sees its authority tied to its operational perormance, rather

than to its ideological credentials or concerns or network-wide strategy. Tis

ocus on local perormance encourages the a liates to act more autonomously

and opportunistically. It also degrades the cores already declining infuence over

the a liates and, with time, downgrades it rom a central ideological authority

to one o several common leadership nodes. ogether, these overlapping

orces cause the network to become less cohesive and predictable. Yesterdays

unied, shrewd and orward-looking leadership is replaced by a more ractured,

impetuous and short-sighted one.

StructureGrowth opportunities reinorce AQs ongoing decentralisation. In particular,

growth driven by unrest sees newly ormed rebel groups align themselves

with AQ in cases where collaboration brings mutual benets. As these tactical

alliances evolve into ongoing relationships, the AQ network expands. However,

to the extent that such growth is based on, and held together by, opportunistic

collaboration, it accelerates the decentralisation o authority within the network.

Growth opportunities also reinorce AQs decentralisation by creating a situation

where the supply o skilled operatives all short o demand. Tis supply-and-demand dynamic encourages skilled operatives to act as reelancers who move at

will across the network, as happened in Mali. Over time, their movement speeds

knowledge and skill transers within the network and, in so doing, accelerates

AQs decentralisation by reducing its internal dependencies. Te result is that

AQ Core, AQI, AQIM, AQAP, AQEA and their dierent maniestations act as a

fat, loose but e cient network.


17/88


ResourcesSlow and uncertain eorts to correct instability and weak governance benet

AQs resource prole. For example, they position AQ to: i) capitalise on popular

rustrations to spread its ideology and attract new recruits; ii) take advantageo growing lawlessness to generate additional unding rom kidnappings,

tra cking, etc.; and iii) exploit new security vacuums to establish sae havens in

weak and ailing states, such as Mali, Syria, Libya and Aghanistan.

IMPLICATIONS

Incremental growth gradually changes the threats posed by AQ. Tey becomeless predictable as AQ leaders become more autonomous and opportunistic,

and they become more potent as AQ avails itsel o new weapons and recruits,

new unding sources and new sae havens. Moreover, the threats become more

numerous as AQ-linked groups prolierate across AQs base regions and possibly

elsewhere. Lastly, every one o these changes in AQs threat prole will be

intensied where growing numbers o weakly governed spaces and ailing states

encourage Western sympathisers to become more active and create opportunities

or AQ operatives to slip into reugee fows to Western countries.

Changes in the Wests C posture can ampliy the new AQ threat: complacency

bred by past C successes and the incremental pace o AQs growth; C cut-

backs caused by recessionary pressures; and troop withdrawals aligned with

pre-set mission end-dates create new intelligence blind spots or the West while

reducing C pressures on AQ. Te result is severe: the West grows increasingly

vulnerable at the very time that AQ grows incrementally more capable.


18/88


TOWARDS STATE POWERSCENARIO NO. 3: RAPID GROWTH


AQs uture prospects are aected by stability and governance (or lack thereo )


Tis scenario assumes that the causes o instability and weak governance

in the regions where AQ maintains its primary operational bases growworse. Te dynamics are similar across AQs base regions: political tensions are

aggravated by conficting visions o the state, personal animosities and deliberate

acts o sabotage; and economic prospects are undermined by stagnant growth,

depleted reserves, and swelling decits. o the extent that these pressures cause

widespread instability and weaken local governance, they ortiy AQ. Tey

perpetuate the extremist views on which AQ thrives by, or example, leaving

ultra conservative Islamist organisations to ulll basic needs. Tey replenish the

pools o disenranchised youth rom which AQ draws its recruits and expand

the lawless spaces in which AQ nds its havens. Moreover, they relieve Cpressures on the AQ network by overwhelming local security services with more

immediate concerns (state collapse, regime survival, mass violence, etc.).

Where the causes o instability and weak governance worsen, AQs prospects

improves. Where their growth is stark, AQs growth is rapid.


Te interplay between AQs nature and its external environment aects all

aspects o the network. Te networks key eatures under this scenario are set out

below.

Ideology/GoalsAware that its worldview supports its mission, AQ continues to hold that

the West and apostate local governments are at war with Islam. In addition

to serving a strategic purpose, this point o view also serves a practical one:

it provides ideological cover or selecting targets in line with matter-o-act


19/88


considerations and, in so doing, allows the a liates diverse local interests

to co-exist in the same network. AQs worldview nonetheless sees points o

disagreement emerge, as the rush to capitalise on new opportunities and the

decline in AQ Cores central infuence together encourage the a liates to adapttheir messaging and tactics in ways that exploit highly local conditions. For

example, some members o the network condemn sectarian violence while others

legitimise it where it makes tactical sense to do so (eg, in Syria). However, the

network does not racture on ideological grounds; support or AQs overarching

worldview and the very tangible benets that come rom belonging to a rapidly

growing network provide strong incentives to resolve (or ignore) ideological

dierences.

LeadershipAQs leadership nds itsel under greater stress. Amongst other pressures, its

unity is already strained by the declining infuence o AQ Core in Pakistan

and the increasing autonomy o AQ a liates (particularly AQIM and AQAP).

Although these pressures are reinorced by the tensions that arise as AQ attempts

to seize new growth opportunities, they do not cause ruptures. Instead, they

are oset by uniying orces. In particular, AQ Core still promotes network-

wide cohesion and AQs vision continues to accommodate some ideological

divergence. Perhaps most importantly, AQs rapidly multiplying growthdividends (including a wealth o new resources and an increasingly skilled

leadership cadre) generate powerul enticements to remain part o a strong and

united AQ. Caught between these push-pull orces, AQs leadership sees its unity

grow more stressedbut it does not break up.

StructureAQs growth is opportunistic. Its principal strategies include moving into spaces

that ailing states can no longer govern (eg, Libya), striking alliances with ellow

travellers who can provide logistical benets (eg, in Iraq, Syria, Kenya, anzaniaand Yemen), and embedding itsel in resurgent jihad movements (eg, in the

Caucasus, Central Asia and Southeast Asia). In more extreme cases, AQ strives

to take de acto control o ailed governments. Its targets range rom low-valuegovernments responsible or impoverished territories (eg, Aghanistan, some

states in West Arica and Yemen) to high-value ones responsible or countries

armed with weapons o mass destruction (eg, Syria and Pakistan). Without

exception, spaces controlled by AQ (using proxies) are ruled according to the

most severe interpretations o Islamic law.


