Counter Terrorist Trends and Analysis Volume 5, Issue 9 September 2013 Al Qaeda: Then and Now ROHAN GUNARATNA AND AVIV OREG Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula: Resilient and Adaptive ALEXANDER WELLS Islamic State of Iraq: Reaching into the Levant ANDREW MITZCAVITCH Al-Shabaab: A New Phase? SYED HUZAIFAH ALKAFF INTERNATIONAL CENTER FOR POLITICAL VIOLENCE AND TERRORISM RESEARCH S. RAJARATNAM SCHOOL OF INTERNATIONAL STUDIES A Graduate School of Nanyang Technological University 2 September 2013: Al Qaeda Then and Now In the 25 years since Al Qaeda came into being, Mitzcavitch examines Islamic State of Iraq and its one thing has become clear – whether as a involvement in the ongoing Syrian conflict, group, a network, or even a brand, it has been highlighting the important role played by steadfast in its purpose of realizing a borderless leadership struggles and revealing some insight Islamic state uniting Muslims across the globe. into the nature of the relationship that This fact is unlikely to change in the immediate Al Qaeda’s leadership has with its branches. future and those engaged in combating Al Qaeda This is reiterated in Alkaff’s article which looks at must remain as flexible and adaptive as their how the battle for supremacy within al-Shabaab enemy. One way to do so is to constantly map has affected its struggle to create an Islamic state Al Qaeda’s evolution. in Somalia and its position within the broader transnational jihadist movement. Both articles Gunaratna and Oreg examine key trends in also point to how Al Qaeda is unyielding in its Al Qaeda’s development since 9/11, focusing efforts to spread its reach, which is the in particular on how the threat posed by Al Qaeda central theme of this issue. has dissipated to become more localized. Their article also examines the impact of Al Qaeda’s EDITORIAL STAFF robust online presence and the death of founding leader Osama bin Laden before sketching out a Editor rough trajectory based on the changes underway Dr. Arabinda Acharya in Pakistan where the leadership is presently based. Associate Editor Manoj Harjani The dispersion and localization of the threat posed by Al Qaeda has meant that its For inclusion in the CTTA mailing list, associated groups or franchises have become please email your full name and the name of important targets for study. This issue looks at your organization with the subject three Al Qaeda brands – Al Qaeda in the Arabian “CTTA Subscription” to the following address: Peninsula (AQAP) based in Yemen, Islamic State [email protected] of Iraq based in Iraq as well as Syria, and al-Shabaab, based in Somalia. Wells focuses on The CTTA Editorial Team welcomes feedback the resilience of AQAP and shows that it remains and comments from its readers - please share capable of posing a credible threat to the west. your thoughts with us via email to In fact, AQAP is a microcosm of the broader [email protected] trends in Al Qaeda’s evolution, which include capitalizing on the instability generated by the The views presented in the articles are Arab Spring, making effective use of the Internet those of the authors and do not reflect to spread ideology and operational methodology or represent the views of the editors or the and creating safe havens through a mixture of organizations to which the editors and authors political participation and embedding into local are affiliated. populations and their struggles. Counter Terrorist Trends and Analysis, Volume 5, Issue 9, September 2013. 3 Al Qaeda: Then and Now Rohan Gunaratna and Aviv Oreg This article examines key trends in the development of Al Qaeda since 9/11 and looks at its future role within the transnational jihadist movement. "God willing, the end of America is imminent. in the wake of 9/11, including the Ghriba Its end is not dependent on my survival. Even if Synagogue bombing in April 2002, the October Osama is killed or survives, the awakening has 2002 bombing of the French tanker started, praise be to God. This was the point of Limburg and the November 2002 Mombasa the September 11, 2001 operation" bombings. (Statement by Osama Bin Laden, 27 December 2001). Global to Local Osama bin Laden transported the transnational The main source of the terrorist threat in the jihadist movement into a new era on present has shifted away from Al Qaeda to 11 September, 2001. With the 9/11 attacks, groups that are ideologically or operationally Al Qaeda peaked as a vanguard seeking to lead linked to it. The core of the transnational jihadist the transnational jihadist movement. The primary movement has been weakened; its numerical role of Al Qaeda after 9/11 was in sustaining the strength has eroded from 2000-3000 members at transnational jihadist movement with its ideology the time of 9/11 to less than 200 members who and operational methodology. Al Qaeda are mostly located on the Pakistan-Afghanistan nevertheless continued to carry out major attacks border. The shift away from Al Qaeda has meant