- - - - - 291 Al-Qaeda liates have Al-Qaeda’s 2 f 1 ectively. f Yemen Yemen has long been a bastion of liates that shared the long-term goals f Al-Qaeda and Its Affiliates. After 9/11, After al-Qaeda’s 9/11, leadership fled Af further fighters its Al-Qaeda dispersed also Yemen. heritage.org/Military been killed or captured, including Osama bin been killed by targeted strikes in Afghanistan, force that could defend Sunnis across the strength most e most strength made Yemenis Islamism. militant for support segments of al-Qaeda’s leadership, including engaged with some success in local conflict of al-Qaeda’s general command and large emir, al-Qaeda was envisaged as a fighting others have taken refuge in Iran. pose to continues therefore leadership central environments. In particular, the Arab Spring global revolutionary campaign. global revolutionary now has cadre original the of Much ghanistan. al-Qaeda lieutenants are believed to remain homeland. threat to the U.S. a potential region of development the for allowing afield, al a among those who flocked to Afghanistan to to advance its revolutionary agenda, taking ad taking agenda, revolutionary its advance to the 1980s. With Osama bin Laden appointed uprisings that began in 2011 enabled al-Qaeda enabled 2011 in began that uprisings in the Afghanistan–Pakistan (AfPak) region; its Aymanemir, al-Zawahiri, survived. Some ly remained loyal to it. These a join the war against the Soviet occupation in filiates that al-Qaeda is able to project regional regional project to al-Qaedaable that is filiates vantage of failed or failing states in Iraq, Libya, Libya, Iraq, in states failing or failed of vantage world and expand the Islamist struggle into a was was founded in 1988 by foreign from veterans Mali, Syria, and Yemen. Mali, It Syria, is and through Yemen. these af Laden, and other key al-Qaeda leaders have However, Somalia. and Yemen, Syria, Pakistan, - - - The Heritage Foundation | Heritage Foundation The : a substantial threat to the Index
errorist groups come in many forms but have one thing in common: the use of
Radical Islamist terrorism in its various The primary terrorist groups of concern to concern of groups terrorist primary The Terrorist groups rarely pose a threat to the Middle East and North Africa forms remains a global threat to the safety of people, goods, or services through the global existent existent governance to plan, train, and equip, commons. Those that do meet these criteria or sub-region. Sometimes a terrorist group’s objectives extend beyond the internationally ethnic, ethnic, or ideological motivations. In general, cal context, usually within a specific country geographic boundaries. are the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham and Africa. are assessed in this section. the U.S. homelandthe U.S. and to Americans abroad these non-state actors operate in a very lo the ability to threaten the free movement of the United States that rises to the threshold used by this in a region of critical interest to the orU.S.; identity as a group transcends such legal or recognized borders of a state because their in the Middle East, but those inspired by Is lamist ideology also operate in Europe, Asia, launch attacks. violence to achieve their political objectives, whether their cause is driven by religious, when they can exploit areas with weak or non or weak with areas exploit can they when U.S. citizens.U.S. Many terrorist groups operate
U.S. homeland; the ability to precipitate a war U.S. Non-State Actors Non-State (ISIS) and al-Qaeda. Their threat is amplified
Terrorist Threats the Homeland to Terrorist from T up a disproportionate number of the estimat- Since Awlaki’s death, the number of ed 25,000 foreign Muslims in the Afghan jihad AQAP-sanctioned external operations in the against the Soviet Union in the 1980s. After West has diminished.9 However, his videos on that conflict ended, Yemen also attracted West- the Internet have continued to radicalize and erners into the country to carry out terrorist recruit young Muslims, including the perpetra- operations there. In 1998, several British citi- tors of the April 2013 bombing of the Boston zens were jailed for planning to bomb Western Marathon that killed three people.10 targets, including hotels and a church.3 AQAP’s threat to Western security, while Al-Qaeda’s first terrorist attack against seemingly slightly reduced by Awlaki’s death, Americans occurred in Yemen in December is still pronounced. Another attempt to carry 1992 when a bomb was detonated in a hotel out a bombing of Western aviation using ex- used by U.S. military personnel. Al-Qaeda plosives concealed in an operative’s underwear launched a much deadlier attack in Yemen in was thwarted by a U.S.–Saudi intelligence op- October 2000 when it attacked the USS Cole eration in May 2012.11 In August 2013, U.S. in- in the port of Aden with a boat filled with ex- terception of al-Qaeda communications led to plosives, killing 17 American sailors.4 The first the closure of 19 U.S. embassies and consulates U.S. drone strike outside Afghanistan after 9/11 across the Middle East and Africa because of also took place in Yemen, targeting those con- fears that AQAP was planning a massive at- nected to the attack on the Cole.5 tack.12 In January 2015, two AQAP-trained After 9/11, and following crackdowns in other terrorists murdered staf members and near- countries, Yemen became increasingly import- by police at Charlie Hebdo magazine in Paris.13 ant as a base of operations for al-Qaeda. In Sep- Then, in 2017, aviation was targeted once again tember 