20/88


Growth transorms AQs organisational structure. Its geographic breadth and

increasingly complex array o AQ-a liated, AQ-linked and AQ-run groups drive

it to build more dened network structures under each o its a liates. As the

same pressures that aect AQs 2013 structure are replicated in its new one, AQsorganisational cohesion becomes strained but not broken.

ResourcesTe worse the instability and governance in AQs base regions, the better the

results or AQs resource prole. Worsening local conditions, ongoing drone

strikes and new opportunities attract support or AQ rom individual Islamist

extremists and some diasporic communities. Tey also cause increases in the

number o new recruits drawn rom both the regions where AQ is based and

Western countries. In addition, widespread lawlessness, instability and unrest

make it possible or AQ to cultivate new criminal unding sources, acquire

sophisticated weapons smuggled out o weak states and establish more sae

havens. At the extreme, puppet governments run by AQ start giving the network

control over invaluable resources, including military installations, weapons

depots, laboratories, banks, commercial enterprises and strategic natural

resources, including oil.

IMPLICATIONS

Where the instability and weak governance in AQs base regions is severe, it

drives the orces that power AQ: violence, poverty, security vacuums and regime

collapse. It pushes AQs popular appeal to record levels, expands its resource

wealth in unprecedented ways and uels its growth. Under these conditions, AQ

nds itsel having a larger and much more active presence in a greatly expanded

number o sanctuaries. It also exercises eective control over states holding

weapons o mass destruction. Armed with chemical, biological, radiological and

nuclear (CBRN) deterrents to C activities, AQ poses an entirely new threat to

global security.

Western governments nd themselves conronting an immensely more complex

and severe AQ threat at a time when recessionary pressures, public atigue with

C operations and complacency bred by more than a decade o C success are

creating strong domestic demands to step back. Stop-gap solutions to reconcile

these conficting pressures include a continued shit rom human intelligenceoperations to technical solutions, and rom large-scale military interventions to


21/88


strategic strikes by special operation orces. Over the longer term, the West seeks

out new opportunities to take advantage o AQs most likely vulnerabilities:

local resistance to AQ control driven by resilient social structures and loyalties;

internal disagreements amongst AQ actions uelled by competing personalities,ideologies and tactics; and public-opinion volatility in AQs base regions caused

by acute political repression and economic hardship.


22/88

20 /// THE FUTURE OF AL QAEDA RESULTS OF A FORES IGHT PROJECT


23/88


AL-QAEDA CENTRAL AND AL-QAEDA IN IRAQ IN 2018

ASSUMPTIONS

Plus a change, plus cest la mme chosethe more it changes, the more

its the same thinggoes Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karrs amous 19 th century

epigram. Te same may be said o current analyses o what is variously called

the Core Al-Qaeda or the Al-Qaeda Core, Al-Qaeda Central, or the Al-Qaeda

Senior Leadership (AQSL). For example, in a speech delivered in April 2012 at

the Woodrow Wilson International Center or Scholars, John O. Brennan, then

Deputy National Security Advisor or Homeland Security and Counterterrorism andAssistant to the President, declared, For the rst time since this ght began,

we can look ahead and envision a world in which the al-Qaeda core is simply

no longer relevant.1 A couple o months later, then US Secretary o Deence

Leon Panetta a rmed, Weve not only impacted on their leadership, weve

impacted on their capability to provide any kind o command and control in

terms o operations2building on his previous assertion rom summer 2011

when, shortly ater he assumed o ce, Panetta proclaimed, Were in reach o

strategically deeating al-Qaeda.3

Te Deence Secretarys more recent statementclearly echoed that o President Barack Obama himsel who, on the rst

anniversary o bin Ladens killing, proclaimed, Te goal that I setto deeat

al-Qaeda and deny it a chance to rebuildis now within our reach.4

Te evidence supporting these claims is, admittedly, compelling. Osama bin

Laden, the co-ounder and leader o Al-Qaeda, is dead. Key lieutenants like Ilyas

Kashmiri, described by the most recently released US State Department analysis

o terrorism trends as one o the most capable terrorist operatives in South

Asia, was killed by a US drone strike in Pakistan the ollowing month,5 as was

the movements reported number two leader, Atiyah abd al-Rahman, in August

2011, and his successor, Abu Yahya al-Libi, in June 2012.6 Te ourold increase

in targeted assassinations undertaken by the Obama Administration7 has thus

to date killed at least 34 key Al-Qaeda leaders in Pakistan,8 as well as some 235

ghters,9 thus setting the core organisation, in the words o a recent US State

Department analysis, on a path o decline that will be di cult to reverse.10

Tis general assessment also refects the views o many prominent American

pundits, academics and analysts.11


24/88


Te undamental argument presented in this paper, however, advocates a more

cautious, even agnostic, approach. Although one cannot deny the vast inroads

made against Core Al-Qaeda in recent years as a result o these developments

described above, this paper nonetheless argues that the long-establishednucleus o the Al-Qaeda organisation has proven itsel to be as resilient as it

is ormidable. For more than a decade, it has withstood arguably the greatest

international onslaught directed against a terrorist organisation in history.

Further, it has consistently shown itsel capable o adapting and adjusting to

even the most consequential countermeasures directed against it, having, despite

all odds, survived or nearly a quarter century, as well.

In this respect, the Arab Spring, and especially the ongoing unrest and

protracted civil war in Syria, have endowed the Al-Qaeda brand and, by

extension, the core organisation, with new relevance and status that, depending

on the uture course o events in both that country and the surrounding region,

could potentially resuscitate Core Al-Qaedas admittedly waning ortunes.

Te act that the Al-Qaeda Core seems to enjoy an unmolested existence rom

authorities in Pakistan, coupled with the orthcoming withdrawal o US orces

and ISAF troops rom Aghanistan by 2014, urther suggests that Core Al-Qaeda

may well regain the breathing space and cross-border physical sanctuary needed

to ensure its continued existence or at least the next ve years.

Troughout its history, the oxygen that Al-Qaeda depends upon has ineluctably

been its possession o, or access to, physical sanctuary and sae haven. In the

turbulent wake o the Arab Spring and the political upheavals and instability

that have ollowed, Al-Qaeda convincingly has the potential to transorm

toeholds established in the Levant and perhaps in the Sinai and in both North

and West Arica into ootholdsthus complementing its existing outposts in

Pakistan, Aghanistan, Yemen, and Somalia.

