Al Qaeda Succession: Lessons Learned

June 7, 2011

Guest Column
By Matthew Alexander

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After the killing of Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad, Pakistan, analysts quickly began assessing the impact on  al Qaeda.  Assessments of the al Qaeda leadership succession must include not only operational factors, such as al Qaeda’s ability to conduct attacks, but strategic factors such as their ability to recruit new members.  Bin Laden is not the first senior al Qaeda leader killed by the United States and previous successes may offer insights.

In July of 2006, two American F-16s dropped two 500 pounds bombs on a rural safehouse in Iraq killing Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian-born leader of al Qaeda in Mesopotamia.  Zarqawi had been on the run for more than three years and, at the time of his death, was a higher priority for the U.S. military than bin Laden.  Some senior military leaders believed the entire war hinged on finding and killing him.

The successful hunt for Zarqawi marked a significant moment in the Iraq War, although the full impact of his death was not seen until long after.  It set the conditions for General David Petraeus who almost two years later led the surge in Iraq, eventually resulting in a semi-stable security environment (albeit the final outcome of the conflict and its consequences are far from decided).

Zarqawi was never seen within al Qaeda as a pious mujahid like his Saudi mentor.   In fact, bin Laden reluctantly blessed Zarqawi after initially refusing to recognize his Tawid al-Jihad insurgent network set-up in Iraq prior to the U.S. invasion in 2003.  Zarqawi also proved to be a liability for al Qaeda with his targeting of Shi’a civilians.  His admonishment from al Qaeda’s number two, Ayman al-Zawahiri, was made embarrassingly public when a letter was intercepted by US forces and published in the media. 

Internal conflict aside, Zarqawi was the face of the al Qaeda led insurgency in post-Saddam Iraq.  He was responsible for The Golden Dome Mosque bombing that incited the massive civil bloodshed between Sunni and Shi’a.  He bombed the UN headquarters in Baghdad and hotels in Amman. 

Furthermore, Zarqawi was known for brutally beheading Nicholas Berg, a kidnapped American contractor, and endorsing similar horrific levels of violence.  These acts made Zarqawi a revered member for al Qaeda’s ideologues, but also alienated moderate and secular Iraqis who described the Sunni tribal relationship with al Qaeda as a wedding of strange bedmates.  In this manner, his leadership style was similar, but different than bin Laden’s.  Zarqawi also never had the credentials of bin Laden because in his younger years he was convicted of sexual assault.  Still, he was undeniably popular with the foreign fighters who came to Iraq to fight and inspiration for many a violent extremist across Mesopotamia.

In the aftermath of Zarqawi’s death violence initially decreased, only to rise beyond previous levels and peak within a year.  Zarqawi was succeeded by Abu Ayyub al-Masri, an Egyptian, who was rumored to have fled the country and was never able to become the recognized public face of al Qaeda in Iraq or to replicate Zarqawi’s dark charisma.  Al-Masri was killed in 2010 and the organization has been rudderless ever since.  The absence of strong leadership plagued the terrorist organization at the same time that the U.S. military offered the Sunni tribes money and arms to abandon al Qaeda.  They accepted, taking away 90% of al Qaeda’s manpower and marginalizing the organization to a mere menace, although still a potent one.

The value of Zarqawi’s death cannot be overstated for its symbolic and practical impact on the war in Iraq.  The Sunni tribes may have never agreed to abandon al Qaeda and work with the Americans had Zarqawi survived.  Senior Sunni al Qaeda leaders stated that they wanted to be on the winning side and before the death of Zarqawi, the situation appeared to favor the extremists.

In this sense, the death of senior al Qaeda leaders plays an important role in operationally impacting the group and its ability to maintain relationships with other key players.  Furthermore, and of strategic significance, the death of bin Laden may have an impact on al Qaeda’s impact to recruit and its relationship with groups such as the Taliban in both Afghanistan and Pakistan.  It is a golden opportunity to entice former enemies into an amnesty program. 

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Mr. Alexander is a former senior military interrogator who conducted or supervised over 1,300 interrogations in Iraq leading to the capture of numerous terrorist leaders.  His latest book is Kill or Capture: How a Special Operations Task Force Took Down a Notorious Al Qaeda Terrorist.  Alexander is currently a Fellow at UCLA’s Burkle Center for International Relations.

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