{"id":9989,"date":"2017-09-16T18:51:25","date_gmt":"2017-09-16T18:51:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=9989"},"modified":"2017-09-16T18:51:56","modified_gmt":"2017-09-16T18:51:56","slug":"why-al-qaida-is-still-strong-16-years-after-911","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/why-al-qaida-is-still-strong-16-years-after-911\/","title":{"rendered":"Why al-Qaida is still strong 16 years after 9\/11"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tricia Bacon<\/a>, American University<\/a><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Sixteen years ago, on September 11, 2001, al-Qaida conducted the most destructive terrorist attack in history. <\/p>\n

An unprecedented onslaught from the U.S. followed. One-third of al-Qaida\u2019s leadership<\/a> was killed or captured in the following year. The group lost its safe haven in Afghanistan<\/a>, including its extensive training<\/a> infrastructure there. Its surviving members were on the run or in hiding. Though it took nearly 10 years, the U.S. succeeded in killing<\/a> al-Qaida\u2019s founding leader, Osama bin Laden. Since 2014, al-Qaida has been overshadowed<\/a> by its former ally al-Qaida in Iraq, now calling itself the Islamic State.<\/p>\n

In other words, al-Qaida should not have survived the 16 years since 9\/11. <\/p>\n

So why has it?<\/p>\n

The ties that bind<\/h2>\n
\n \"\"<\/a>
\n A fighter from the al-Qaida-linked Nusra Front holds his group flag in front of the governor building in Idlib province, north Syria.<\/span>
\n Twitter\/via AP<\/a><\/span>
\n <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Much of the credit goes to al-Qaida\u2019s extraordinary ability to both form alliances and sustain them over time and under pressure.<\/p>\n

In my forthcoming book \u201cAlliances for Terror,\u201d I examine why a small number of groups, such as al-Qaida and IS, emerge as desirable partners and succeed at developing alliance networks. <\/p>\n

Understanding terrorist alliances is critical because terrorist organizations with allies are more lethal<\/a>, survive longer<\/a> and are more apt to seek weapons of mass destruction<\/a>. Though terrorist partnerships face numerous hurdles<\/a> and severing al-Qaida\u2019s alliances has been a U.S. objective for over a decade<\/a>, the fact is that these counterterrorism efforts have failed.<\/p>\n

It was allies that enabled al-Qaida to survive the immediate aftermath of 9\/11. The Afghan Taliban stood by al-Qaida after the attack, refusing to surrender bin Laden<\/a> and thereby precipitating the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan. Fleeing, al-Qaida was able to turn to allies in Pakistan to hide its operatives and punish the Pakistani government for capitulating to U.S. pressure to crackdown on the group.<\/p>\n

It was alliances that helped al-Qaida continue to terrorize. In October 2002, for example, al-Qaida\u2019s ally in Southeast Asia, Jemaah Islamiyah, struck a bar and a nightclub in Bali<\/a>, killing more than 200 and injuring more than 200 more, to brutally commemorate the first anniversary of 9\/11.<\/p>\n

And it was alliances that allowed al-Qaida to project viability. With the \u201cprestige\u201d that came with conducting 9\/11, al-Qaida was able to forge more of them and indeed create affiliate alliances in which partners adopted its name and pledged allegiance to bin Laden.<\/p>\n

Al-Qaida\u2019s first and most notorious affiliate alliance, al-Qaida in Iraq,<\/a> was formed in 2004 with Jordanian jihadist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Using the standing he accrued through his role in the insurgency in Iraq, Zarqawi then helped al-Qaida acquire its second affiliate in 2006, al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb<\/a>. Then, in 2009, al-Qaida designated its branch in Yemen and Saudi Arabia as al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula<\/a>. Its alliances spanned the Middle East and helped it to project power, despite the U.S. war on terrorism. <\/p>\n

A lower profile<\/h2>\n

While al-Qaida still sought affiliates, by 2010, it modified how its alliances work. <\/p>\n