It must also be noted that the Al-Qaeda Core has stubbornly survived despite

predictions or conventional wisdom to the contrary. Hence, at the risk o stating

the obvious, Al-Qaedas obituary has been written many times beore, only to

have been proven to be presumptuously premature wishul thinking. Al-Qaidas

op Primed o Collapse, US Says, trumpeted aWashington Postheadline two

weeks ater Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind behind the September

11, 2001 attacks and then the movements number three, was arrested in

March 2003. I believe the tide has turned in terms o Al-Qaida, CongressmanPorter J. Goss, then chairman o the US House o Representatives Intelligence


25/88


Committee and himsel a ormer CIA case o cer who became its director a year

later, was quoted in that same article. Weve got them nailed, an unidentied

intelligence expert also boasted nine years ago, beore more expansively declaring

that were close to dismantling them.12

Identically upbeat assessments were voiced ollowing the nearly bloodless capture

o Baghdad the ollowing month and the ailure o Al-Qaeda to make good on

threats o renewed attacks in retaliation or the US-led invasion.13 Citing Bush

Administration sources, an article in the Washington imeson 24 April 2003,

or instance, reported the prevailing view in o cial Washington that Al-Qaedas

ailure to carry out a successul strike during the US-led military campaign

to topple Saddam Hussein has raised questions about their ability to carry out

major new attacks.14 Ten, in rapid succession came the March 2004 commuter

train bombings in Madrid; the suicide attacks against London transportation

targets the ollowing year; and, among the most serious o the various post-9/11

Al-Qaeda Central commanded plots, the planned in-fight suicide bombings o

seven American and Canadian passenger aircrat in August 2006.15

Te airlines plot is especially instructive in this context. Rather than selecting

the soter, more accessible targets like subway and commuter trains, hotels and

tourist destinations, which conventional wisdom at the time held was all anarguably seriously degraded Al-Qaeda was capable o, the intended attack was

directed against perhaps the most hardened target set in the post-September

11, 2001, environment: commercial aviation. Tis development thus called

into question some o the most undamental assumptions about Core Al-

Qaedas capabilities and intentions andnot leastthe ability to deter it. In

this latter respect, Al-Qaedas leadership apparently was completely unazed by

the succession o intelligence successes that led rst to the arrest o the plots

initial commander, Abu Faraj al-Libi, in May 2005, and then to the death ohis successor, Hamza Rabia, in a US drone strike just ve months later. Such

was the movements determination to attack despite its allegedly catastrophic

condition that, these presumably atal setbacks (eg, one leader in custody and

another dead) notwithstanding, it reached into its supposedly exhausted bench

o core ghters and appointed the late Abu Ubaydah al-Masri to press ahead

with the operation.

Not two years later, though, similar assertions o Al-Qaeda Centrals demise

were being voiced. Juan Zarate, the Bush Administrations Deputy NationalSecurity Advisor or Combating errorism and one o the most perceptive


26/88


and knowledgeable observers o the entire Al-Qaeda phenomenon, oered an

unusually nuanced and balanced assessment o the movement and the core

leadership in a speech presented in April 2008. Careully calibrating recent

progress in the war on terrorism against remaining challenges, Zarate nonethelessdrew attention to a number o important developments that signal that

Al-Qaeda and the movement it represents are under greater stress and nding

more opposition to its program, in particular by Muslims aected directly by

Al-Qaedas tactics.16 Zarates remarks were amplied two weeks later by an

anonymous senior American counterterrorism o cial quoted in an interview

with Londons Daily elegraph:. []he end o the global threat al-Qaeda poses,

he stated, is now as visible as it is oreseeable.17 Ten, there was the statement

by Ryan Crocker, the then US Ambassador to Iraq, who told reporters on a visit

to the Shia holy cities o Naja and Karbala that May, You are not going to hear

me say that al-Qaeda is deeated, but theyve never been closer to deeat than

they are now.18 And, nally, under a ront-page headline in the Washington Post,

US Cites Big Gains Against Al-Qaeda, then CIA Director Michael Hayden

ticked o a list o indicators that, he argued, portended Al-Qaedas imminent

demise: Near strategic deeat o Al-Qaeda in Iraq. Near strategic deeat or

Al-Qaeda in Saudi Arabia. Signicant setbacks or Al-Qaeda globallyas a lot

o the Islamic world pushes back on their orm o Islam.19

At the time, these views t neatly with the prevailing consensus among

government o cials, academics and pundits alike that Al-Qaeda had ceased to

exist as an organisational entity and had become nothing more than a hollow

shellan ideology without an organisation to advance itand a leaderless

entity o disparate individuals unconnected to any central authority. Bin Laden

was said to be completely estranged rom the movement he created, living in

a remote cave, isolated rom his ghters, sympathizers and supporters, and

unable to exercise any meaningul role in the movements operations and uturetrajectory. Te threat, it was argued, had thereore become primarily bottom

up and not top downto the extent that terrorist organisations themselves

and the command and control unctions that they had traditionally exercised

were said to no longer matter. Instead, it was argued, the threat now came rom

sel-radicalised, sel-selected lone wolves and bunches o guys and not

rom actual, existing identiable terrorist organisations.20

Ten, the plot to stage simultaneous suicide attacks on the New York City

subway system, to coincide with the eighth anniversary o the September 11,2001 attacks, came to light the ollowing year. Te ringleader, an Aghan-born


27/88


Green Card holder who lived in Queens named Najibullah Zazi, testied that

both he and two ellow conspirators had been trained at an Al-Qaeda camp

in Pakistan. Tree senior Core Al-Qaeda commandersthe late Rashid Rau

and Saleh al-Somali, who were respectively killed in US drone strikes in 2008and 2009, together with Adnan El Shukrijumah, who is still at largehad

overseen and directed the plot, which was also linked to two other ambitious

sets o attacks planned or April 2009 in Manchester, England, and July 2010 in

Scandinavia.21

May 2010 brought additional reutation o the bottom up argument when a

naturalized US citizen o Pakistani birth named Faisal Shahzad nearly succeeded

in staging a massive car bombing in the heart o New York Citys imes Square.

Shahzad had been recruited by a close Core Al-Qaeda ally, the ehrik-e-aliban

(P or Pakistani aliban), which had also trained him in bomb-making at a

camp in North Waziristan beore sending him back to the US on this mission.22

In sum, the same arguments made about the irrelevance or impending demise o

Core Al-Qaeda today have all been heard beoreand have consistently proven

mistaken. Given that virtually every major terrorist attack or plot against either

the US or the U.K. (and indeed other European countries) during the period

between 2002 and 200923 was known either to have emanated rom Core Al-Qaeda or rom allies and associates acting on its behalwhen Core Al-Qaeda

had supposedly ceased to existsuch assessments sound a cautionary note with

regard to the similarly optimistic claims made in many contemporary analyses o

the Al-Qaeda Cores longevity and supposed irrelevance.

