Attacks that have depleted al Qaeda’s leadership in Pakistan are shifting the balance of power within the global terror network, with affiliates in North Africa and the Arabian peninsula gaining strength as those regions are roiled by revolution. “The idea of global jihad is alive and thriving as the Arab Spring turns violent,” said Bruce Riedel, a former CIA officer and senior adviser to three U.S. presidents on the Middle East.
The loss of al Qaeda’s longtime leader Osama bin Laden, and the recent killing in a drone strike in Pakistan of second-in-command Atiyah Abd al-Rahman, has weakened the organization, especially in Pakistan.
But al Qaeda should not been seen as a spent force, experts said. “That’s the virtue of a decentralized system,” said Riedel, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. “Their immediate gains will be Yemen as it dissolves into civil war, opening space for them. Algeria will be another opening as it faces the Arab awakening. If the revolution falters in Egypt they gain. Already [al Qaeda] is growing in the Sinai.”
The pressure on al Qaeda in Pakistan yielded fresh dividends Monday, as the Pakistani government announced the capture of a top al Qaeda commander suspected of planning attacks on American oil pipelines and other economic targets. Younis al-Mauritani was nabbed in the border town of Quetta. Two other senior al Qaeda operatives, Abdul Ghaffar al-Shami and Messara al-Shami, were also apprehended. Those arrests came after the U.S. provided key information to the Pakistanis, officials said.
The success of the U.S.-led attacks on al Qaeda has left the terrorist group with serious challenges, most notably finding recognizable personalities that can be the public face of the organization for recruitment and propaganda, U.S. intelligence officials said.
But, so far at least, there is no sign the group is looking to pull up stakes in Pakistan.
“There’s not a sense at this point that al Qaeda’s leadership in Pakistan will move somewhere else, even though they’ve been hammered in recent years,” said a U.S. defense official with direct knowledge of the ongoing conflict. “What remains to be seen is whether or not affiliates in Yemen and elsewhere will try to fill the leadership void that seems to exist with al Qaeda in Pakistan at the moment.”
Al Qaeda’s post-bin Laden leader is Ayman al-Zawahiri, an Egyptian who doesn’t carry the same cachet as his predecessor. And, after the killing of Atiyah al-Rahman, he is in the market for a new top lieutenant. The Libyan Abu Yahya al-Libi, who is noted for his charismatic personality, may be the best bet to assume that role, said Jarret Brachman, a former CIA analyst who now works for security consulting firm Cronus Global.
A U.S. official with knowledge of the terror organization said al Qaeda leaders in Pakistan “will try to control the franchises [in Yemen and North Africa] but it’ll be interesting to see if their allies continue taking their direction or set their own agenda.”
As the U.S. and the rest of the world watches developments in the Middle East, so will al Qaeda, which is “struggling to address” the developments and how best to benefit from them. “There’s no doubt al Qaeda — even in its significantly weakened state — still poses a deadly threat,” the U.S. official added. “The world still needs to be vigilant and keep up the pressure. Al Qaeda isn’t finished yet.”
Sara A. Carter is The Washington Examiner’s national security correspondent. She can be reached at [email protected].
