AQ’s Future – Part 1

Much (too much?) has been written throughout this decade on the subject of “What will AQ do next?”. So, here’s my tuppence worth…

From psychology [and God knows, terrorism seems to attract psychologists and psychiatrists like flies to… well, you get the point] the concept of Gestalt is widely known. In layman’s terms - and for a simple soul like me - it can be understood as: ‘the whole is greater than the sum of its parts’.

From early in its history, AQ could be described in such a way. Small numbers of terrorists, almost always with unsophisticated weapons - and poorly trained in comparison with Western military and security organisations – were able to fight above their weight and dramatically rock global culture -and all in a relatively short time (e.g. from Embassy bombings in Africa, to 9/11 in only a few years).

The inverse of the Gestalt analog is arguably also true: AQ is smaller than the sum of its (now myriad) parts. Many recent apparent AQ attacks have of course been carried out by local adherents – who have little connection to, or communication with, that central band of “AQ Core” jihadis. [AQ Prime/Brand AQ/ etc. /call it whatever you like...]

Whilst the “Brand AQ” concept has existed for years, and mainly around pre-existing groups, we have seen latterly a blossoming of new and unconnected cells, drawing spiritual sustenance from AQ’s widely disseminated message, while setting their own course in the world of jihad.

Almost a decade ago now, 9/11 reverberated around the world, raising existential fears among the Western nations that we thought had evaporated with the Cold War more than a decade before. Since that day, billions of dollars have been expended by scores of nations on ‘counter terrorism’ efforts. And few on the planet, even in the remotest provinces of distant lands, have never heard of the events of 9/11 or Osama bin Laden.

“I am fighting so I can die a martyr and go to heaven to meet God. Our fight is now against America. I regret having lived this long. I have nothing to lose” – so said bin Laden in August 1998 [Bruce Hoffman Inside Terrorism Columbia University Press, July, 2006]. AQ’s continuation after his death is inevitable, though the form it will take is much less certain.

The longer-serving AQ ‘franchises’ and associated groups in Iraq, in SE Asia, in the Maghreb and other parts of Africa, seem certain to continue on their current paths: experienced jihadis, doing what they’ve always done (albeit with localised innovation – or at least a sort of shifting plagiarism). As CT capacity is built in those nations, and as Western powers focus their efforts more tightly, those groups may gradually be eroded, by that combination of policing, limited military operations and non-military soft power that has reaped success elsewhere.

But the “Brand AQ” phenomenon evolves still: looking to the not-too-distant past for signs, we saw that in 2004 Abu Musab al-Zarqawi negotiated for months with AQ core, before restyling his group - Tawhid wal Jihad (Group of Monotheism and Jihad) - as ‘Al Qaeda in Iraq’ (AQI). The formality of that negotiation, and the very explicit centralised control exercised by the AQ leadership at that time, may already be a thing of the past.

In RAND's report on “How terrorist groups end”, [Seth G. Jones, Martin C. Libicki. How terrorist groups end : lessons for countering Al Qa’ida, RAND, 2008] the authors’ conclude: “a transition to the political process is the most common reason that terrorist groups end”.

That outcome is difficult to envisage of AQ at this juncture. However, the expansion of the network under ‘Brand AQ’ at least raises the possibility that one faction - not directly under control of AQ core - could challenge for the top spot and take AQ’s mantle in the eyes of global Islam. Conceivably, it might then be possible to successfully treat with such a successor organisation and bring about the kind of resolution that is currently unthinkable.

Though perhaps not for a good number of years yet. The ‘Long War’ indeed…