Ian Black and Richard Norton-Taylor in The Guardian:
Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida is under heavy pressure in its strongholds in Pakistan’s remote tribal areas and is finding it difficult to attract recruits or carry out spectacular operations in western countries, according to government and independent experts monitoring the organisation.
Speaking to the Guardian in advance of tomorrow’s eighth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, western counter-terrorism officials and specialists in the Muslim world said the organisation faced a crisis that was severely affecting its ability to find, inspire and train willing fighters.
Its activity is increasingly dispersed to “affiliates” or “franchises” in Yemen and North Africa, but the links of local or regional jihadi groups to the centre are tenuous; they enjoy little popular support and successes have been limited.
Eli Lake was asking me the other day whether or not we had been defeating al-Qaeda these past eight years. I replied that I thought we had not been “beating” al-Qaeda, per se, but that we had made fewer mistakes than al-Qaeda has. Our strategic blunders (going to war in Iraq; diverting resources from Afghanistan) were less signficant than theirs (killing more Afghan and Arab Muslims than Americans and other Westerners). I sense that al-Qaeda’s “brand” has really suffered internationally, while America’s is in recovery (thanks in part, at least, to the election of Obama*). As it turns out, al-Qaeda is apparently now having trouble raising recruits
Spencer Ackerman in the Washington Independent:
Indeed, this was the consensus from last year’s New America Foundation conference on counterterrorism: al-Qaeda is a spent force. I recall Peter Bergen, who knows as much about al-Qaeda as any U.S. analyst, predicting that it would cease to exist within the next five years. According to the Guardian, which admittedly may be too optimistic, the core al-Qaeda in Waziristan could be as few as six people. If we kill them, and if they can’t find someone to take their place, and if they can’t recruit, congratulations, America: war is over, we win. And this was the organization we used to think of as a generational enemy. So much for the “Long War” or whatever.
But even if the Guardian is only 50 percent right, is it necessary to pursue, for instance, a second escalation of combat troops this year in Afghanistan, if the goal is to destroy safe havens across the Pakistani border for a handful of dudes who can’t attract competent recruits any more? So much of bipartisan U.S. strategy has rested on the presumption — and committed such overwhelming blood and treasure — that these people are an overwhelming security threat. Now they just look pathetic. Will our habits force us to implicitly inflate their danger?
More Ackerman
Obviously, there’s no reason to start popping the corks. The terrorist network can experience all kinds of recruiting, fundraising, and morale problems, but still manage to execute a devastating attack. As the saying goes, they “only need to get lucky once.”
But if al Qaeda has fallen on hard times, and has come to represent a spent force, it’s a very encouraging development for the United States and the world.
