Al Qaeda isn't going away soon

The ‘Syria problem' is playing out in other post-Arab Spring countries, from Libya to Tunisia and Egypt, where the space vacated by despotic regimes has been taken over by Islamic militants. Terror organisations have a ready platform

In May, US President Barack Obama said that he was hoping to “refine and repeal” the mandate that he got from the Congress to fight the war on terror against Al Qaeda and its affiliates, as the core group was on the “path to defeat” and “this war, like all wars, must end”. Less than three months later, he has evacuated the US embassy in Sana’a, Yemen, shuttered as many as 19 diplomatic missions across West Asia and North and East Africa and issued a month-long global travel advisory, fearing an attack by the terror outfit that was supposedly retreating.

The two don’t square up, not even if you take into consideration the Benghazi factor. Last year, the American Ambassador to Libya and three others were killed when the US mission in Benghazi came under attack. It was later revealed that the US Government had intelligence about the attack but had ignored it, causing much embarrassment, especially to then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who was accused of a cover-up.

Against this backdrop, it is understandable that the Obama Administration has this time around taken extraordinary measures to ensure the safety of its citizens. But this also proves that the Al Qaeda still has the ability to mount a major terror attack on even well-guarded Western targets. 

Of course, questions may be asked about the quality of the threat perception that prompted Washington, DC, to take these unusual steps. But given the limited information in this regard that is available — we only know that the alerts were issued after intercepted electronic communication between Al Qaeda top bosses showed that chief Ayman al-Zawahiri had ordered the group’s head in Yemen, Nasser al-Wuhayshi, to attack Western targets —such questions can only lead to speculation and conspiracy theories regarding Edward Snowden’s former bosses at the National Security Agency.

Assuming that the threat is as significant as the US authorities believe it to be, there can be no denying that Al Qaeda and its affiliates remain strong and lethal. What’s more, there is ample evidence that the group will quite possibly grow stronger and more resilient in the immediate future. Recent developments in South and West Asia show that Al Qaeda will secure for itself more physical sanctuaries around the world in the next few years.

Historically, it is this access to safe havens that has been the group’s lifeline. As long as its leaders and operatives have a place to hide, Al Qaeda has repeatedly shown that it has the ability to adapt itself to changing circumstances, regroup and hit back with a renewed vengeance.

We are already seeing it in the AfPak region. Despite the fact that it has been at the receiving end of an international military campaign and its leaders have been hounded and hunted for more than a decade now, Al Qaeda has managed to survive because it continues to enjoy the hospitality of the Pakistani establishment. The extent to which Islamabad has shielded the terror outfit and others of its ilk is well delineated in the Abbottabad Commission report which shows how the entire state machinery looked the other way as Osama bin Laden built himself a veritable fortress on the outskirts of the national capital. Not only did he live there for nine years with many members of his family without anybody being the wiser, he also managed hands-on his global terror network from the Abbottabad residence — as we know from documents that were seized following the May 2011 US raid that killed him.

Now, with the withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan, the physical sanctuary that Al Qaeda has in Pakistan will quite possibly extend in full to Afghanistan again — and before you know it, the group’s central command, or what President Obama refers to as the ‘Al Qaeda Core’, will be back to its original strength.

Interestingly, the weakening of the Al Qaeda Core has been one of the biggest achievements of President Obama’s otherwise tepid counter-terrorism policy, and indeed it was this that led him to proclaim that the group had been virtually defeated.

But now it seems that even that one significant gain might be reversed and soon, especially if the new Government that will replace Hamid Karzai’s administration in 2014 in Afghanistan, is unable to keep the militants at bay. In this context, the nature and number of US troops that will stay back in Afghanistan (and we know for sure that there will be some kind of a residual force) will be crucial.

Outside of the AfPak region, events in West Asia have been equally disconcerting. Syria, particularly, seems to have been run over by Al Qaeda operatives who have captured the popular revolt against President Bashar al-Assad. In fact, the Syrian civil war has played an important role in energising the group in the Levant, much like how the latter received a boost from the war in Iraq in the previous decade, as security analyst Bruce Hoffman notes in his latest article.

Not only is Syria yet another safe-haven in-the-making for Al Qaeda, it is also in the heart of the Arab world (and, therefore, closer to the group’s financiers in the region). Equally importantly, it places the terror group at the doorsteps of its sworn enemy, Israel, and another enemy, though to a lesser extent, Jordan. The recently created Al Nusr front, Al Qaeda’s flag bearer in Syria, has already established its credentials as a deadly sectarian force in the country and can no longer be ignored as a “bunch of guys” that owe allegiance to the black banner. That, instead of helping crush this force, the Obama Administration is planning to arm the Syrian rebels, is deeply distressing.

The ‘Syria problem’ is playing out in other post-Arab Spring countries as well, from Libya to Tunisia and Egypt where the space vacated by despotic regimes has been taken over by Islamic militants. Al Qaeda and its affiliates in the region have taken advantage of the weak and unstable Governments that have come to power recently to expand their toehold in the Sinai and the Sahel (think of the Al Qaeda flags that have become a regular at Muslim Brotherhood rallies in Egypt).

In effect then, more than a decade after the war on terror was launched, Al Qaeda is stronger today than it was before, having expanded and strengthened its footprint around the world.

(This article was published in the op-ed section of The Pioneer on August 8, 2013)