Al-Qaeda returns after 16 years

Фото: Depositphotos

Original article published in edition Vox, translation Vlada Olshanskaya.

16 years have passed since al Qaeda carried out one of the most massive terrorist attacks in modern history, which claimed the lives of 3 000 people. Almost immediately after the attack, the US government vowed to take revenge on terrorists, writes Vox. “When we figure out who did this, they don’t like to deal with a president like me,” said one of his assistants, George W. Bush, after the crash of the first twin tower, said.

And although the United States attacked Al-Qaida substantially, the alarming truth is that the terrorist group has been revived over the past few years.

Taking advantage of the heightened attention of the international community to the IG, Al-Qaida was able to become the same - or even more - powerful than it was before 11 September.

Before the events of September 11, there were several thousand active members of the group around the world. Today, according to some estimates, the Al Qaeda division alone in Syria has about 30 000 fighters. Thousands more are fighting in the ranks of related groups in countries like Somalia, Yemen, Afghanistan, as well as in North Africa. In some of these organizations — especially in Yemen’s — the training of militants is handled by experienced international terrorists who previously planned sophisticated attacks on US citizens.

Al-Qaeda was able to regain its influence largely due to the use of the IG factor. As the IG attracted attention by seizing territory in Iraq and Syria and organizing terrorist attacks in Europe, Al-Qaeda quietly concentrated on recruiting and establishing relations with local rebel groups waging chaotic civil wars. As a result, Western countries carried out counter-terrorist operations mainly against the IS, causing enormous damage to the group, while Al-Qaida returned its former strength.

Our attention was “[almost] completely seized by the IS, its groups in Iraq and Syria,” said Katherine Zimmerman, senior analyst at the American Enterprise Institute, an Al-Qaeda specialist. “Now, when it is rapidly losing its territories under control, people follow the events in the world and say that a colossal threat still exists - and this is not the IS”.

This does not mean that al-Qaida is now threatening Americans more than before the events of September 11. It’s not only that the United States and its allies have become much more effective in preventing the large-scale and spectacular terrorist attacks that al-Qaeda prefers. It is not clear how much the group-related organizations are generally interested in attacking the States now.

Most of these groups are drawn into long-term bloody civil wars, which take all their attention and resources. Of course, they are not the biggest fans of the United States, but the preparation of complex and costly terrorist attacks is not included in the list of their primary tasks.

In addition, the ability to recruit supporters under the guise of civil wars was a factor in Al-Qaida’s resurgence from the ashes. A large-scale attack on the United States would put an end to this method of replenishing its ranks. “Al-Qaida is actively involved in many military conflicts at the same time, while it is doing everything possible to hide its presence. Therefore, it would be counterproductive for terrorists to conduct a large-scale operation against the West, ”explains David Gartenstein-Ross, Senior Fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies and Director General of the Terrorism Research Group. Valens global.

However, we are talking about Al-Qaeda, a grouping that still considers the attacks of September 11 its greatest achievement. As long as it retains its power, the risk of a major attack is still higher than analysts admit. “In fact, I really see the revival of Al-Qaida as a very serious threat to the West,” said Hartenstein-Ross.

On the example of Syria, it is clear how Al-Qaida is building up positions while the IG surrenders its own.

Three years ago, IG controlled part of the territories of Syria and Iraq, with a total area comparable to the UK. The group also had tens of thousands of armed soldiers - this level of threat made Al-Qaida a distant memory for most analysts.

However, since then the IG has lost 78% of its territory in Iraq and 58% in Syria. Militants have left all major cities under their control (except Raqqah, its capital, which is now under siege by the United States and its allies). According to the US command, Iraq and Syria were eliminated from 60 000 to 70 000 IG fighters; the number of IG terrorists in both countries decreased to 12 000 – 15 000 thousand people.

Фото: Depositphotos

This, in turn, means that the al-Qaeda-related group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham is likely to outnumber the IS in Syria. HTS numbers from 20 000 to 30 000 fighters - this is the most powerful armed formation in the rebel-controlled Idlib province in northwestern Syria. For a long time, the group has played a large role in the civil war.

The story of how al-Qaeda managed to succeed where the IG lost, allows you to analyze in more detail the strategy for the revival of Al-Qaida. There are two reasons for the defeat of the IG in Syria. First, instead of working together, the group ruined relations with other rebel groups that are fighting the regime of President Bashar al-Assad. She constantly fought with them, thereby depriving herself of potential supporters in the region.

Secondly, the IG has turned the United States, Europe and major regional powers against itself. The grouping annexed the territories and organized terrorist acts in all corners of the world, which turned them into a strategic threat requiring immediate elimination. IG was not strong enough to oppose the international coalition, so things went downhill.

Al Qaeda acted differently

Instead of entering into conflict, she found points of contact in the fight against Assad. By implementing its strategy among the rebels and even its fighters, Al-Qaida could more effectively spread its own ideology and attract new supporters.