2008, it launched an attack on the U.S. by a plan to conceal bombs in laptop batteries.14 embassy in Yemen that killed 19 people, includ- Much of AQAP’s recent activity has focused ing an American woman. Yemen’s importance on exploiting the chaos of the Arab Spring in to al-Qaeda increased further in January 2009 Yemen. AQAP acquired a significant amount of when al-Qaeda members who had been pushed territory in 2011 and established governance in out of Saudi Arabia merged with the Yemeni the country’s South, finally relinquishing this branch to form Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Pen- territory only after a Yemeni military ofensive insula (AQAP). This afliate quickly emerged in the summer of 2012.15 as one of the leading terrorist threats to the U.S. AQAP further intensified its domestic ac- Much of this threat initially centered on tivities after the overthrow of Yemen’s gov- AQAP’s Anwar al-Awlaki, a charismatic Amer- ernment by Iran-backed Houthi rebels in 2015, ican-born Yemeni cleric who directed several seizing the city of al-Mukalla and expanding terrorist attacks on U.S. targets before being its control of rural areas in southern Yemen. killed in a drone air strike in September 2011. AQAP withdrew from al-Mukalla and other He had an operational role in the plot executed parts of the South in the spring of 2016, report- by Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the failed sui- edly after the U.S.-backed Saudi–United Arab cide bomber who sought to destroy an airlin- Emirates coalition had cut deals with AQAP, er bound for Detroit on Christmas Day 2009.6 paying it to leave certain territory and even Awlaki was also tied to plots to poison food and integrating some of its fighters into its own water supplies, as well as to launch ricin and forces targeting the Houthis.16 cyanide attacks,7 and is suspected of playing More substantive progress has been a role in the November 2010 plot to dispatch achieved in the targeting of AQAP’s leader- parcel bombs to the U.S. in cargo planes. Ad- ship. Said al-Shehri, a top AQAP operative, ditionally, Awlaki was in contact with Major was killed in a drone strike in 2013. The group’s Nidal Hassan, who perpetrated the 2009 Fort leader at the time, Nasir al-Wuhayshi, was Hood shootings that killed 13 soldiers.8 killed in a drone strike in June 2015. Perhaps
292 2020 Index of U.S. Military Strength most significantly, Ibrahim al-Asiri, AQAP’s In January 2017, JFS merged as part of an most notorious bomb maker, was killed in a alliance with other Islamist extremist move- U.S. strike in 2017. Since then, the tempo of ments into a new anti-Assad coalition: Hayat U.S. drone strikes against AQAP has slowed.17 Tahrir al-Sham (HTS, Organization for the Despite U.S. drone activity, it is estimated Liberation of the Levant). It was estimat- that AQAP still has between 6,000 and 7,000 ed that HTS had 12,000 to 14,000 fighters in fighters.18 It therefore remains a potent force March 2017.25 Further complicating matters that could capitalize on the anarchy of Yemen’s surrounding al-Qaeda’s presence, another multi-sided civil war to seize new territory and group in Syria connected to al-Qaeda, Hurras plan more attacks on the West. al-Din (Guardians of the Religion), was formed Syria. Al-Qaeda’s Syrian afliate, the al-Nus- in March 2018.26 Among its ranks were those ra Front (ANF), was established as an ofshoot who defected from HTS, and its suspected emir of the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI), al-Qaeda’s is an Ayman al-Zawahiri acolyte.27 Iraq afliate, in late 2011 by Abu Muhammad HTS has adopted a more pragmatic course al-Julani, a lieutenant of ISI leader Abu Bakr than its extremist parent organization and al-Baghdadi.19 ANF had an estimated 5,000 to has cooperated with moderate Syrian rebel 10,000 members and emerged as one of the top groups against the Assad regime, as well as rebel groups fighting the Assad dictatorship in against ISIS. However, the leadership of Abu Syria.20 Muhammad al-Julani and his tactical approach ANF had some success in attracting Amer- to the conflict, as well as the clear divisions icans to its cause. An American Muslim re- within the Syrian jihad, have led to rebukes cruited by ANF, Moner Mohammad Abusalha, from Ayman al-Zawahiri and those loyal to conducted a suicide truck bombing in north- him.28 Zawahiri has stressed the need for uni- ern Syria on May 25, 2014, in the first reported ty while lambasting the jihadist movement in suicide attack by an American in that country.21 Syria and its emphasis on holding territory in At least five men have been arrested inside the northwest Syria at the expense of intensifying U.S. for providing material assistance to ANF, the struggle against Assad.29 including Abdirahman Sheik Mohamud, a nat- One entity that did pose a direct threat to uralized U.S. citizen who was arrested in April the West was the Khorasan group, which was 2015 after returning from training in Syria and thought to comprise dozens of veterans of was planning to launch a terrorist attack on U.S. al-Qaeda’s operations in Afghanistan and Paki- soldiers based in Texas.22 stan.30 Al-Zawahiri had dispatched this cadre of In recent years, the al-Qaeda movement in operatives to Syria, where they were embedded Syria has undergone several name changes, al- with ANF and—despite al-Julani’s statement lying itself with various Islamist rebel groups. that ANF was not targeting the West—charged This has made the degree of direct threat posed with organizing terrorist attacks against West- outside of Syria’s borders