On 9/11 became the turning point of jihadism, when Al Qaeda emerged as the most global extremist network to date. But, 20 years later, with its founder Osama bin Laden dead and leadership absent, it is far from achieving its goals and has a great rival: the self-styled Islamic State (ISIS).
“September 11 produced an unprecedented expansion of jihadism around the world,” Barak Mendelsohn, an expert on Al Qaeda and the jihadist movement at Haverford College, told EFE, adding that the attack claimed by Al Qaeda “worked very well” for its propaganda, but “it created expectations that (the terrorists) could not meet with their limited power.”
Without a doubt, September 11 was the start of a series of historical events, such as the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003. The latter would lead years later to the creation of the IS, which has stolen prominence from Al Qaeda since 2014 and has become its greatest adversary.
“As a group, the attack placed it at the top of the jihadist hierarchy. It was his moment of fame“Tore Refslund Hamming, a jihadism consultant and creator of Refslund Analytics, told Efe.
The most sought
Al Qaeda demonstrated “what kind of threat the movement could and would pose globally,” he adds, and Saudi Osama bin Laden became the most wanted man on the planet, a figure that haunted from his hiding places between the borders of Afghanistan and Pakistan.
It wasn’t until uA decade later, on May 2, 2011, when then-US President Barack Obama announced the death of the founder of Al Qaeda in an operation in Abbotabad (Pakistan).
Although that did not mean the end of the group, whose command was taken by the Egyptian Ayman al Zawahiri, did hit the organization the hardest, which was reduced to a network with many branches but without a central leadership, weakened by the successive losses of its commanders and the alleged ill health of Al Zawahiri.
Al Qaeda “is a group with some successful branches but weak central leadership. Al Zawahiri is in poor health and finds it difficult to communicate with his group and much more with the branches. And it suffers from ideological and strategic incoherencies due to the gap between its transnational ideology and the branches with a predominantly local focus, “says Mendelsohn.
According to various reports from the UN Security Council, in 2021 Al Qaeda has gone through “a period of great wear of his leadership, with multiple losses in Afghanistan, Mali, Somalia, Yemen and the Idlib region in northwestern Syria. “
Likewise, the agency points out that Al Zawahiri is found “somewhere” between Afghanistan and Pakistan: “Information about his death has not been confirmed. A member state has reported that he is probably alive, but too fragile to appear in propaganda.”
A 2008 photo of Osama bin Laden. AP Photo
Al Qaeda versus el ISIS
Just three years after Bin Laden’s death, Al Qaeda severed all ties with the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI). A few months after the split, Abu Bakr al Baghdadi proclaimed from the city of Mosul a “caliphate” in the territories of Iraq and Syria, grabbing all the headlines ever since. relegating Al Qaeda to the background.
“The presence of ISIS has released Al Qaeda from much of the media attention. Suddenly, someone was more cruel and threatening. But this fitted in with Al Qaeda’s ambitions, as the group was in the process of changing its image, “says Hamming.
For his part, Aymenn Jawad al Tamimi, an expert on extremism at George Washington University, tells EFE that Al Qaeda continues to be “important in Somalia and Yemen.” where it is “more successful” than ISIS, although it has been isolated in other important areas, such as Syria and Iraq.
In Afghanistan?
The dispute between ISIS-Khorasan, the group’s Afghan branch, and Al Qaeda highlights the rivalry between the two organizations who seek to increase their presence in Afghanistan, especially as a result of the departure of US troops and the takeover of Kabul by the Taliban.
September 11, 2001. AP Photo
“There is no doubt that Al Qaeda is in Afghanistan and its presence probably go to increase. But it will not be easy to maintain training camps if the Taliban government wants to have relations with Russia and China, “explains Al Tamimi.
For Mendelsohn, Al Qaeda will find it “easier to find refuge in Afghanistan, but it’s not clear that it can use it to operate the way it did before 9/11. “
The Taliban need “international acceptance and have so far indicated that they do not plan to be rogue international actors,” the expert adds. “Too much ally with Al Qaeda would be counterproductive” for the new rulers in Kabul, from whom the international community expects guarantees that they will not allow the country to once again become a base for global terrorism.
EFE Agency
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