Security Al-Qaeda since the Death of Bin Laden Jean-Pierre Filiu a Problematic Succession for Central Professor al-Qaeda Panorama Sciences Po (Paris Institute of Political Studies), Paris The (primarily digital) documents seized in Abbot- tabad prove that bin Laden, far from being a sym- bolic figure, continued to supervise the planning of al-Qaeda terrorism until his death. The rigorous 2012 On 21 January 2011, Osama bin Laden aired a security mechanism that had protected him for so particularly threatening message directed against long entailed that Ayman al-Zawahiri, though his Med. France, demanding it immediately withdraw its tried deputy, was not involved in all of “Emir” bin troops from Afghanistan. The aggressiveness of Laden’s decisions (“emir” in this case meaning this message is all the more remarkable, consider- “commander”). Moreover, the founder of al-Qaeda ing that the leader of al-Qaeda generally reserved remained the undisputed leader, since any mem- such violence for a demonised “America” accused bership, whether individual or collective, involved 124 of all the ills of Islam. In any case, bin Laden did not an unconditional oath of allegiance to “Sheikh have a word to say on the fall of President Ben Ali, Osama.” overthrown in Tunisia a week earlier by a popular To facilitate this transition, central al-Qaeda creat- uprising in which Islamists played no role. There ed an unprecedented structure, the General Com- was a staggering discrepancy between the al-Qae- mand, which made bin Laden’s death official and da leader’s discourse, hammering home demands validated its own existence through this proclama- regarding the Indian subcontinent, and the reality of tion (before this, there was only the Consultative the Arab world, which had entered a revolutionary Council at the summit of al-Qaeda, a poorly named phase of historical significance. institution since it functioned as the organisation’s No-one knew at the time that this speech was to be executive body). Despite this clever manoeuvre, it bin Laden’s last. On the night of the 1st to the 2nd was not until 16 June 2011 that the General Com- May 2011, the leader of al-Qaeda was killed by an mand announced that Ayman al-Zawahiri was in- American commando unit after storming his hide- deed the new leader of al-Qaeda. Even taking into out in Abbottabad, northern Pakistan. The disap- account the heavy constraints of being a clandes- pearance of the most wanted person on the planet tine organisation, this month-and-a-half-long delay long mobilised the Western media, whereas it was demonstrates that the promotion of al-Qaeda’s quickly displaced in the Arab media by other, more second-in-line to the position of leader raised many pressing developments. As a young Tunisian stated issues. at the time: “Ben Ali, bin Laden, they’re history.” In fact, only the Yemeni branch of al-Qaeda has And the very survival of the organisation founded by pledged allegiance to al-Zawahiri, and this via the bin Laden in 1988 now emerges as an acute issue voice of its own “emir,” Nasser al-Wuhayshi, on 26 to his successor at the head of central al-Qaeda. July 2011. Al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) and al-Qaeda in The situation of the three branches of al-Qaeda, in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) have limited themselves Iraq, Yemen and the “Islamic Maghreb,” is, howev- to singing the praises of al-Zawahiri through the in- er, quite varied. tervention of intermediate officers. These statements of deference are a far cry from the formal oaths re- Saleh and his regime. It accused the regime of con- quired by Jihadi protocol. Al-Zawahiri has thus lost niving laxness towards AQAP’s takeover of cities in the direct authority exercised by bin Laden over AQI the southern province of Abyan. This process of du- since 2004 and over AQIM since 2007. This con- plicity was accentuated with AQAP’s occupation of traction of al-Qaeda around its first circle and its the town of Radda, 170 km south of Sana’a, on 14 Yemeni branch is not compensated by the ostenta- January 2012. Shortly before this, Saleh had signed tious rallying of the Pakistani Talibans (Tehrik e-Tali- an agreement to step down, and protesters de- ban Pakistan/TTP) around al-Zawahiri, nor by that of nounced him for postponing its application in the the Somali al-Shabaab, for these two movements are name of the struggle against AQAP. However, the too anchored in their respective arenas to fully inte- Yemeni President eventually did agree to step down, grate global Jihad. The same can be said of the group leaving his allies at the head of the intelligence ser- recently emerging in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, Ansar vices. The paradox is that AQAP, aggrandised al-Jihad (Partisans