CAPACITY

Te prevailing consensus that the Al-Qaeda Core is poised on the brink o

collapse seemed to acquire greater weight in May 2012 when the US Military

Academys Combating errorism Center (CC) published 17 documents seized

at bin Ladens Abbottabad villa during the previous years raid.24 Osama bin

Ladens last words show dark days or al-Qaeda was typical o the news coverage

aorded the documents release.25 Indeed, the CCs conclusion based on this

thimbleul o documents, rom which the media largely drew or its reporting,

was unequivocal:


28/88


Te relationship between what has been labelled Al-Qaeda Central

(AQC) under the leadership o bin Laden is not in sync on the

operational level with its so-called a liates. Bin Laden enjoyed

little control over either groups a liated with Al-Qaeda in name (eg,AQAP or AQI/ISI) or so-called ellow travellers such as the P.26

In the rush to draw inerences rom this minuscule sample o the thousands o

documents removed rom bin Ladens lair by the US Navy SEALs who killed the

Al-Qaeda leader, there was no mention o the starkly dierent interpretation o

the materials that was oered by Obama Administration o cials shortly ater

the raid. For example, an anonymous senior US o cial quoted in ProPublica

depicted bin Laden as a hands-on micro-manager. Te cumbersome process

he had to ollow or security reasons, the o cial had explained, did not

prevent him rom playing a role . . . He was down in the weeds as ar as best

operatives, best targets, best timing.27

Intelligence analysts then dissecting bin Ladens diary had reportedly concluded

that the movements preeminent gure had also been involved in every recent

major al-Qaeda threat.28 Tese included plots directed against the US, where

bin Laden urged his ollowers to recruit non-Muslims and minoritiesespecially

Arican Americans and Latinosor attacks that would target locations inaddition to New York City and Los Angeles, but also smaller cities. Striking

on signicant dates such as July 4 and the 10th anniversary o the September

11, 2001, attacks, and hitting targets such as trains and passenger aircrat,

were among his exhortations both to Core Al-Qaeda planners, as well as to

operatives in the groups a liated movements in Yemen, Pakistan, and Somalia,

among other places, according to the inormation released the previous year.29

According to an account published in the Washington Postthat month, bin

Laden unctioned like a crime boss pulling strings rom a prison cell, sending

regular messages to his most trusted lieutenants and strategic advice to ar-fung

ranchises, including Al-Qaedas a liate in Yemen.30

No explanation, however, was oered this past May with the CCs release o

the Abbottabad materials to square these discrepancies. Perhaps doing so risked

calling attention to the act that a close reading o the 17 documents reveals

that they are ar more ambiguous than portrayed in both the CC report and

accompanying US government statements. For instance, it is signicant that,

notwithstanding the severe limitations imposed on the Al-Qaeda Core byUS intelligence and military operations, especially since the escalation o the


29/88


drone programs campaign in 2009, the movement has still been able to expand

appreciably beyond its South Asia base. Te documents indisputably depict an

Al-Qaeda that, in 2011, had an active presence in more places than it did on

September 11, 2001.31

Moreover, in the year since the raid, the movement hasbeen able to expand still urther: deeper into West Arica (beyond Nigeria to

Mali, Mauritania and Niger) and to the Levant (Syria), as well.

Tat bin Laden may have been out o sync or had raught relations with

the variety o ar-fung Al-Qaeda a liate organisations is thereore not

entirely surprising. Tis was the trade-o he accepted ater 2002 to ensure the

movements survival and longevity by devolving power to the local ranchises.

Nonetheless, bin Laden remained both determined and able to communicate

his wishes to Al-Qaedas growing stable o associates. Getting them to listen

was o course a problem amiliar to any manager coping with rapid expansion.

Admittedly, this led to uneven relations with some o Al-Qaedas a liates and

associates because o the cumbersome and elongated communications loop. And,

at times they spurned his advice and entreaties.32 But it should be remembered

that Al-Qaeda itsel established none o these ranchises. All had already existed

beore choosing to align themselves with Al-Qaeda; hence, as independent

entities, it is unreasonable to assume that they would necessarily all into lock

step with all o bin Ladens wishes or dictates.33

Nonetheless, the picture that emerges rom the seized Arabic-language

documents is o a leader involved in both Al-Qaedas day-to-day operations

and long-term strategy.34 Ever the policy wonk, opining on topics as diverse as

the Arab Spring and the declining US economy, bin Laden also retained his

penchant or attempting to micromanagehowever unresponsive his ranchises

and a liates may or may not have been. In actual act, the documents portray

the a liates as responsive to bin Laden on the most important, pressing issuesregarding either personnel or strategy. Te extent o his infuence is perhaps best

illustrated by bin Ladens ability to block both the promotion o the late Anwar

al-Awlaqi within Al-Qaedas Yemeni a liate, AQAP (Al-Qaeda in the Arabian

Peninsula),35 and the ormalisation o relations between the movements Somali

arm, al-Shabaab, with Core Al-Qaeda.36

From bin Laden documents leaked to the British press but curiously missing

rom the West Point CCs trove,37 we also know that, as ar back as 2003,

bin Laden had taken an interest in expanding Al-Qaedas operations to WestArica, and in act was in direct contact with leaders o Nigerias Boko Haram


30/88


group.38 We also know that both he and his successor and co-ounder o Al-

Qaeda, Ayman al-Zawahiri, maintained close relations with both the Aghan

and Pakistani aliban. Indeed, both men reportedly regularly conerred with

Mullah Omar and discussed the opportunities that the eventual US and ISAFwithdrawal rom Aghanistan would present to their respective organisations.39

Much has already been made in previous document leaks o bin Ladens

musings about the need to rebrand Al-Qaeda in light o its waning infuence

and tarnished image in the Muslim world as a result o its a liates killing more

o their co-religionists than their declared enemies. But a careul reading o the

declassied documents presents a more nuanced understanding o bin Ladens

preoccupation with this issue. His concerns in act centered on his belie that the

Western media and Al-Qaedas enemies were mis-portraying the movement by

ocusing only on its violent side and ignoring its political goals and aspirations.