Osama bin Laden (L) with Ayman al-Zawahiri, the current leader of Al Qaeda. Photo credit: Reuters http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2012/06/27/running-al-qaeda/ Counter Terrorist Trends and Analysis, Volume 5, Issue 9, September 2013. Al Qaeda 4 that the terrorist threat is now localized. Groups formally merged with Al Qaeda. Examples that adopted Al Qaeda's ideology of transnational include Al Qaeda in Indonesia and Al Qaeda in jihad and operated against western targets in the Malay Archipelago. their own vicinity – the “far” enemy – are now operating against their governments – the “near” Online Threat enemy. While the organizational structure of Al Qaeda The shifting center of gravity in the transnational may have undergone significant changes, what jihadist movement is related to a change in the has remained constant is its presence on the way linkages between local groups and Al Qaeda Internet. Al Qaeda’s online communications are structured. Traditionally, these linkages were platforms have been instrumental in propagating not institutional and relied instead on personal its ideology and indoctrinating individuals. This relations cultivated during mujahideen activity in forced governments to come to terms with the Afghanistan in the 1980s. For instance, 9/11 possibility that any person could become mastermind and senior Al Qaeda leader Khalid independently radicalized and sufficiently Sheikh Mohamed developed close relations motivated to mount a terrorist attack through the during the Afghanistan jihad in the 1980s with Internet. Online radicalization contributed to individuals who would eventually head attacks and plots such as those carried out by US Al Qaeda-linked groups in South and Southeast Army Major Nidal Malik Hasan, the Fort Hood Asia. They included Riduan Isamuddin (also shooter, Faisal Shahzad, who plotted to bomb known as Hambali; Jemaah Islamiyah), Khadaffy New York’s Times Square in 2010, and the Abubakar Janjalani (Abu Sayyaf Group) and Tsarnaev brothers, who bombed the Boston Hafiz Saeed (Lashkar-e-Taiba). Marathon in 2013. Through strong personal relations, Al Qaeda’s The Internet has to a large extent supplanted the leadership exercised a degree of influence that dawah (proselytizing/preaching) apparatus of could replace leaders, initiate splits and change Al Qaeda. This vast network consisted of imams the broader direction of the groups linked to it. Its (worship leaders) and religious clerics deployed leverage over the Islamic Movement of in mosques located in non-Muslim majority Uzbekistan (IMU), for example, contributed to countries in the west to promote Al Qaeda’s IMU abandoning its Uzbek orientation and ideology and to serve as points of contact. With adopting a more pan-Central Asian outlook greater emphasis on the disruption of the dawah influenced by Al Qaeda’s ideology of apparatus after 9/11, the Internet emerged as the transnational jihad. More recently, however, the main platform for logistical activities of the relationship between Al Qaeda and its associated transnational jihadist movement. Funds are groups has become more formal. In some cases, raised through hundreds of internet sites which local groups adopted a new identity reflective of also serve as information conduits for potential this relationship, such as Al Qaeda in the Islamic recruits. Some operational activities are also Maghreb (AQIM), which grew out of the Salafist conducted with the help of the Internet as Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC) in instructions and technical know-how are easily Algeria. This kind of regional “rebranding” has shared online. The Tsarnaev brothers who even spurred some groups to rename bombed the Boston Marathon, for instance, themselves in a similar fashion despite not being Counter Terrorist Trends and Analysis, Volume 5, Issue 9, September 2013. Al Qaeda 5 constructed the explosive device used with rule in the 1990s is recreated in the vacuum of instructions from Al Qaeda in the Arabian the withdrawal, it will affect the stability of not Peninsula’s online magazine Inspire. only Afghanistan, but of the region and beyond. There is thus an incentive for Afghanistan’s Al Qaeda after Bin Laden neighbors and regional partners to work closely with the US-led coalition to stabilize The neutralization of Osama Bin Laden has put Afghanistan post-2014. The failure of kinetic Al Qaeda and the ideology of the transnational responses involving the capture, neutralization jihadist movement at crossroads. Bin Laden and disruption of terrorists and their activities in tended to favor a balance between the teachings the Afghanistan context also necessitates a of his mentor, the Palestinian Islamic scholar reexamination of strategies that have been Abdullah ‘Azzam, and the demands of key employed. A full spectrum response that can constituent members such as the then Egyptian make the ground environment more hostile for Islamic Jihad leader Ayman al-Zawahiri.