of Jihad), whose emphatic decla- through its media-hyped confrontation with the ration of allegiance to al-Zawahiri on 23 January Saleh regime, ranks in reality as but a second-rate 2012 is part of an active media campaign. militia in revolutionary Yemen. Panorama al-Qaeda in the arabian Peninsula and the the anti-Shiite obsession of al-Qaeda Yemeni Formula in Iraq 2012 Since 2009, the Yemeni branch of al-Qaeda amal- In June 2006, bin Laden and al-Zawahiri had ap- Med. gamates the Saudi networks that have chosen to pointed an Egyptian jihadi, Abu Hamza al-Muhajer, retire towards the South to escape the repression of as the head of al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), but he was the Arabian kingdom. Called al-Qaeda in the Arabi- killed in April 2010 by the Iraqi army. The proclaimed an Peninsula (AQAP), it embraced a revolutionary “caliph” of the “Islamic State of Iraq,” Abu Omar al- discourse against President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who Baghdadi, of Iraqi nationality, was killed in the same had been in power in Sana’a since 1978 and at the raid. Since then, AQI has distanced itself from cen- 125 head of a unified Yemen since 1990. Confronted tral al-Qaeda to return to local issues: for it, the con- with unprecedented protest beginning in February flict with the Administration of Shiite Prime Minister 2011, the Yemeni dictator did not cease to raise the Nouri al-Maliki, as well as with the so-called “Awak- spectre of al-Qaeda to justify his remaining in power. ening” (Sahwa) Sunni militias, who are United States allies, is implacable. This purely Iraqi orientation of AQI is assumed by its “emir,” Ibrahim Awwad Ibra- The disappearance him Ali (also known as Abu Doha or Abu Bakr al- of the most wanted person Husseini al-Baghdadi). on the planet long mobilised the Western media, whereas it was The succession of quickly displaced in the Arab bin Laden thus requires a media by other, more pressing delicate process of renewal of developments allegiance, which is proving uneven and complex Thus, on 30 September 2011, he facilitated a fatal American raid against Anwar al-Awlaki, an Ameri- can-Yemeni imam highly active in AQAP propagan- The AQI terror, far from subsiding with the per- da. Washington appreciated this move all the more spective of American retreat, intensified as of Au- since al-Awlaki had been suspected of carrying out gust 2011, with two waves of particularly bloody or planning different attacks on US territory. attacks: on 22 December 2011 (63 dead) and 5 The Yemeni opposition, on the other hand, de- January 2012 (73 dead). The departure of the US nounced the manipulation of the Jihad menace by contingent, taking place as planned at the end of 2011, leaves the question of Sunni participation in nals then sold by various traffickers throughout Iraqi power open, with an increasingly confessional the region. The exact nature of the surface-to-air approach by Prime Minister Maliki to the benefit of missiles smuggled to the Saharan katibas is still his own Shiite party. It is in this context of commu- the object of debate by specialised analysts, but it nity polarisation that AQI aims to become the armed has been confirmed that a new generation explo- branch of Sunni dissent. Although the AQI Emir sive device reached the north Algerian jihadi cells. may pay tribute to bin Laden or al-Zawahiri, he can This explosive was used on 26 August 2011 in the now only do so as the independent head of the spectacular suicide bombing against the Cherchell most dreaded militia in Iraq. Military Academy (at least 11 dead). The Algerian army, thus challenged, takes up the offensive again (namely, with the death by ambush of the the divisions of the “Islamic Maghreb” AQIM treasurer, Adel Bourai, on 28 September 2011), whereas the jihadi chiefs were tried in ab- Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) was sentia one after another in Algeria. Panorama constituted when Abdelmalek Droukdal’s Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC) be- came part of al-Qaeda in 2007. In early 2011, its The competition between the members numbered some five hundred jihadis, kidnappers increased in autumn half of whom are part of the guerrilla of Kabylia 2011, reaching areas previously 2012 led by Droukdal, while the rest live as nomads in the Sahara region, in the katiba (battalion) led by untouched by this scourge Med. Mokhtar Belmokhtar (in the west) or the one headed by Abdelhamid Abou Zeid (in the east), It is in the Sahel that the AQIM threat seems most both officially subordinate to Droukdal. Despite worrisome, for the flight of Gaddafi’s African aux- its grandiloquent statements, AQIM remained iliary forces has attracted a certain number of entirely passive during the Tunisian revolution.