Bin Laden thus sought a new name or the movement that would more

accurately refect its ideological pretensions and sel-appointed role as deender

o Muslims everywhere.40 Tis calculated assessment o Al-Qaedas outreach

shortcomings is thus very dierent rom the desperate handwringing described

in news accounts o the documents.

Perhaps the most remarkable communication, however, is one dated 27 August2010. In it, bin Laden expresses his concerns or the saety o his ghters and

ollowers in Pakistan: not because they might be arrested or detained by the

authorities, but because o the torrential rains and fooding then a icting that

country.41 Te Al-Qaeda leader, accordingly, was more earul that his men

might be aected by the weather than by any eort o the Pakistani government

to apprehend them. Tis assertion alone speaks volumes about how amenable he

and his minions ound their reuge in Pakistana comort level that is unlikely

to have changed in the two years since bin Laden was killed.

Moreover, there is little in the documents that suggests that it was terribly

di cult or Al-Qaeda ghters to travel rom Iran to Pakistanor, or that

matter, between Aghanistan and Pakistan.42 And there is no indication that,

once in Pakistan, they had any trouble traversing Baluchistan en route to the

Federally Administered ribal Areas or North-West Frontier Province, two o the

movements avorite haunts. Given the continuing antipathy between Pakistan

and the US and the absence o any indication o a change in this laissez-aire

policy o the Pakistani government toward Al-Qaeda since bin Ladens death,there is no reason to believe that the cores reedom o movement has been

inhibited in any meaningul way.


31/88


Finally, despite Core Al-Qaedas alleged abject decrepitude and the suppositions

about bin Laden somehow being out o touch (as well as out o sync), he

nonetheless laid out a compelling strategy or Al-Qaedas survival that the broad

movement appears to be pursuing today. Continuing to attack the US was onlyone step in his strategic plan, which ocused on:

Attriting and enervating America so that a weakened US would be

orced out o Muslim lands and thereore have neither the will nor

the capability to intervene;

aking over and controlling territory, creating the physical sanctuaries

and sae havens that are Al-Qaedas lieblood; and

Declaring emirates in these liberated lands that would be sae rom US

and Western intervention because o their collective eneeblement.43

Although it may be tempting to dismiss bin Ladens grand plans and ambitious

strategy or the movement, as Mary Habeck cogently notes, No al-Qaeda

a liate or partner (including the aliban, al-Qaeda in Iraq, or the Shabaab) has

been deposed rom power by an uprising o the local population alone. Tey

have needed outside intervention in order to expel the insurgents, even when thepeople have hated al-Qaedas oten brutal rule.44

wo salient conclusions thus emerge rom this overview o the Al-Qaeda Core in

light o the released Abbottabad documents. First, one can draw valid inerences

rom the documents that are at odds with the conventional wisdom or at least

the manner in which other analyses have interpreted the documents. Second, i

this contrarian view is plausible (which this author certainly believes it to be),

the Al-Qaeda Cores demise is neither ordained nor imminentat least based onthe publicly released evidence. Rather, one can make a reasonable argument that

Core Al-Qaeda has:

a well-established sanctuary in Pakistan that unctions without

great hindrance and that is poised to expand across the border

into Aghanistan as the US military and ISAF continue to

withdraw rom that country, until the complete drawdown set

or 2014;


32/88


a deeper bench than has oten been posited (or at least has been

shown to be deeper at various critical junctures in the past when

the Core Al-Qaedas demise had been proclaimed);45

a dened and articulated strategy or the uture that it is

presumably still pursuing;

a highly capable leader in al-Zawahiri who, over the past year

despite predictions to the contraryhas been able not only to

keep the movement alive, but also to expand its brand and orge

new alliances (particularly in West Arican countries); and

a well-honed, long-established dexterity that enables it to beas opportunistic as it has been instrumental, that is capable

o identiying and exploiting whatever new opportunities or

expansion and consolidation may present themselves.

All this suggests that the Al-Qaeda Core is extremely likely to exist in 2017

much as it existeddespite predictions and assessments to the contraryve

years ago in 2007. Admittedly, it is impossible to know what shape, strength and

dimensions the Core will possess ve years hence. Tat, as the next section o

this report argues, will depend on the outcome o current events principally in

Syria and Iraq, but also in the North Arican and other Middle Eastern countries

prooundly aected by the Arab Spring.

CHANGE DRIVERS

As the preceding discussion argues, while bin Ladens death inficted a crushing

blow on Al-Qaeda, it is still not clear that it has necessarily been a lethal one.

He let behind a resilient movement that, though seriously weakened, has

nonetheless been expanding and consolidating its control in new and ar-fung

locales. Bin Laden also created a core organisation that, despite a decade o

withering onslaught and attrition, continues to demonstrate its ability to:

preserve a still compelling brand;

replenish its ranks (including those o its key leaders);


33/88


project a message that still nds an audience and adherents in

disparate parts o the globe, however modest that audience may

perhaps be; and

pursue a strategy that continues to inorm both the movements

and the cores operations and activities, and that today is eectively

championed by al-Zawahiri.

In this respect, since 2002, Al-Qaeda has embraced a grand plan or itsel that

was dened as much by al-Zawahiri as bin Laden. It is a plan that deliberately

(and successully) transormed it into a de-centralized, networked, transnational

movement rather than the single monolithic entity Al-Qaeda ormerly was. 46

In the midst o the groups expulsion rom, and deeat in, Aghanistan almost

12 years ago, al-Zawahiri charted a way orward or the movementat a

moment, it is worth recalling, when everyone else believed it was on the brink

o annihilation. His treatise, published in the London-based Arabic language

newspaper al Sharq al-Aswatin December 2001, and titled Knights Under the

Prophets Banner, explained how small groups could righten the Americans

and their allies. It equally presciently described how [t]he jihad movement

must patiently build its structure until it is well established. It must pool

enough resources and supporters and devise enough plans to ght the battleat the time and arena that it chooses.47 And, it was Zawahiri, ater all, who

