12 METRO Thursday, April 11, 2013

METRO

Bin Ladens terror dream is living on

T
It is almost two years since the death of Osama bin Laden but what is the current state of the terror group he formed? GRAEME GREEN takes a closer look at al-Qaedas new plan of attack.
threat? Al-Qaeda has declined in size but not in influence, said Rohan Gunaratna, head of the International Centre for Political Violence and Terrorism Research. Although its numerical strength has depleted, its ability to shape and influence like-minded groups from Africa to the Middle East and Asia has increased. Today, in place of one al-Qaeda led by Osama bin Laden, there are 30 groups embracing al-Qaeda ideology and methodology. And the structure of the terrorist group has changed, according to Raffaello Pantucci, senior research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute. Al-Qaeda is in a complex state. Its fragmented into a series of grouplets that all demonstrate some level of connectivity. However, they tend to be operating to primarily localised agendas. This is in contrast to the period around 9/11 when it was a much more coherent and structured entity with a core leadership and lots of units scattered around the world conducting different tasks. What is left of al-Qaeda core is based primarily in Pakistans law-

in focus

May 2, 2012
Osama bin Laden is killed

HE death of Osama bin Laden was, for some, a full stop. Americas revenge for the 9/11 attacks and the end of the al-Qaeda story. But since bin Laden was assassinated in May 2011, the name of al-Qaeda the group bin Laden founded has rarely been out of the news throughout the world. Al-Qaeda has recently been connected to bomb attacks in Iraq, killings and conflicts in Mali, clashes in Yemen and attacks and kidnappings in Afghanistan. So what state is al-Qaeda currently in? How has the organisation changed since the so-called war on terror of the Bush and Blair era? And does it still pose a significant

less provinces, with likely some overspill into Afghanistan and possibly Iran. Other groups with varying degrees of links to al-Qaedas core can be found in the Sahel region Mali, for the most part, parts of Libya too and as far down as Nigeria. Over in Somalia, al-Shabaab a group that pledged allegiance to al-Qaeda core over a year ago is still operational. Across the water in Yemen, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula continues to pose a threat. The most active and bloody group is to be found in Iraq, where the Islamic State of Iraq (al-Qaeda in Iraq) is carrying out regular ter-

2,997

people were killed in the 9/11 attacks in the US in 2001

56

people (52 civil civilians d4b b ) and bombers were killed in the 7/7 bombings in London in 2005

191

Source: Source United Nati Na

people were killed in the Madrid train bombings in 2004

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rorist attacks and has links across the border in Syria. The fragmentation and dispersal is caused, in part, by western military action in al-Qaedas original base regions, said Dr Rashmi Singh, a lecturer in terrorism studies at the UniI RAQ versity of St Andrews. T h i s YEMEN fragmentation has SOMALIA continued and even are among am the countries acceleratwhere al-Qaeda is most ed after bin a active today Ladens targeted assas-

Graphic by Sophie Harwin

@sophiemetronews

Al-Qaedas strength has diminished from 3,000 to 200 members since 9/11

translates as the base or the foundation

al-Qaeda

sination, she added. However, we must remember that the core of bin Ladens vision for al-Qaeda as a movement was the spread of the alQaeda ideology of global jihad against both near and far enemies. In this, both the fragmentation and his own death have served to accelerate the spread of this ideology.

In March 2013 in Iraq:

450
including:

More than people were killed in terror attacks

229
civilians

1,100
were injured

227 300

members of the Iraqi security forces were killed

ions

more members were injured

Ayman al-Zawahiri was named as al-Qaedas new leader after the death of Osama bin Laden. Some believe Zawahiri was the brains behind the 9/11 attacks. Zawahiri has a $25m (16million) bounty on his head from the FBI

HE continuing terror attacks suggest that while al-Qaeda may not be capable of spectacular attacks such as 9/11 and Madrid in the west, they continue to pose a credible threat to security across the globe, according to Dr Singh. Gregory Johnsen is a Yemen analyst and author of The Last Refuge. Yemen is a deeply divided country at the moment and al-Qaeda is attempting to take advantage of that by building up its infrastructure, attempting to recruit more fighters and planning future attacks, he said. Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, the group based in Yemen, absolutely poses a threat to the west. This group has shown that it has both the capacity and the determination to carry out strikes against the US and UK from its hideouts in Yemen. There are worrying signs in African

countries, too, including Somalia, says James Fergusson, journalist and author of The Worlds Most Dangerous Place. Gen Carter Ham of the Africa Command has warned more than once that al-Qaeda franchises across the continent could link up in terms of sharing arms and training, he said. Whether this will really happen is still moot but the threat of an al-Qaeda-inspired sub-Saharan insurgency, from Somalia in the east to Mali in the west, must be taken seriously. Al-Qaeda has become adept at exploiting the worlds ungoverned spaces, of which there are many in the modern world. When governments fail their populations in terms of jobs, housing, security, the chance of a decent future those populations are apt to look for alternatives, which, in many Islamic countries, may well mean Islamism. US and British forces are also accused of exacerbating the problem with the invasion of Iraq and other military actions. There was neglect on the part of the west to counter the ideology of al-Qaeda and their associated groups, said Prof Gunaratna. In response to the overwhelming lethal operational strategy adopted by the west, the threat of terrorism and its precursor, ideological extremism, has grown even greater.