Al-Qaida forged an alliance with al-Shabaab in Somalia, but did not publicly announce it or ask al-Shabaab to change its name. Bin Laden justified<\/a> to al-Shabaab\u2019s leader the shift to a less visible form of alliance as a way to prevent an increase in counterterrorism pressure or a loss of funds from the Arabian Peninsula. He privately expressed concerns<\/a> that al-Qaida\u2019s name \u201creduces the feeling of Muslims that we belong to them, and allows the enemies to claim deceptively that they are not at war with Islam.\u201d Bin Laden\u2019s deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, saw the move as bin Laden capitulating to members of al-Qaida who worried about \u201cinflating the size and the growth of al-Qaida<\/a>.\u201d After bin Laden\u2019s death, Zawahiri publicly announced<\/a> al-Qaida\u2019s alliance with al-Shabaab, though al-Shabaab still did not adopt al-Qaida\u2019s name.<\/p>\n

Though al-Qaida\u2019s alliance arrangements have varied, these relationships have helped it to survive the loss of its founding leader in 2011 and the ascent of a far less capable leader. Zawahiri\u2019s<\/a> rise to the helm of the group was the consequence of an alliance, specifically between his original Egyptian group, al-Jihad, and al-Qaida. The alliance culminated in a merger in 2001, with Zawahiri becoming bin Laden\u2019s deputy and successor.<\/p>\n

However, Zawahiri lacks bin Laden\u2019s cachet or diplomatic savvy. He is a better deputy than a leader. His poor handling<\/a> of the strife between jihadist group al-Nusra in Syria and its parent organization, the Islamic State in Iraq (previously al-Qaida in Iraq and now IS), led to the alliance rupture<\/a> between al-Qaida and its affiliate in Iraq.<\/p>\n

Though al-Qaida had an acrimonious break with IS, it gained al-Nusra as an affiliate in the central conflict in the Sunni jihadist movement: Syria. As was the case with al-Shabaab, this alliance with al-Nusra did not include a rebranding and was initially kept secret. In addition, al-Nusra subsequently changed its name, an effort to gain more legitimacy within the conflict in Syria by publicly distancing<\/a> itself from al-Qaida, though seemingly with al-Qaida\u2019s consent<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Al-Qaida has not acquired another affiliate since the alliance rupture and rise of IS as a rival in 2014. It organized existing members into a new branch, al-Qaida in the Indian subcontinent<\/a>, that year. The branch in South Asia reflected al-Qaida\u2019s success at expanding beyond its predominantly Arab base, particularly in Pakistan<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Critically, with the exception of IS, al-Qaida\u2019s alliances have been resilient over time. This is true despite ample reasons for its partners to abandon ties, such as the heightened counterterrorism pressure that comes with affiliation to al-Qaida; the death of its charismatic leader; and the Islamic State\u2019s efforts to court<\/a> al-Qaida allies. Even the Afghan Taliban remains unwilling to sever ties, even though doing so would eliminate one of the major reasons that the United States will not withdraw from the \u201cforever war\u201d in Afghanistan. <\/p>\n

\"TheThere is a window now for the U.S. to damage al-Qaida\u2019s alliances: It has a weak leader and major rival. But that window may be closing as the Islamic State\u2019s so-called caliphate crumbles<\/a> and al-Qaida grooms bin Laden\u2019s son<\/a> as its future leader.<\/p>\n

Tricia Bacon<\/a>, Assistant Professor of Justice, Law & Criminology, American University<\/a><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

This article was originally published on The Conversation<\/a>. Read the original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tricia Bacon, American University Sixteen years ago, on September 11, 2001, al-Qaida conducted the most destructive terrorist attack in history. An unprecedented onslaught from the U.S. followed. One-third of al-Qaida\u2019s leadership was killed or captured in the following year. The group lost its safe haven in Afghanistan, including its extensive training infrastructure there. Its surviving […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":9990,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[3148,3146,3147,3145,1985,1989,661],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9989"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9989"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9989\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9991,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9989\/revisions\/9991"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9990"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9989"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9989"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9989"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}