Unlike Jacob Marley in "A Christmas Carol", it would be wrong to begin by claiming al Qaeda is dead. Al Qaeda is most certainly not dead. The world's most famous violent jihadi organisation has certainly declined and lost the effective ability to conduct the kind of headline-grabbing attacks against targets in the West which made it famous, but it has responded to this by changing and adapting its strategies and tactics. Al Qaeda is moving towards a franchise model, merging and allying itself with local actors involved in local conflicts wherever it can around the globe. "Al Qaeda international", however, is badly damaged. So where is al Qaeda declining and where is it ascending?
South East Asia: in decline
Al Qaeda long sponsored the Jemaah Islamiyah (الجماعة الإسلامية) ("Islamic Congregation") terrorist organisation in South East Asia, and essentially treated it as its regional operator, lending funding and operational support in the early 2000's. It was this organisation which perpetrated the 2002 Bali nightclub bombings, and it was once an actor of considerable capabilities. However relentless security crackdowns by the Indonesian government have decimated its ranks and largely left Jemaah Islamiyah cut off from al Qaeda internationally. This is well illustrated by the almost farcical story of the frustrated attempts by Jemaah Islamiyah's master bomb maker to re-establish ties with jihadis in Afghanistan and Pakistan in 2011. Even though he travelled to Abbotabad (Pakistan) during this time, it seems he had no idea Bin Laden was there, and he largely failed even to secure meetings with senior violent jihadis in either country, forced instead to resort to emailing years-old contacts he had never actually met in person. After a few frustrated months he was captured by Pakistani security forces.
None of this is to suggest that violent jihadism itself is defeated in Indonesia and the Philippines. Jemaah Islamiyah is damaged but still dangerous, and many smaller jihadi networks with non connection to al Qaeda internationally are sprouting up and capable of carrying out attacks. However al Qaeda's links to violent jihadism in this region have declined to being negligible, and so in this area al Qaeda has experienced a definite decline -even a death of sorts, albeit a local one.
Afghanistan: in decline
Although NATO forces in Afghanistan continue to struggle against the Taliban insurgency there, they have largely succeeded in their mission of disrupting and destroying al Qaeda's networks and operations in the country. According to the Department of Defense, the last known killing of an al Qaeda fighter by Coalition forces was in April 2011, and the last capture of one was in May. This points essentially to a depletion of al Qaeda's forces in Afghanistan, and its cessation of existing as a separate organisation. Any al Qaeda fighters which remain in Afghanistan at this point have most likely been absorbed into the Taliban's forces and have stopped having any connections or contacts with al Qaeda's international leadership. Many more have been killed or fled. Here again al Qaeda seems to have slowly disappeared as force, although the Taliban insurgency has only grown.
Bin Laden: in decline long before his death
A retired Pakistani Brigadier General with access to the ISI (Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate) agents who interrogated Bin Laden's wives has recently claimed that al Qaeda decided to retire Bin Laden back in 2003, as he was going mentally senile and had been degenerating into "fantasies" since late 2001. This seems to correspond with the will purportedly written by Bin Laden soon after 9/11 in which he urges his childrenot to pursue an education and peace in the West rather than carrying on jihad, and the awkward un-released video messages taped by Bin Laden which were also found. The allegation is that Ayman al-Zawahiri, now the leader of al Qaeda and long considered the brains behind the organisation, was the one who decided to sideline Bin Laden. al-Zawahiri may even have dispatched Bin Laden's older Saudi wife Khairia to Abbotabad in March 2011 (the first time she had seen Bin Laden since 2001) to act as bait for US intelligence, leading them to Bin Laden. In the end, the US found Bin Laden through a courier, but intercepted phonecalls from Khairia may have helped confirm that he really was in that compound in Abbotabad.
Much of this cannot be confirmed yet, but if true it seems that Bin Laden himself may well have declined faster than his international organisation did. His final killing at the hands of US forces may well have have been the death of a sidelined, senile old man rather than the terrorist mastermind he was in his prime.
Al Qaeda's leadership: in decline
If you were a member of the leadership of al Qaeda's international branch two years ago, chances are that right now you are either dead or on the run from drone strikes, complaining about how cash-strapped you are. If there really was a physical sharaabtoon for jihadis, you would be the sad, nervous-looking guy at the bar trying to drown his sorrows with the one drink he's been nursing for hours. Two-thirds of al Qaeda's senior figures at the time of 9/11 had been captured or killed as early as 2004, and the last year has seen US drone strikes regularly killing senior members, devastating the organisation's leadership. And off course there was the death of the man who was at least al Qaeda's figurehead, Bin Laden. The organisation now seems to be beset with internal divisions and rivalries as what is left of the leadership tries to re-assert itself, but with different individuals vying for control.
What this means is that al Qaeda's international organisation has extremely limited operational capacity for launching the sort of large-scale attacks it once did. For this reason, a new strategy seems to be emerging; one of merging al Qaeda with other local violent jihadi organisations, with both parties trying to draw legitimacy and support from the other.
