By Scott Stewart
Editor's Note: The following is the second installment of a series examining how the global jihadist movement evolved in 2014.
Last week, we published the first part of a series detailing the current status of the jihadist movement. That section noted how the split between al Qaeda and the Islamic State had divided and weakened the jihadist movement. As if on cue, the Islamic Sate released the sixth edition of its Dabiq Magazine on Dec. 29 and laid out a vivid chronicle of that schism. The magazine included articles containing stinging condemnation of al Qaeda's core leaders, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and the Afghan Taliban. It also attempted to dissuade wealthy donors from providing support to al Qaeda.
For some time, rumors of efforts to reconcile the two sides have persisted. After the pointed, public and personal attacks in Dabiq, this seems increasingly unlikely. If anything, the attacks can be expected to provoke a heated response from those they targeted in the al Qaeda core and al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, which has been relatively measured in its public criticism of the Islamic State so far.
Having discussed the new morphology of the jihadist movement last week, it is now time to turn our attention to the current state of the al Qaeda core.
A Very Weak Core
The al Qaeda core has been weakened to the point of military irrelevance, and its ideological clout has dwindled substantially. The fact that the Islamic State's leaders felt confident enough to defy the orders of al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, publicly break away from the group and now mock him publicly is a clear reflection of the core's organizational irrelevance to the rest of the jihadist movement. If al-Zawahiri and the other core leaders were killed or arrested, the broader jihadist movement would hardly be affected.
The al Qaeda core's current irrelevance, however, is not necessarily permanent. In the past we have seen jihadist groups rebound and regain strength after experiencing substantial losses on the battlefield. The United States has employed the full force of its counterterrorism tools against the al Qaeda core for more than 13 years now, but if Washington were to reduce that pressure, and if the al Qaeda leadership were able to find some space in which to operate, it is possible that the group could begin to regain strength.
The al Qaeda core sent a group of representatives known as the Khorasan group to work with Jabhat al-Nusra around Aleppo in Syria; this could have been an effort to find such operational space. U.S. airstrikes, Syrian regime activity and attacks by the Islamic State and other Syrian rebel groups have severely constrained the Khorasan group's operational capabilities. Based on this outcome, it is unlikely that the remainder of the al Qaeda core leadership would depart from their sanctuaries along the Afghan-Pakistani border to relocate to such a precarious location.
The insular al-Zawahiri continues to constrain the core group's regeneration. He lacks the charisma and larger-than-life presence of Osama bin Laden — or even the Islamic State's Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Even when leading his own group, the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, al-Zawahiri was an ineffective leader. The group languished, then split before al-Zawahiri and his loyalists were absorbed into al Qaeda. Given space and opportunity, it is possible that a more effective al Qaeda leader could emerge in place of al-Zawahiri. This has not happened yet, however, and with the increasing momentum of the Islamic State it appears that the al Qaeda core will continue to decline.
For many years now, al Qaeda has issued threats of impending attacks that it claims will surpass 9/11, but these have not materialized. Instead, the main threat from the jihadist movement has shifted from attacks originating from the al Qaeda core to ones coming primarily from franchise groups and grassroots militants. As early as January 2006, we assessed that the al Qaeda core had lost its ability to pose a strategic threat to the United States homeland.
Measuring Accomplishments
When we look at the al Qaeda core's accomplishments in relation to its goals of establishing emirates and eventually re-establishing the caliphate, the group has clearly failed. In fact, the 9/11 al Qaeda attacks caused the United States to invade Afghanistan and overthrow the one jihadist emirate that existed at that time. While the Islamic State has declared a caliphate in Iraq and Syria, that polity remains at war with al Qaeda's franchise in the region and at odds with al Qaeda ideologically. This means that following 25 years of armed struggle, the al Qaeda core is no closer to achieving its objectives than when it began.
In terms of insurgent theory, the al Qaeda core's leaders held a "focoist" view, meaning they believed they could act as a global vanguard and employ violence to establish the conditions necessary for a global uprising in the Muslim world. While some groups and individuals have heeded al Qaeda's call to battle, their actions have been far from a global uprising. Indeed, most of the groups we refer to as al Qaeda franchises were pre-existing Islamist or jihadist organizations that have simply assumed al Qaeda's name. As discussed last week, the Islamic State and several factions of other al Qaeda franchise groups have defected from al Qaeda's orbit, leaving the al Qaeda portion of the global jihadist movement considerably weaker than it was at this time last year.
On the terrorism front, we have seen al Qaeda's efforts devolve into early al Qaeda or even pre-al Qaeda operational models. The group has not been able to send highly trained facilitators to mobilize and equip local cells as we saw in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and the 1998 East Africa embassy bombings. Indeed, it has not even been able to deploy professional teams of skilled operators like it did for the 9/11 attacks. Instead, the al Qaeda core has been reduced to little more than a propaganda organization operating on the ideological level while franchise groups and grassroots jihadists have taken the lead in the physical struggle.
The al Qaeda regional franchise groups have been able to adopt hierarchical structures in their areas of operation but have been largely unable to develop the ability to project power far outside their core areas. Furthermore, many of the franchise groups have not sought to conduct transnational attacks due to lack of capability or a simple lack of interest. Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb initially adopted a targeting philosophy similar to that of the al Qaeda core, but its large suicide bombings inside Algeria provoked a backlash from the more nationalist elements of the organization, and it soon reverted back to focusing on targets more like the ones the group had previously attacked when it was known as the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat.
Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, for its part, has sought to conduct regional attacks like the assassination attempt against Saudi Prince Mohammed bin Nayef and transnational attacks such as the Christmas Day 2009 underwear bomb attack. The group, however, has been forced to conduct such attacks by dispatching bombers from its own base of operations in Yemen rather than by sending operatives to Saudi Arabia and the West to plan and execute attacks from within the targeted countries. Even then, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula has not conducted a regional or transnational attack since the failed November 2010 cargo plane attempt. This long-term lack of success in attacking the West has resulted in al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and the al Qaeda core's calling for grassroots jihadists to adopt a leaderless resistance model.
Although badly damaged, al Qaeda has thus far managed to survive the focused and prolonged assault that was intended to destroy it. This is the primary goal of any organization pursuing a long war strategy, and, as previously mentioned, if pressure on the al Qaeda core were eased, it is possible the group could recover some of its pre-9/11 power. However, the group will have to deal with other challenges before it can resume its former position as the vanguard of the global jihadist movement.
Al-Baghdadi and the Islamic State have become more powerful and influential than al-Zawahiri and the al Qaeda leadership. The Islamic State's claim to leadership of the global jihadist movement is bolstered by its successes on the battlefield and the fact that it has established a large, physical Islamic polity in the heart of the Middle East.
When combined with its attacks on al Qaeda's ideology and operational philosophy, the Islamic State's more virulent and extreme form of jihadism also poses an existential threat to al Qaeda's ability to retain its current adherents, recruit new members and solicit funds from wealthy donors. These two factors, plus repeated attacks by Muslim religious leaders against the theology of jihadism, may ultimately prove more dangerous to the al Qaeda core than the U.S.-led campaign against the group.
Jihadism in 2014: Taking Stock of the al Qaeda Core is republished with permission of Stratfor.
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