Al Qaeda Incorporated: Terrorist franchise stronger than ever

Despite the death of Osama bin Laden and the capacity degradation of “Al Qaeda Central” in Pakistan, the terrorist franchise bin Laden helped establish is stronger now than it was on 9/11.

This unfortunate reality is succinctly captured by counterterrorism expert Leah Farrell, who provided a sobering assessment of Al Qaeda’s strength in a recent Foreign Affairs piece:

Today, it [Al Qaeda] has more members, greater geographic reach, and a level of ideological sophistication and influence it lacked ten years ago.

Over the past decade Al Qaeda has been able to export its cause and constitute major terrorist branches across the globe, especially in the Arabian Peninsula, the Horn of Africa, the Maghreb and Southeast Asia.

Impact of Bin Laden’s Death

Al Qaeda does not have a traditional pyramid-style organizational structure. It has decentralized command and control operations, and allows its subsidiaries to function autonomously. Farrell writes:

Because al Qaeda’s second-tier leadership manages most of the group’s interaction with its subsidiaries, the removal of either Zawahiri or bin Laden would not overly affect the unity among the organization’s core, branch, and franchises, nor would it impede communication among them.

Islamist militant expert Brynjar Lia asserted that bin Laden was never the primary reference point for most jihadists when it came to ideological and religious thought.

The most cited ideologues in jihadi literature are Salafist scholars such as Jordanian cleric Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi – who is virtually unheard of in the West.

Assuming bin Laden’s memory will play a decisive role in shaping Al Qaeda strategy for years to come confuses the jihadists’ celebration of martyrdom with the worship of dead men. As Lia wrote:

Unlike Shias, whose belief system includes a martyrology, Sunni jihadis have no official hierarchy for the dead, and they vehemently abhor the traditional Sufi practice of visiting the burial sites of holy men; this would be the sin of quburiyya, or grave worshiping.

On the face of it, then, the idea that bin Laden’s grave would somehow have become a memorial for radicals had his body not been dropped in the sea seems almost ludicrous.

Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP)

The Obama administration's top counterterrorism adviser, John Brennan, declared in December that Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) posed the greatest threat to American national security interests.

With over 300 militants based in Yemen, officials described AQAP as more “agile and aggressive” – evidenced by the fact it took them just months to plot the failed suicide attack aboard a Detroit-bound airliner on Christmas Day in 2009.

It has also been held responsible for a foiled plot to send two air freight packages containing bombs to the U.S. in October 2010.

The U.S. is especially concerned because Yemen is yet another country in the region experiencing the wrath of the “Arab Spring”.

The poorest country in the Arab world, its president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, warned the U.S. and Europe just yesterday that his departure could open the door for Al Qaeda to seize control.

Al Shabaab

Across the Gulf of Aden in the Horn of Africa another Al Qaeda affiliate has been the bane of Somalia called Al Shabaab, a group designated by the State Department as a Foreign Terrorist Organization in 2008.

The group claimed responsibility for bomb attacks in Uganda that killed 70 people in 2010, the synchronized nature of which suggested support from Al Qaeda.

According to the Global Post, when news broke of bin Laden's death some Shabaab combatants wore white as a sign of grief and its spokesman was quoted as saying:

"We shall redouble our jihad and we shall overpower our enemies. Osama is not the first martyr, may God rest his soul. We shall never divert from the path of Sheikh Osama and we shall continue the jihad till we taste the death our brother Osama faced, or achieve victory and rule the whole world.”

Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM)

On Saturday Ennahar Online reported that head of French intelligence, Bernard Squarcini, said Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) has "the means to move up a gear" because of revenue derived from ransoming foreign hostages in Mali, Niger and Algeria.

Led by Algerian militant Abdelmalek Droukdel, AQIM is a rebranding of the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC) and primarily operates in the vast desert region of northeastern Mauritania, and northern Mali and Niger.

Squarcini said in an interview with Le Monde that after partnering with Al Qaeda in 2006, AQIM has flourished from 100 to about 400 militants.

Jemaah Islamiyah

The co-founder of the Indonesian extremist group, Jemaah Islamiyah, recently predicted bin Laden's death will prompt a major disaster in America according to the New Zealand Herald.

The group was also designated a foreign terrorist entity by the U.S. State Department after suicide bombers killed 202 people in Bali in October, 2002.

Closely-aligned with Al Qaeda since the 90s, many analysts believe JI is primarily based in Indonesia and the Philippines, although recently a JI terrorist was arrested in Pakistan.

Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI)

Kenneth M. Pollack from the The Brookings Institution said Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) still continues to conduct lethal terrorist attacks.

Although AQI is just a shell of what it once was, Pollack does point out bin Laden himself was never going to be the key to the resurgence or demise of AQI, but believes the group’s fate will be tied to the country’s politics:

If, at some point, the Sunni community concludes that it will never be accorded their rightful place in Iraqi society and, especially, if they fear that Iraq’s Shi’i majority is determined to use its control of the government to oppress the Sunnis the same way that Saddam oppressed the Shi’ah during his reign, then the Sunnis may well revolt again, and will likely restore their alliance with al Qaeda in Iraq or any other radical Sunni terrorist group willing to fight with them against the Shi’ah.

Beyond the Grave

If anything, bin Laden’s death could be exploited by Al Qaeda franchise leaders, according to counterterrorism expert Matthew Levitt, because they can use it as a marketing tool: