The nature of the threat

Fawaz Gerges

• Last Updated: July 31. 2008 3:37PM UAE / July 31. 2008 11:37AM GMT

Osama bin Laden addresses the American people –and a world audience –in a subtitled video produced by al Qaeda’s publicity and marketing arm, as Sahab. Corbis

In the introduction to Al Qa’eda in Its Own Words, a new collection of jihadist texts, Gilles Kepel – a renowned French scholar of contemporary Islam who has written extensively on Muslim militancy – describes a new “science of terrorism” that has emerged in the United States, a kind of cottage industry that props up wobbly theories while doing little to advance knowledge of the jihadist phenomena.

Seven years after the Bush administration declared all-out war against al Qa’eda (at a cost of hundreds of thousands of lives and trillions of dollars), little consensus exists among American officials and independent specialists about the state of the terrorist organisation and the like-minded groups that have emerged since the invasion of Iraq.

In an interview with The Washington Post in May, the CIA director Michael V Hayden said that al Qa’eda is now on the defensive throughout the world, including along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. “On balance we are doing pretty well,” Hayden said, citing “strategic setbacks for al Qa’eda globally”.

Not so, rejoined another key intelligence official less than a week later. Donald M Kerr, the principal deputy director of national intelligence, called a regenerated al Qa’eda the leading terrorism threat to America in a speech at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a pro-Israel think-tank. According to Kerr, al Qa’eda and its allies, which have entrenched themselves on the Afghan-Pakistan tribal borders, are “the number one thing we worry about”.

CIA spokesmen were quick to downplay the disagreement, but these clashing accounts of al Qa’eda’s strength from within the same intelligence community reflect a deeper ideological and analytical divide within the US government and intelligence community.

One school of thought asserts that the scattered multitude of informal, extremist local groups are as dangerous, if not more so, than what we might call al Qa’eda Central, led by Osama bin Laden and his second-in-command, Ayman Zawahiri. These smaller groups are hard to root out, and have spread the jihadist virus to Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Egypt, Jordan, Yemen, Indonesia, the Levant and elsewhere.

The adherents of this view caution against identifying the “local affiliates” with al Qa’eda Central, arguing that these post-Iraq war factions pursue their own agendas rather than a co-ordinated international strategy. Far from calling the shots, bin Laden and Zawahiri, it is argued, exercise little operational control over recently-born jihadist networks. Why else would the two fugitive leaders plead with their local cohorts to show military restraint and refrain from killing innocent civilians? Bin Laden even felt obliged to publicly apologise to Muslims over the murderous conduct of his associates in Iraq, Jordan and Saudi Arabia.

Bin Laden and Zawahiri also urged the late leader of al Qa’eda in Iraq, Abu Musab al Zarqawi, to avoid antagonising Sunni Arab supporters and triggering sectarian conflict by attacking Shias and bombing their holy sites. Their plea fell on deaf ears. Zarqawi’s suicide bombers almost succeeded in plunging Iraq into all-out sectarian war, and his recklessness and arrogance proved fatal to al Qa’eda’s fortunes in Iraq: many Sunni Arabs, formerly the backbone of the insurgency, turned against al Qa’eda with a vengeance.

While confessing loyalty to al Qa’eda Central, Zarqawi and his successors took action into their own hands and ignored their mentors’ direction. Similarly, the brutal murders of non-combatants by al Qa’eda sympathisers in Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Lebanon have degraded bin Laden’s standing in the fight for Muslim hearts and minds. These local affiliates may prove to be al Qa’eda’s own worst enemy; recent opinion surveys clearly reflect a declining esteem for the al Qa’eda leader among other Muslims.

To the proponents of the waning theory, the decentralisation and fragmentation of al Qa’eda is a double-edged sword. Isolated in the tribal frontier of Pakistan and Afghanistan, bin Laden and Zawahiri seem unable to steer the jihadist caravan. The upstart militants sing their own tune without heeding the instructions of their composers. This decentralised network may be dangerous, but its uncontained and indiscriminate terror wins little sympathy in the Muslim world.

Many US officials do not buy this nuanced view of the evolving threat of jihadism, particularly its central premise – that al Qa’eda Central has lost control over its affiliates. They instead maintain that al Qa’eda continues to direct and manage its satellites, and that bin Laden and Zawahiri need little more than a cell phone (or a messenger) to instruct their followers and select targets.

To support their case, these officials point out to several unravelled plots in Britain and Europe (the July 7, 2005, attacks in London and the plot to bomb aeroplanes over the Atlantic that was uncovered in August 2006) in which they claim al Qa’eda Central played a key role in training and directing the attackers. Furthermore, bin Laden and Zawahiri have not only escaped capture but are alive, well and in charge of an expanding pool of potential suicide bombers in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and elsewhere, these intelligence officials remind us. The big men at the helm continue to provide motivation, inspiration and even direction.

In this view, the notion of a waning al Qa’eda is more wishful thinking than empirical reality. While bin Laden’s followers suffered a setback in Iraq, they have gained new ground in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Al Qa’eda Central is on the rise in both countries by virtue of its close collaboration with the Taliban, who have recently deployed al Qa’eda-style suicide attacks with deadly effect.

There is an al Qa’eda Central surge in the Afghan-Pakistan theatre, where bin Laden and Zawahiri welcome new recruits and plot new attacks against western targets. Officials with their focus on al Qa’eda Central consider this an alarming development, and the US has responded by carrying out unilateral air strikes in Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas, roughly 31 miles from the border with Afghanistan, complicating American-Pakistani relations and the internal stability of the fragile Pakistani state.

Those who focus their attention on al Qa’eda Central also argue that its propaganda operations have improved dramatically; the war waged by the US and its allies against bin Laden and his men has not silenced them. In fact, al Qa’eda’s public relations arm – al Sahab, or “the clouds”, an allusion to the misty mountain peaks of Afghanistan – has taken advantage of technological advances to upload videos to jihadist sites with astonishing speed, relying on an anonymous network of webmasters to cover their electronic tracks. In 2005, al Sahab released 16 videos, and in 2007, more than 60 videos. The quality has increased with the quantity, and most videos now include subtitles in several languages; some contain 3D animations. Al Sahab now effectively competes with the US to spread al Qa’eda’s message around the world.

This darker view of the threat still represented by al Qa’eda Central is typically accompanied by calls for vigilance, warnings against complacency and suggestions that homeland security needs further strengthening against new attacks.

On the whole, independent scholars have little input in this unfolding debate because they have deserted the field to security consultants and writers. The latter now possess a monopoly over the “science of terrorism” or the “cottage industry”, to cite Kepel, worth billions of dollars as well as recognition and status.

Those who believe al Qa’eda Central has diminished in importance relative to affiliate organisations are well represented by Marc Sageman, a former CIA case officer who worked with the mujaheddin in Afghanistan in the 1980s. Sageman is now a government consultant on counterterrorism and a forensic psychiatrist. In his latest book, Leaderless Jihad: Terror Networks in the Twenty-First Century, Sageman asserts that al Qa’eda Central is a rapidly fading shadow of its former self.

Based on biographical profiles he has compiled of 500 jihadists who used violence against the United States and its European allies, Leaderless Jihad sets out to explain how people become terrorists: what drives some individuals to ideological violence? What is the tipping point? How do terrorist networks radicalise, mobilise and militarise their recruits?

According to Sageman’s profiles, the majority of young men who join terrorist groups know very little about Islam. They grew up in secular homes and didn’t find religion until their mid-20s. Their use of religion as a justification for violence should not blind us to the primacy of politics, identity and foreign policy in their actions. The essential message of Leaderless Jihad is that terrorists are not born, they are made; the turn to terror has less to do with culture or religion than with politics.

Sageman’s research also suggests that the nature of the terrorist threat to the US and Europe is quickly changing as the internet replaces personal interaction as the primary means to recruit young men outraged by images of American brutality against their fellow Muslims. But these far-flung followers, Sageman contends, are not under the command of al Qa’eda Central, whose strength he suggests was indeed waning before the misguided American adventure in Iraq poured gasoline on a fire that was burning out.

But Sageman asserts that this new wave of militancy – the leaderless jihad – is also “self-limiting” because of its fear of establishing in-person links and its lack of central leadership. In his estimation, the new radicals are more amateurish, undisciplined and ineffective than bin Laden’s earlier foot soldiers; they resemble vicious urban gangs more than a secret army.

The bottom line is that the threat from al Qa’eda is winding down and that “global Islamist terrorism will probably disappear for internal reasons – if the United States has the sense to allow it to continue on its course and fade away”. Al Qa’eda Central was neutralised militarily – even though its two top leaders are still at large – and has mastered the art of making enemies. In fact, there has not been an al Qa’eda Central fatality since July 2005.

Unfortunately, Sageman thinks that good sense may be lacking in Washington. “Thus far, in the fight against global Islamist terrorism,” he writes, “the United States has committed grave strategic mistakes,” relying on military might and rallying young Muslims against the occupation of Iraq.

Americans and Europeans should view the war against terrorism as a battle for the hearts and minds of Muslims. “Too vigorous an eradication campaign,” he notes, “might be counterproductive. The leaderless jihad should be allowed to expire on its own.”

Well, not everyone agrees with Sageman’s conclusions. Certainly not Bruce Hoffman, a professor at Georgetown University and former Rand Corporation counterterrorism analyst. Hoffman contends that al Qa’eda Central is on the march, and that it still represents the single most serious threat to the West. In a scathing review of Sageman’s book in Foreign Affairs, Hoffman called its analysis lazy and its conclusions flawed.

Hoffman claims that the terrorist group has reconstituted itself in Pakistan, where it is again actively directing and initiating international terror operations. His advice to policymakers is blunt: do not be complacent, and hammer away at al Qa’eda until its leadership is wiped out.

What is missing from the Sageman-Hoffman debate is clarity about the most practical level of analysis. The real question is not whether al Qa’eda Central is dangerous, but the extent and degree of its threat to American national security and the international order. This analytical and conceptual confusion muddies the waters and obscures the need to clearly delineate the nature of the threat.

Al Qa’eda possesses neither non-conventional weapons nor armed divisions; rather, roving bands and suicide bombers in the valleys and mountains of the Afghan-Pakistan tribal frontier. Seven years on, al Qa’eda has not delivered on its repeated threats to strike inside the United States. Bin Laden succeeded on September 11, and he may succeed again. But this reality, frightening as it is, must not blind us to the self-limiting nature of the al Qa’eda menace.

Despite their disagreement on the significance of al Qa’eda’s leadership, Sageman and Hoffman – and their respective camps – agree that the American invasion and occupation of Iraq has intensified anti-American sentiment and bolstered both al Qa’eda and its affiliates by supplying ideological motivation and ammunition to militants. It is a conclusion that the next American president would ignore at his peril.

Fawaz A Gerges is professor of International Affairs and Middle Eastern Studies at Sarah Lawrence University, New York. His most recent books are Journey of the Jihadist: Inside Muslim Militancy and The Far Enemy: Why Jihad Went Global.