TerrorismAl Qaeda leaders fleeing to North Africa

Reports from senior British military officials indicate that al Qaeda’s top leaders are moving out of Pakistan and into North Africa potentially in an attempt to avoid casualties from the U.S. drone campaign or as a broader shift in strategy.

One senior British official, speaking anonymously to the Guardian, said so many senior leaders have been killed by air strikes that “only a handful of key players” remain alive.

The official added that a “last push” in 2012 could likely destroy al Qaeda’s remaining senior leaders hiding out in Pakistan’s tribal regions.

Some officials fear that the remaining al Qaeda leaders could be making their way to North Africa as at least two fairly high level members have made their way to Libya, while others have been caught in transit.

“A group of very experienced figures from north Africa left camps in Afghanistan’s [north-eastern] Kunar province where they have been based for several years and travelled back across the Middle East,” said one official. “Some got stopped but a few got through.”

Speaking last month at a U.S. military base in Djibouti, Leon Panetta, the secretary of defense, said the military would shift its emphasis to dismantling al Qaeda in Africa and the Arabian Peninsula once it completes its mission in Pakistan.

Panetta said the American military would “track these guys wherever they go and make sure they have no place to hide.”

British and U.S. intelligence officials estimate that there are less than 100 “al Qaeda or al Qaeda-affiliated” militants left in Afghanistan and of that number only “a handful” are considered to pose a threat to western nations.

Officials consider al Qaeda as “effectively marginal” in influencing events in Pakistan and that local networks like the Haqqani family in northern Waziristan are the main actors.

It is presently uncertain whether key al Qaeda figures in Pakistan were fleeing to North Africa out of concerns for safety or as part of a broader shift in strategy to exploit the instability of the region.

Jason Burke of the Guardian reported, “It is unclear whether the moves from West Asia to North Africa are prompted by a desire for greater security — which seems unlikely as NATO forces begin to withdraw from Afghanistan — or part of a strategic attempt to exploit the aftermath of the Arab Spring.”

“They may even be trying to shift the center of gravity of al Qaeda’s effort back to the homelands of the vast majority of its members,” he added.

Jerome Spinoza, the head of the French Ministry of Defense’s Africa bureau, said following the political upheaval from the Arab Spring movements, al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) has gained strength from the chaos.

According to Spinoza, the events of the past year have allowed AQIM to spread its influence south into Algeria, creating the prospect of transcontinental alliances with terrorist groups like al Shabaab in Somalia and the Boko Haram Islamist militants in northern Nigeria.

With several nascent democracies with fragile political institutions, an AQIM expansion could dramatically influence events in the region. 

In the meantime, until more intelligence emerges, officials say it is still too early to determine what al Qaeda’s next iteration will be.

“We are waiting to see what a new al-Qaida might look like,” an anonymous official said.