over 20 years ago articulated Al-Qaedas enduring strategy in terms o ar

and near enemies. Te US, o course, was the ar enemy, whose deeat, he

maintained, was a prerequisite to the elimination o the near enemythe

corrupt, reprobate and authoritarian anti-Islamic regimes in the Middle East,

Central Asia, South Asia and South East Asia that could not otherwise remain in

power without American support. In light o the Arab Spring, that strategy has

now assumed almost a hybrid character,48 whereby the movement by necessity

has ocused almost entirely on the near enemy and local struggles, while

still remaining characteristically poised to take advantage o any opportunity

to attack the ar enemy that may present itsel. Tis dual embrace o near

and ar enemy priorities was perhaps best demonstrated by the most recent

underwear bomber plot involving an agent o the British Secret Intelligence

Service (SIS, or MI6) who was able to inltrate into the highest command

structure o AQAP, which again leapt at the opportunity to strike at a ar

enemy commercial airline target despite the groups preoccupation with

ghting the Yemeni governmentthe near enemy.49


34/88


By the same token, it is oten heard that, much like bin Ladens killing, the Arab

Spring has sounded Al-Qaedas death knell.50 However, while the mostly non-

violent, mass protests o the Arab Spring were successul in overturning hated

despots and thus appeared to discredit Al-Qaedas longstanding message thatonly violence and jihad could achieve the same ends, in the 18 months since

these dramatic developments commenced, evidence has repeatedly come to

light o Al-Qaedas ability to take advantage o the instability and upheaval in

these same countries to re-assert its relevance and attempt to revive its waning

ortunes.51

Moreover, while the Arab Spring has transormed governance across North

Arica and the Middle East, it has had little eect on the periphery o that

geographic expanse. Te continued antipathy in Pakistan toward the US,

coupled with the increasing activity o militant groups theremost o whom

are already closely a liated with Core Al-Qaedahas, or instance, largely

undermined the progress achieved in recent years against terrorism in South

Asia. Further, the eects o the Arab Spring in Yemen, or instance, have clearly

benetted AQAP at the expense o the chronically weak central government

in that country. AQAP in act has been able to expand its reach considerably,

seizing and controlling more territory, gaining new adherents and supporters,

and continuing to innovate tactically as it labors to extend its attack capabilitiesbeyond the Arabian Peninsula. Although al-Shabaab has been weakened in

Somalia as a result o its expulsion rom the capital, Mogadishu, over a year ago

and the deaths o two key Core Al-Qaeda who had both embedded in the group

and had enhanced appreciably its terrorist capabilities,52 al-Shabaab nonetheless

still maintains a stranglehold over the southern part o the country, where a

terrible drought and amine threaten the lives o hundreds o thousands o

people.

Meanwhile, the instability and disorder generated by the Arab Spring have

created new opportunities or Al-Qaeda and its allies in the region to regroup

and reorganize. Indeed, the number o ailed or ailing states or ungoverned

spaces now variously ound in the Sahel, in the Sinai, in parts o Syria and

elsewhere has in act increased in the atermath o the changes witnessed across

North Arica and the Middle East since 2011.

In no place is this clearer or more consequential than in Syria. Te priority

that Core Al-Qaeda has attached to Syria may be seen in the special messagesconveyed in February and June 2012 respectively by al-Zawahiri and the late


35/88


Abu Yahya al-Libi in support o the uprising against the regime o Syrian

President Bashir Assad and calling upon Muslims in urkey, Iraq, Jordan, and

Lebanon to do everything within their power to assist in the overthrow o Syrias

hated minority Alawite rulers.53

According to U.S Intelligence analysts who regularly monitor the most relevant

and important password-protected / access-controlled jihadi websites, the

leading thread or months in the top three sitesal-Shumukh al-Islam, al-Fida

and Ansar al-Mujahideenhas been Syria.54 ypical o these was the 14

February 2012 message posted on al-Fida that described Syria as presenting an

ideal opportunity or mujahideen (holy warriors) who missed the Aghan and

Iraqi jihads. Since the launch o the Syrian revolution and since the barbaric

Nusayri [Alawite] regime began killing our people there, it stated:

[]he mujahideen, and praise and gratitude belong to Allah, took the

initiative to help those weak ones in the East and West o the earth.

We ask Allah to grant them success in liberating the Muslims in Syria

rom the disbelieving regime. Tere must be weapons to stop the harm

o these aggressors. Te ummah will not get out o humiliation and

weakness except through Jihad.55

Another message, presumably rom a ront-line ghter who had answered that

call, described how [t]hese attacks in Syria remind me o my time in Iraq.56

And, in March, a new e-journal, Balagh (Message), appeared rom a group

calling itsel the Levant News Battalion, and contained religious exhortations to

overthrow al-Assad and his Alawite cronies. It was posted on the al-Shumukh

al-Islam online orum.57 Pleas or nancial aid to support the mujahideen

ghting in Syria have also regularly appeared on this same site. 58

Al-Qaedas interest in Syria is neither recent nor ephemeral. As the Council o

Foreign Relations Ed Husain pointed out in his seminal article on the subject,

Te territory in the Middle East that Al-Qaeda covets most is o 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-Shaam59Te

Land o the Levantine Peopletreasured Muslim territory that was once

administered by the urkish Ottoman Empire as a single, unitary entity

encompassing present-day Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Israel/Palestine. Bin

Laden oten reerred to the events ollowing World War I that resulted inthe dismemberment o urkeys empire and the end o both Islamic rule o


36/88


Muslims and the demise o the Caliphate. His amous statement on 7 October

2001 in response to the commencement o US military operations to liberate

Aghanistan reerred specically to the 1920 reaty o Svres, which detached

these Arab provinces rom the Muslim rule.60

And, in one o Al-Qaedas majoraddresses beore the 2003 American-led invasion o Iraq, he cited the 1916

Sykes-Picot Agreementthe secret understanding reached between France and

Britain that divided the Levant and surrounding countries into French and

British spheres o infuence. Under this arrangement, France received Syria and

Lebanon, while Britain got Palestine and Jordan, as well as Iraq.61

Syria has thus long been an Al-Qaedaide fxe. According to Husain, that

country has even more o the characteristics o the same type o perect jihadi

storm that Aghanistan possessed three decades ago: widespread support

among the Arab world, the provision o nancial assistance rom wealthy

Gul supporters, a popular cause that readily attracts oreign volunteers, and

a contiguous border acilitating the movements o these ghters into and out

o the declared battle space. Syria, though, has several additionally compelling

actors that have gured prominently in the attention Core Al-Qaeda has

ocused on it:

First, it is sacred land reerred to in early Muslim scriptureand history, complete with enormously evocative end times,

prophetic overtones.

Second, in the geographical scheme o traditional Ottoman

rule, it contains the al-Haram al-Sharithe Holy Precinct

o Jerusalem, where the Dome o the Rock (rom which the

Prophet is reputed to have ascended to Heaven) and the al-Aqsa

Mosque, Islams third holiest shrine, are located.

