Al Qaeda remains a threat despite IS making more headlines, warn experts

DUBAI — Five years after the killing of Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden, the terror network he founded is far from dead, even if it has suffered a series of setbacks.

Replaced as the pre-eminent global jihadist power by Islamic State (IS), Al Qaeda nonetheless remains a potent force and dangerous threat, experts say.

With last year’s Charlie Hebdo massacre in Paris and a wave of shootings in West Africa, Al Qaeda has shown it can still carry out its trademark attacks.

And in Syria and Yemen its militants have seized on chaos to take control of significant territory, even presenting themselves as an alternative to the brutality of IS rule.

By the time United States special forces killed Bin Laden in Pakistan on May 2, 2011, during a raid on a three-storey compound, the group he founded in the late 1980s had been badly damaged, with many of its militants and leaders killed or captured in the US “War on Terror”.

He was killed by a shot to the head, 10 years after the US placed a US$25 million (S$33.6 million) bounty on him, during their search.

Dissention grew in the jihadist ranks as new Al Qaeda chief Ayman Zawahiri struggled in Bin Laden’s place, until one of its branches, originally Al Qaeda in Iraq, broke away to form the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).

After seizing large parts of Iraq and Syria in 2014, the group declared an Islamic “caliphate” in areas under its control, calling itself simply the Islamic State.

IS has since eclipsed its former partner, drawing thousands of jihadists to its cause and claiming responsibility for attacks that have left hundreds dead in Brussels, Paris, Tunisia, Turkey, Lebanon, Yemen, Saudi Arabia and on a Russian airliner over Egypt.

Its self-declared “emir” Abu Bakr Baghdadi has won pledges of allegiance from extremist groups across the Middle East and beyond, with especially powerful IS affiliates operating in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula and in Libya.

Mr Jean-Pierre Filiu, a Paris-based expert on Islam and jihadist groups, said IS has been especially effective at using new technology to surpass its less tech-savvy rival.

“Al Qaeda propaganda has become invisible on social networks thanks to the media war machine that Daesh has managed to successfully create,” said Mr Filiu, using an Arabic acronym for IS.

“Al Qaeda has lost everywhere to Daesh, except in the Sahel (desert region of northern Africa).”

Mr William McCants, of the Brookings Institution in Washington, agreed that Al Qaeda had lost some ground to IS, but said the organisation has recovered.

“Al Qaeda has a strong showing in Syria and in Yemen,” he said.

In Syria, the group’s local affiliate, Al Nusra Front, is one of the strongest forces fighting President Bashar Assad’s regime, holding large parts of the northern province of Idlib.

The local branch in Yemen, Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), has meanwhile seized significant territory in the south and south-east as the government struggles against Iran-backed Shia insurgents who have taken the capital Sanaa and other areas.

AQAP suffered a setback last week when Yemeni troops recaptured the key port city of Mukalla it occupied for more than a year.

But AQAP remains the key jihadist force in Yemen, with thousands of members compared with only several hundred affiliated with IS, said Mr McCants.

AQAP, considered by Washington to be Al Qaeda’s most well-established and dangerous branch, has also claimed responsibility for one of the group’s most important attacks abroad in recent years.

In January 2015, gunmen stormed the Paris offices of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo with assault rifles and other weapons, killing 12 people in an attack claimed by AQAP.

Another branch, Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), has carried out assaults on hotels and restaurants in Mali, Burkina Faso and Ivory Coast since November that have left dozens dead, including many foreigners.

The attacks in West Africa “have reasserted the regional presence of AQIM and shown its expanding reach”, said New York-based intelligence consultancy The Soufan Group in March.

“AQIM has used the attacks to challenge the influence of the Islamic State, to demonstrate and build its local support and to show that it is united after earlier damaging divisions,” it said.

The International Crisis Group also argues that although IS has reshaped the jihadist landscape, Al Qaeda “has evolved” and its branches in North Africa, Somalia, Syria and Yemen “remain potent, some stronger than ever”.

“Some have grafted themselves onto local insurrections, displaying a degree of pragmatism, caution about killing Muslims and sensitivity to local norms,” said the Brussels-based think-tank.

Al Qaeda chiefs in Yemen and elsewhere have condemned IS for some of its actions, including bombings of Shia mosques.

The US clearly still sees Al Qaeda as a key threat, pursuing a vigorous drone war against the group in Yemen.

The strikes have killed many senior operatives, including Al Qaeda’s second-in-command Nasir Wuhayshi in June last year. In March, a US strike on an AQAP training camp in Yemen killed at least 71 recruits.

In a report by the Middle East Eye (MEE), Leeds University scholar Hasan Hafidh said the US faces a challenge in defeating IS and sidelining Mr Assad without turning to the Al Qaeda-linked groups that could help achieve those goals.

“The US needs to acknowledge that its most imminent problem isn’t necessarily combating Al Qaeda on the ground but rather to devise a foreign policy strategy where they don’t effectively become an asset in such protracted conflicts as Syria and Yemen,” Mr Hafidh was quoted as saying.

Writing for French news website Atlantico in early April, former intelligence officer Alain Rodier said that while IS may have stolen the spotlight, Al Qaeda may be in a better long-term position. By rushing to declare its caliphate and establish its rule, IS has made itself an easier target, with thousands of its supporters killed in air strikes launched by a US-led coalition and by Russia.

Its harsh rule has also alienated potential supporters, while groups such as Al Nusra have instead sought to work with local forces in areas under their control.

“The death of Al Qaeda’s founding father in no way meant the end of his progeny,” wrote Mr Rodier. “This jihad will last for decades.”

This outlook was also supported by Mr Jonathan Cristol, an analyst at the World Policy Institute think-tank.

“IS may be the greater threat today, but IS believes in the fierce urgency of now. One day, hopefully soon, it will be defeated. Bin Laden had a longer time horizon, and with IS gone, Al Qaeda will again top the headlines,” he told MEE. “Patience among Bin Laden’s followers may be the part of his legacy that comes back to haunt us in the long run.” AGENCIES