Yemen: in the ascent
The multiple conflicts now raging in Yemen make the news in the West far less than those in Libya and Syria did or do, however it is only in Yemen that al Qaeda (so far) is playing a major role, and is growing stronger. With the deterioration of central authority throughout the country due to the year-long struggle to oust President Saleh (who stepped down persobally last month but whose regime remains largely in place), al Qaeda has been able to actually capture and hold territory in its own right in Yemen. Al Qaeda seized the southern towns of Jaar and Zinjibar in April and May 2011, and has fended off multiple government attempts to retake them. In February an al-Qaeda linked group killed at least 26 people with a suicide attack within hours of the new President being sworn in. Earlier in March, in a brazen cross-desert attack al Qaeda fighters killed nearly 200 government troops, subsequently beheading some of them and dumping their bodies in the desert near Zinjibar. Government troops across the country are said to be fearful of further al Qaeda attacks and suffering from intensely low morale. The soldiers killed are believed to have been poorly equipped (like much of the military), so there remains the possibility that the government could enjoy greater successes against al Qaeda if it were to deploy more of its better-trained and armed specialized anti-terrorist units to the front, and the US has enjoyed some successes with drone strikes in killing senior al Qaeda leaders in Yemen, particularly that of US-born Anwar al-Awlaki in September last year. However the Yemeni government also faces other tribal, religious and separatist insurgencies, and so its divided attention may continue to allow al Qaeda to flourish here.
Somalia: in the ascent
Al Shabaab may be having mixed fortunes as of late, facing several military setbacks at the hands of African Union troops, but al Qaeda's February merger with al Shabaab was an unquestionable boon for both organisations. Al Shabaab gets access to al Qaeda's name recognition, plus whatever foreign fighters and operational support it can still muster, and al Qaeda through al Shabaab can bolster its own claims to continued relevance and power in East Africa. This connection is especially useful as through it al Qaeda can facilitate links and connections between jihadis across the region, such as the "exchange programme" of fighters between Somalia and Yemen which has been observed recently. This Yemeni connection and the al Shabaab merger actually places al Qaeda in a position of strength and a position to grow in East Africa, at least verses some of its more dismally-performing regions.
North Africa and the Sahara: in the ascent
There's been a lot written in Sharaabtoon lately about jihadism in this region, and not all of it involves al Qaeda -at least, not yet. Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) is alive and active, and continues to perpetrate attacks on security services and kidnappings in the Sahara and North Africa, particularly in Algeria. The end of the Libyan civil war has caused the region to be flooded with the loot of Gaddafi's former arsenals, fuelling conflict and greatly easing the process of acquiring small arms and heavy weaponry for all, including violent jihadis. Already we see some evidence for AQIM attempting to escalate its attacks in the region, and local forces such as Boko Haram (which may already have limited al Qaeda links) may well attempt to integrate further with AQIM, al Qaeda international (such as it exists) or other al Qaeda-aligned organisations in the region (such as al Shabaab) in order to increase their ability to carry out complex and large-scale attacks. Al Qaeda has not yet grown strong in this region, but the potential for it do so is dangerously large.
Al Qaeda in Iraq: declined, but may rebound?
There are almost daily bombings and shootings in Iraq, usually targeted at security forces or of a sectarian nature (against Shia Muslims), many of them carried out by al Qaeda linked fighters, who in the past three months are estimated to have killed around 250 people in attacks. What should be remembered, however, is that this is actually a huge improvement for Iraq. Even with the US troop withdrawal there has been no return to the full-scale sectarian slaughter of 2006-2007 in which thousands of Iraqis died, and since 2008 al Qaeda has no longer controlled any towns or significant areas of territory, which it once did openly. Indeed, the old al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) organisation no longer exists as a separate entity, but instead joined with several other violent jihadi groups in late 2006 to form the Islamic State of Iraq (دولة العراق الإسلامية) organisation, under whose umbrella it now claims its attacks. The decline of both groups s closely linked to disenchantment with such violent jihadis' due to their relentless sectarian violence in the mid 2000's and their brutality even to their Sunni co-religionists, a resentment best known for leading to the "Anbar Awakening" of Sunni Arab tribes turning against al Qaeda. This alienation of most of the Iraqi population (which inn any case has a Shia majority) makes any return to the kind of power and control al Qaeda enjoyed in the mid-2000's unlikely, and its ranks are now thought to be largely filled by foreign fighters. In spite of this, the Islamic State of Iraq seems to have little connection to al Qaeda international.
Al Qaeda's real rebound potential in Iraq, however, comes from the dynamics of the conflict in neighbouring Syria. There, a largely Sunni insurgency is locked in bloody conflict with a regime dominated by Alawis (an offshoot of Shia Islam). Al Qaeda will use the narrative of a government of Shia "apostates" slaughtering Sunni Muslims to try to drive the sectarian conflict in Iraq, and by extension assert its own continued relevance and to entice recruits. Al Qaeda international has already declared its support for the anti-government rebels in Syria. If the Assad regime in Syria does fall, al Qaeda will be a major player and beneficiary in the ensuing chaos and (no doubt) sectarian reprisals.
Overall
Al Qaeda is not dead. Al Qaeda international has declined, and its regional organisations have essentially disappeared from some localities, but in other areas it is experiencing real growth and power, and has the potential to expand in others. Al Qaeda is unlikely to ever regain its lost power as an organisation which could seemingly strike anywhere in the world, and whatever growth it does see in the future will be along its adopted franchise model, and heavily tied up in local conflicts and with alliances (and mergers) with local jihadis.
Like Marley, even al Qaeda's ghost still seems to have the power to affect the world, even if it must primarily do so by working through others.