Tird, the enemyas the above-quoted al-Fida message states

are the Nusayri: the hated Shia apostate Alawite minority

sect whom the revered 13th - century Islamic theologian Ibn

aymiyah (author o the key jihadi text, Te Religious and Moral

Doctrine o Jihad)62 called upon Sunnis to do battle with. For

Sunni jihadist ghters, Husain explains, the confict in Syria is

religiously underwritten by their most important teacher.

Fourth, unlike Aghanistan, which was part o the ummah but

distant rom Arab lands, Syria oers Al-Qaeda a base in the Arab


37/88


heartland. As Husain notes, Tis makes them relevant again to

daily politics o the Middle East.63

Indeed, Core Al-Qaedas attraction to Syria is nothing less than irresistible.Ater Al-Qaeda missed the opportunities to intervene or assert itsel in the

seismic events that initiated the Arab Spring in unisia and Egypt in early

2011 and saw itsel relegated to only a supporting role in Libya, al-Zawahiri

doubtless regards the Syrian civil war as a key opportunity with which to

burnish Al-Qaedas credentials and demonstrate its relevance. Even more so,

Syrias geographic proximity to both neighboring Jordan and Israel realizes a

Core Al-Qaeda dream: bringing it to the borders o precisely the pro-Western,

insu ciently Islamic Arab monarchy that the organisation has long despised in

Jordan and to the very gates o its most detested oe, Israel.64

Syria is also a particularly agreeable environment or Al-Qaeda. During the

20032009 Sunni insurgency in Iraq, it was a key base or training oreign

ghters and supporting them logistically. It was also the main conduit or

these ghters entering and exiting Iraqmany o whom were Syrian jihadis

themselves. Shortly ater the US invasion o Iraq in 2003, the late Abu Musab

al-Zarqawi, ounder and leader o the Jamat awdid wu Jihad (Monotheism

and Holy War Group), which later ormally allied itsel with Al-Qaedaand adopted the Al-Qaeda appellation, established operations in Syria that

contributed enormously thereater to the escalation o violence in Iraq.65

Te jihadi oreign ghter contingent currently in Syria is believed to be

small, amounting only to an estimated 1,2001,500 combatants, and thus

constituting only a small portion o the orces arrayed against the Assad regime. 66

Nonetheless, its infuence is palpable through Syrian rebel organisations such

as the Jabhat al-Nusra li-Ahli al-Shaam (Front or the Victory o the LevantinePeople, also reerred to as the Jabhat al-Nusra, al-Nusra Front to Protect the

Levant or simply as al-Nusra).67 According to the Quilliam Foundations Noman

Bentoman, a ormer jihadi himsel who was a ounding member o the Libyan

Islamic Fighting Front (LIFG), an Al-Qaeda a liate, al-Nusra is largely

infuenced by Al-Qaedas rigid jihadi ideology and, while its main enemy is the

Syrian government and armed orces, it has been rhetorically hostile to the US,

in addition to promulgating harshly sectarian views that are ocused mostly on

Syrias ruling Alawite minority.68 Al-Nusras emerging role as the spearhead o the

most bloody and spectacular opposition attacks is demonstrated by the nearlytenold escalation o its operations between March and June 2012.69


38/88


It is in Syria, accordingly, that Core Al-Qaedas utureits relevance and

perhaps even its longevityturns. In this respect, its spear carrier there has been

Al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI).70 Te movements Iraqi branch arguably demonstrates

the limitations o decapitation as a counterterrorism strategy, given that itsrst three commandersal-Zarqawi, Abu Ayyub al-Masri, and Abu Abdullah

al-Rashid al-Bagdadihave all been killed (Zarqawi in 2006 and his two

successors both in 2010). Yet, the group is perhaps more threatening and

consequential today than at any time since the height o the insurgency in

that country between 2003 and 2008.

Te December 2011 withdrawal o US and coalition orces rom Iraq breathed

new lie into AQI.71 Although violence overall had declined in Iraq that year,

the group was nonetheless responsible or some o the bloodiest and most

spectacular attacks against Shia pilgrims and neighborhoods, as well as against

a variety o government targetsranging rom police recruits to senior o cials.

Fourteen AQI attacks alone claimed the lives o nearly 600 people and caused

injuries to some 1,500 others.72 Tis pattern continued during 201273: typical o

these activities were the coordinated attacks on Shia in the midst o a religious

holiday in June that killed at least 66 people;74 the coordinated car bombs,

checkpoint ambushes, shootings o policemen in their homes and assaults on

military bases that convulsed the country on a single day in July and let 100people dead;75 and the twin car bombings in Baghdad at the end o the month

that killed 19 people.76

At the start o the Ramadan holiday in July 2012, AQIs leader, Abu Bakir

al-Baghdadi, drew deliberate parallels between the groups war on Iraqs Shia

majority-led government and the Sunni uprising against the Assad regime in

neighboring Syria. Praising the Syrian jihadis, he declared:

You have taught the world lessons in courage, jihad, and patience,

and you have taught the ummah and proven to it with absolute

proo and argument that injustice is only lited with power and

strength, and that weakness is only erased by giving souls and

bloodshed, and spreading body parts and skulls o the martyrs and

those wounded on the path.77

Indeed, omenting sectarian divisions and enmity has been a mainstay o both

the AQI organisation in Iraq and its counterparts in Syria.78 In Iraq, or instance,attacks on Shia account or 86% o all major AQI attacks, according to research


39/88


conducted by the Henry Jackson Societys Robin Simcox.79 It is a trend that

is also refected in Al-Qaeda messaging and outreach. Al-Zawahiris address to

the Lions o the Levant in February 2012, or instance, deliberately incited

sectarian tensions in Syria, striking clear anti-Alawite, anti-Hezbollah and anti-Iranian themes.80 And, AQI propaganda has long prominently propagated anti-

Shia sentiments, setting the violence it has inficted on that community and the

Iraqi government within the context o the eternal holy struggle against Shia

and Iranian domination o Sunnis. As one analysis o the growing incidence o

Al-Qaeda sectarian messaging concluded that:

Al-Qaeda has a clear motive to use sectarianism to ampliy its

infuence and that the inormation environment since the Arab Spring

provides a vastly increased number o opportunities to do so. Te

roiling political changes in the region seem to have put sectarianism

near the center o public discourse, perhaps because the sense o

instability or threat moves people to rea rm their closest identities

to regain balance. Alternately, people may eel reer to express

longstanding grievances in the absence o a controlling regime. In any

case, Al-Qaeda is acing an atmosphere permeated by sectarian issues,

and only has to decide where and how to exploit them. 81

AL-QAEDA CORE AND AL-QAEDA IN IRAQ IN 2018

Te challenge o looking ve years into Al-Qaedas uture is evidenced simply

by looking to the situation a little over ve years ago. In 2007, despite the death

o al-Zarqawi, Iraq was still enmeshed in the violent throes o an insurgency

that had yet to be brought to heel by the surge o American combat orces

and adoption o the new counterinsurgency strategy directed by General DavidPetraeus. In South Asia, US relations with Pakistan were certainly ar more

positive than they are today, and Aghanistan was not beset to the same extent it

is today by the insurgent violence that now potentially threatens to re-submerge

the country once the US and ISAF draw-down is completed in 2014. Te

conventional wisdom was that Core Al-Qaeda had already ceased to exist as an

operational entity and that the main threat came not rom established terrorist

organisations with an identiable leadership and chain o command, but mainly

rom lone wolves and una liated, untrained bunches o guys.


40/88


Despite the di culty o predicting where Al-Qaeda and AQI will be next year,

much less in 2018, given the changes o the past 12 months alone, several

conclusions based on the preceding discussion may be posited that will likely

aect Core Al-Qaedas longevity and relevance:

First, Al-Qaeda is still strongest at the geographical periphery

o the dramatic events o the past 18 months. Pakistan, Somalia

and Yemen, as noted above, still remain key Al-Qaeda operational

environments and sanctuaries and, in Yemens case, rather than

depriving Al-Qaeda o political space, the Arab Spring has created

new opportunities in that country both or AQAPs expansion and

consolidation o its recent gains. Core Al-Qaeda demonstrably

benets rom, and eeds o, these developmentsthus ensuring its

longevity, at least or the oreseeable uture.

Second, the confict in Syriaand the attendant opportunities it

presents to Al-Qaeda at a critical time in its historyhas potentially

breathed new lie into the Al-Qaeda brand, exactly as Iraq did in

2003 and, by extension, the core organisation, with new relevance

and status that, depending on the uture course o events in both

that country and the surrounding region, could potentiallyresuscitate Core Al-Qaedas waning ortunes, much as occurred nine

years ago.

Tird, Al-Qaedas core demographic has always been disenranchised,

disillusioned and marginalized youth. Tere is no evidence that the

potential pool o young hot heads to which the cores message has

always been directed will necessary dissipate or constrict in light o the

Arab Spring. Moreover, it may likely grow in the uture as impatience

over the slow pace o democratisation and economic reorm takes

hold and many who took to the streets nd themselves excluded rom

or deprived o the political and economic benets that the upheavals

in their countries promised. Te losers and disenchanted o the Arab

Spring may thus provide a new reservoir o recruits or Al-Qaeda in the

near utureespecially in those countries across North Arica and the

Middle East with proportionally high populations below the age o 20.

Fourth, Core Al-Qaedas embrace o a patently sectarian strategymay perhaps backre in the long term, but or the moment has

proven eective in rallying ghters and support (nancial and


41/88


otherwise) both to Syria and Iraq. Its extension to Lebanon and

elsewhere with similar minority populations is not improbable

given the recent upsurge in jihadi messaging and propaganda

deliberately inciting violence and manipulating the sectarian issueto Core Al-Qaedas advantage.

Fith, the instability and disorders generated by the upheaval caused

by the Arab Spring may also aect the intelligence and security

services o those countries most caught up in these developments.

Tey will likely remain less ocused on Al-Qaeda and other

transnational threats and more concerned with internal problems.

Indeed, in those countries with active Islamist political parties,

there may be a reluctance to engage the more extreme and violent,

though ideologically like-minded, elements at the ringe o these

movements.

Sixth, the continued ragmentation o the jihadi movement as

a result o bin Ladens killing and Core Al-Qaedas weakening may

paradoxically present new and daunting challenges to both regional

and Western intelligence and security services. Te continual

emergence o new, smaller, more dispersed terrorist entities witha more fuid membership that easily gravitates between and among

groups that have little or no established modus operandiwill raise

di culties in terms o identiying, tracking, anticipating and

predicting threats. Te authorities in Northern Ireland, or instance,

encountered precisely this problem in the atermath o the 1998 Good

Friday accords, when the threat rom a single, monolithic entity, the

Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA), devolved into the atomized

threats presented by the smaller, less structured, more amorphous

dissident Republican groups.82

Seventh, the progeny o seminal jihadi leaders either killed or

imprisoned over the past decade as a result o the war on terrorism

may emerge as heirs to the movement bequeathed to them by

their elders. For instance, until his death in 2009, Saad bin Laden,

Osamas eldest son, was being groomed to succeed his ather.83 Te

prospect o additional sons, nephews, cousins and more distant

relations orming a new generation o ghters and lling leadershiproles in Core Al-Qaeda is unnerving: not least because successive


42/88


generations o the same terrorist organisations have shown themselves

to be more lethally violent than their predecessors.

Eighth, there is the problem o the old made new: ormer leadersor senior level ghters who emerge rom prison or exile to assume

key positions o command o new or existing terrorist organisations,

including Core Al-Qaeda, and thus revitalize and reinvigorate fagging

or dormant terrorist groups. Tis same development o course led to

the ormation o the AQAP in early 2009. Egyptian President Morsis

pardon o 16 leading jihadi prisoners rom the al-Gamaa Islamiyya

and al-Jihads groups84 and the amnesties granted to hundreds o others

have the potential to inuse existing organisations with greater militancy

and violence. In addition, at least a dozen or more key Core Al-Qaeda

personnel are still being sheltered in Iran, including Sai al-Adl. I

allowed their reedom, they could easily strengthen the existing central

leadership.

Finally, the continued absence o a successul, major terrorist attack

in North America since 2001 may induce a period o quiet and

calm that lulls us into a state o alse complacency, lowering

our guard and, in turn, provoking Core Al-Qaeda or one o its alliesto chance a dramatically spectacular attack.

None o the above is pre-ordained, much less certain. It is equally likely that

Core Al-Qaeda will continue to degenerate and eventually devolve into nothing

more than a post-modern movement, with a set o loose ideas and ideologies. It

would continue to pose a terrorist threat, but a ar weak

Date post:	02-Apr-2018
Category:	Documents
Upload:	mossad-news
View:	235 times
Download:	0 times

Csis Alqaeda Future

Documents