The Resurgent Threat of al Qaeda

The Wall Street Journal
By: Ali Soufan

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In the nearly six years since Osama bin Laden was killed in Pakistan by U.S. Navy SEALs, the terrorist organization he founded has practically vanished from American news coverage. Al Qaeda has been eclipsed by the rise of the self-styled Islamic State—a group that began as al Qaeda’s Iraqi franchise but broke away in 2014.

It may appear that al Qaeda has simply declined, but that is very far from the truth. Since the death of its founder, it has transformed itself from a close-knit terrorist outfit with a handful of struggling affiliates into a vast network of insurgent groups spread from Southeast Asia to northwest Africa. Together, this network now commands an army of tens of thousands of Islamist militants. Years after bin Laden’s death, they stand united in their commitment to his ideology. We have killed the messenger, but the message lives on …

In Syria, more than 20,000 militants, according to regional press reports, follow the banner of the Liberation of the Levant Organization (formerly known as the Nusra Front), and they often battle their former jihadist comrades in Islamic State. In chaotic Yemen, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula holds major sections of coastline and highways, allowing it to run a smuggling network and to keep local populations loyal by distributing goods and services. Since the Arab Spring, al Qaeda’s Yemen branch has more than quadrupled its membership, from about 1,000 to at least 4,000 fighters, according to State Department estimates …

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https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-resurgent-threat-of-al-qaeda-1492786991