Al-Qaeda Is Stronger Today than It Was on 9/11

After al-Qaeda operatives flew planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001, killing 2,977 people, bin Laden got his wish. The United States invaded Afghanistan on Oct. 7, 2001. Eighteen months later, it invaded Iraq.

How al-Qaeda grew
Islamic groups and individual extremists flocked to bin Laden’s cause after 9/11. Al-Qaeda became the nucleus of a global violent Islamist movement, with affiliates across the Middle East and Africa swearing their allegiance.

At the same time, the war in Afghanistan was decimating al-Qaeda’s core operations.

Leaders were killed by drone strikes or driven into hiding. The Bush administration claimed killing 75% of al-Qaeda leadership. Bin Laden and other al-Qaeda leaders sought refuge in places like the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan and Yemen – remote areas outside the easy reach of U.S. ground forces.

To evade U.S. detection, al-Qaeda had to limit communication between its newly decentralized fronts. That meant the group’s global leadership had to have autonomy to operate relatively independently.

Bin Laden expected al-Qaeda affiliates to adhere to certain core values, strategies and, of course, pursue the objective of establishing an Islamic caliphate.

But newly minted regional al-Qaeda leaders – people like Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in Iraq, Ahmed Abdi Godane in Somalia and Nasir al-Wuhayshi in Yemen – enjoyed enough autonomy to pursue their own agendas in these unstable places.

Al-Qaeda Iraq, al-Shabaab and al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, as their groups came to be known, embedded themselves in the local political scene. They began building credibility, establishing alliances and recruiting fighters.

By 2015, when bin Laden was killed, al-Qaeda was a network of regional caliphates. Today its territory spans from Afghanistan and Pakistan to North Africa, the Middle East and beyond.

Manipulation of a sectarian divide
Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, headquartered in Yemen, is a case study in how the group now wields its power more locally.

Yemen has been in civil war since 2015, when a Houthi Shiite armed group declared war against the country’s Sunni Muslim government.

Although this conflict appears sectarian in nature, the Yemen scholar Marieke Brandt argues it is largely about political power – namely, the Yemeni government’s longstanding neglect of the Houthi minority, who come from northern Yemen.

Nonetheless, al-Qaeda – a Sunni terror group – saw political opportunity in Yemen’s civil war.

The group has played up religious divisions in the civil war. Using its Arabic magazine, martyrdom videos, poetry and popular songs, al-Qaeda has endeared itself to the local Sunni people and Yemen’s powerful Sunni tribal leaders. It has also ingratiated itself to Yemen’s Saudi Arabia-backed government and fought alongside Sunni tribal militias to battle the Houthi incursion.

The strategy has been remarkably effective for al-Qaeda.

Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula had hundreds of fighters at its founding in 2009. It now has about 7,000 fighters in Yemen, most of them Sunnis recruited from territory the Houthis have attempted to take over.

It has planted landmines and bombs across Yemen that have killed hundreds, held journalists hostage and, in 2015, orchestrated the massacre at the offices of the Charlie Hebdo newspaper in Paris.

The U.S. government considers al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula to be the most sophisticated and threatening branch of al-Qaeda.

Adapt the tactic, keep the mission
In adapting its methods to Yemeni culture, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula has made some missteps.

In 2011, the group attempted to impose extremely strict Islamic rule over two areas it controlled in south Yemen. Al-Qaeda instituted rigid punishments of the sort common in Afghanistan, such as cutting off the hands of a thief and banning the chewed stimulant plant called khat.

These extreme rules got al-Qaeda run out of town by Sunni tribal militias.

The next time al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula asserted its political power over parts of Yemen left ungoverned in the chaos of civil war, in 2015, it did not rule directly over these territories. Rather, it allowed a local council to govern according their own norms and customs. And it kept the khat market open.

Al-Qaeda also paid for long-neglected public services like schools, water and electricity – effectively becoming the state.

According to the International Crisis Group, a humanitarian organization, this softer stance helped garner the acceptance of the local population. That, in turn, ensured al-Qaeda could keep using Yemen as a regional headquarters.

A similar shift from global to local has occurred in al-Qaeda affiliates in Somalia, Iraq and Syria.

Al-Qaeda is no longer a hierarchical organization taking orders from its famous, charismatic leader, as it was on 9/11.

But it is stronger and more resilient than it was under bin Laden. And the “war on terror” has helped, not hurt it.

Christian Taylor is Doctoral Student, George Mason University. This article is published courtesy of The Conversation.