Due to such cooperation, it has become more difficult for the West to fight Al-Qaeda than with the IG, whose means, fighters and command structures were strikingly different from the assorted insurgent groups. When, in 2014, the Obama administration ordered the bombardment of al-Qaida’s base in Syria, rebel groups hostile to Assad expressed dissatisfaction, not without reason taking this action as a blow to their partner.

In addition, Al-Qaida’s central leadership publicly denied its Syrian fighters, which allowed HTS (then known as Jabhat al-Nusra) to announce a “break” with Al-Qaida in 2016.

Many analysts believe (in part, they base their arguments on information intercepted from Al-Qaida) that this is only a rebranding in order to protect the group from the United States. With this, HTS tried to raise doubts in their cooperation with Al-Qaida, and therefore in the level of threat they pose to the States.

“This is not a real break, but just a game for the public. They didn't really stop collaborating, says Mia Bloom, a professor at Georgia State University who specializes in terrorism. “They’re doing a lot of the same things they were doing before.”

Finally, al-Qaeda did not organize a large-scale attack on the West, using Syria as a staging post. The IS, right up until recently, used its territory as a command and control center for coordinating terrorist acts throughout Europe.

Thus, while IS used its position in Syria as a means to reach the international level, al-Qaeda transformed into an interregional organization. “When you read what al-Qaeda is planning to do, you understand that their goal is not only the extermination of Americans,” Zimmerman explains. “They strive for victories at the local level, and this strategy has already produced results - for example, in Syria.”

Based only on the relative power of the two groups, it can be concluded: Al-Qaida’s strategy has proved (in the long term) more successful.

Фото: Depositphotos

How al-Qaeda is interested in destroying the United States?

Al-Qaeda has spread to the “hot spots” around the world the strategy of “localization”: to intervene in civil war, to identify with local groups and deal exclusively with local issues, avoiding planned attacks in the West.

In Yemen, al-Qaida took advantage of a bloody civil conflict to help strengthen its already powerful ally, Al-Qaida in the Arab Peninsula.

According to the US Secretariat of State, the influence of AQAP in the period from 2015 to 2016 increased four times: its number increased from 1 000 to 4 000 fighters. Analysts believe that this group represents the most serious threat to the West: from 2009 to 2012, they launched three attacks on American citizens. The creator of smart bombs, Ibrahim Hassan Tali al-Asiri, is also in the ranks of AQAP.

The Al-Qaida Somali branch, called Al-Shabaab, focused on manipulating inter-clan contradictions, as well as the corrupt and extremely weak central government of the country. As a result, as a Harvard specialist Christopher Anzalone explains, the efforts of the United States and other states to crush the grouping were unsuccessful.

In Afghanistan, to end Al-Qaeda and its Taliban supporters, there are still more than 11 000 American soldiers. Meanwhile, al-Qaeda is conducting structural reforms in this country, stopping attempts by the emerging Afghan IG wing to penetrate there. Ayman al-Zawahiri, the head of al-Qaida, and Hamza bin Laden, the son of Osama bin Laden, are believed to be located either in Afghanistan itself or in neighboring Pakistan.

Will al-Qaida want to risk its recent achievements and attack the US again?

In warning about the resurgence of Al-Qaeda, experts agree that the group’s success is due to the decision to lie down on the bottom. The military response of the United States and its allies to the events of September 11 had devastating consequences for Al-Qaida. Perhaps the decision to allow the IG to distract the world community, and to calmly restructure itself, is the best thing that happened in Al-Qaeda.

Ultimately, it is unclear whether Al-Qaida plans another terrorist attack in the style of September 11 in the United States. Such a probability cannot be ruled out, but it may not happen. On the other hand, it can be almost predicted with full confidence that the IS will continue to organize smaller-scale attacks, despite a series of defeats from the international coalition. "In the next 12-18 months, I would definitely call the IG a more dangerous group in terms of terrorist attacks," said Hartenstein-Ross.

However, there is no such certainty that the balance of power will not change: some experts believe: Al-Qaida already now considers itself restored enough to re-engage in confrontation with the West.

In May 2017, Hamza Bin Laden опубликовал a video of advice to Muslims who wish to become martyrs of jihad, in which they called on al-Qaeda’s supporters to “follow the example of martyrs for their faith.” And on 16, the anniversary of the events of 11, September, al-Qaida publicly posted 4 statements to remind you of the attack. In one of them, Hamza’s face was superimposed on the image of the burning towers.

Twitter / Thomas Joscelyn

The main conclusion is as follows: localization may be changes of a tactical rather than strategic nature. Al-Qaeda may well change its strategy again if it decides that the new reform is in its interest. Then she will direct her growing forces and resources to the organization of large-scale attacks on the West.

That is why (in the long term), Al-Qaida represents a greater threat than the IS: its leaders think strategically, and - at least, with respect to the United States - much more massively and deadly.

“Al-Qaeda could attack the United States, but it has chosen not to,” Zimmerman explains. “I have not yet been able to determine what might cause a change in strategy.”

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