harder to assess. ern targets. However, a series of U.S. air strikes In a May 2015 interview, al-Julani stated in 2014–2015 degraded Khorasan’s capacity to that al-Nusra’s intentions were purely local organize terrorist attacks. and that, “so as not to muddy the current war” Al-Qaeda’s presence and activities in Syria, in Syria, ANF was not planning to target the as well as the intent of those once aligned with West.23 Then, in July 2016, al-Nusra rebranded it, are sometimes opaque, most likely on pur- itself as Jabhat Fath Al Sham (JFS), and al-Ju- pose. Even if ofshoots of al-Qaeda are not cur- lani stated that it would have “no afliation to rently emphasizing their hostility to the U.S., any external entity,” a move that some regard- however, that will likely change if they succeed ed as a break from al-Qaeda and others regard- in further consolidating power in Syria. ed as a move to obscure its ties to al-Qaeda and The Sahel. Al-Qaeda in the Islamic reduce U.S. military pressure on the group.24 Maghreb (AQIM) “has an estimated 1,000
The Heritage Foundation | heritage.org/Military 293 fighters operating in the Sahel, including Al- also grabbed significant amounts of territory geria, northern Mali, southwest Libya, and Ni- in northern Mali in late 2012, implementing a geria,” and “is based in southern and eastern brutal version of sharia law, until a French mil- Algeria (including isolated parts of the Kaby- itary intervention helped to push them back. lie region), Burkina Faso, Cote D’Ivoire, Libya, AQIM continues to support and works northern Mali, Niger, and Tunisia.”31 alongside various jihadist groups in the region. AQIM’s roots lie in the Algerian civil war of In March 2017, the Sahara branch of AQIM the 1990s, when the Algerian government can- merged with three other al-Qaeda or al-Qaeda– celled the second round of elections following linked organizations based in the Sahel to form the victory of the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) the Group for Support of Islam and Muslims in the first round. The armed wing of the FIS, (JNIM), an organization that has pledged alle- the Armed Islamic Group (GIA), responded by giance to al-Qaeda emir Ayman al-Zawahiri.34 launching a series of attacks, executing those AQIM is not known to have explicitly tar- even suspected of working with the state. The geted the U.S. homeland in recent years, but group also attempted to implement sharia law it does threaten regional stability and U.S. al- in Algeria. lies in North Africa and Europe, where it has The GIA rapidly alienated regular Alge- gained supporters and operates extensive rians, and by the late 1990s, an ofshoot, the networks for the smuggling of arms, drugs, Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat and people. (GSPC), emerged. Its violence, somewhat less The Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham indiscriminate than the GIA’s, was focused on and Its Afliates. The Islamic State of Iraq security and military targets. Having failed to and al-Sham (ISIS) is an al-Qaeda splinter overthrow the Algerian state, the GSPC be- group that has outstripped its parent organi- gan to align itself with al-Qaeda, and Ayman zation in terms of its immediate threats to U.S. al-Zawahiri announced its integration into the national interests. al-Qaeda network in a September 2006 video. The Islamic State of Iraq (ISI), the pre- The GSPC subsequently took the AQIM name. cursor to ISIS and an al-Qaeda ofshoot, was AQIM has carried out a series of regional perceived by some Western policymakers as attacks and has focused on kidnapping West- having been strategically defeated following erners. Some of these hostages have been the U.S. “surge” of 2006–2007 in Iraq. However, killed,32 but more have been used to extort the group benefited from America’s efectively ransoms from Western governments.33 Like having withdrawn—both politically and mili- other al-Qaeda afliates, AQIM also took ad- tarily—from Iraq in the 2010–2011 period, as vantage of the power vacuums that emerged well as from the chaos in Syria where Bashar from the Arab Spring, particularly in Libya al-Assad responded to the Arab Spring protests where Islamist militias flourished. The weak with bloody persecution. central government was unable to tame frac- In both Iraq and Syria, ISI had space in tious militias, curb tribal and political clashes, which to operate and a large disafected pool or dampen rising tensions between Arabs and of individuals from which to recruit. In April Berbers in the West and Arabs and the Toubou 2013, ISI emir Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared tribe in the South. that the al-Nusra Front, the al-Qaeda afliate The September 11, 2012, attack on the U.S. operating in Syria, was merely a front for his diplomatic mission in Benghazi underscored operation and that a new organization was the extent to which Islamist extremism had being formed: the Islamic State of Iraq and flourished in the region. The radical Islamist al-Sham (ISIS). group that launched the attack, Ansar al-Sha- ISIS sought to establish an Islamic state ria, had links to AQIM and shared its violent governed by its interpretation of sharia law, ideology. AQIM and likeminded Islamist allies posing an existential threat to Christians,
294 2020 Index of U.S. Military Strength MAP 8 Territory Lost by ISIS At its peak, ISIS controlled large swaths of territory within Iraq and Syria. As of June 2019, it had lost control over all of these areas, but it remains a potent terrorist threat.
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