Down but Not Out: Why Al-Qaeda Remains a Major Threat

Although al-Qaeda has suffered numerous operational setbacks, it continues to pose a significant threat from its resurgent operational base in Afghanistan and elsewhere.

Police in Perth, Australia fatally shot a knife-wielding teenager claiming to a member of al-Qaeda. Police later uncovered no evidence to support the teen’s claimed ties to al-Qaeda. Image source

On May 4, police in Perth, Australia, received a call from a person who told the operator they planned to commit “acts of violence.” The caller – later identified as a 16-year-old boy whom Australia’s Youth Justice Act forbids from naming – went on to stab a man in the back. Police later fatally shot the suspect in a suburban carpark after he refused to put down his knife. Subsequent investigations revealed that the teenager messaged several people before the attack, claiming to be a “soldier of the mujahideen of al-Qaeda.” Although there are no signs that the attacker was a member of al-Qaeda, the incident nonetheless demonstrates the pervasive and lasting nature of the group’s ideology. 

Al-Qaeda remains a potent threat despite its waning influence in recent decades and the killing of leaders Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri in 2011 and 2022, respectively. With powerful global affiliates and potent propaganda campaigns that regularly exploit global headlines to inspire would-be attacks, al-Qaeda’s continued survival away from the media spotlight continues to produce severe repercussions. Now that the group is building up a substantial base of operations in Afghanistan, its threat is perhaps more potent than it has been in years. 

Once almost completely driven from the country, al-Qaeda now maintains a substantial base of operations in Afghanistan. Image source

Origins of al-Qaeda

Al-Qaeda was formed in Peshawar, Pakistan in 1988. Its leader, Osama bin Laden, a scion of one of Saudi Arabia’s wealthiest and most influential families, had fought alongside many other Arabs in the Afghan Mujahideen against the Soviet Union that decade. Following the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan in 1988, many of these Arab Mujahideen fighters, including Bin Laden and his ideological compatriot, Abdullah Azzam, became emboldened by their apparent victory.  They sought to unite Muslims in a global jihad against their enemies, including the U.S., and Bin Laden, with his influential family name and connections to wealthy donors, was the natural choice to lead this group. 

Al-Qaeda seeks to promote Islamic governance throughout the Muslim world. It primarily chose to target U.S. interests due to Washington’s support for Israel and pro-Western and largely secular dictatorships in predominantly Muslim countries, which al-Qaeda’s leadership sees as the primary hindrance to its broader goals. Al-Qaeda’s first attack came in 1992 when it bombed a hotel housing American troops in Yemen. Over the next decade and a half, al-Qaeda conducted multiple high-profile attacks on American interests, culminating in those of 9/11, which killed over 3,000 people on American soil. 

Al-Qaeda continued to mount mass casualty attacks up until around 2011. In 2004, it bombed Madrid’s commuter train network, killing 191 people, and in 2005, it replicated this attack in London, killing another 52 people. One of Al-Qaeda’s greatest strengths lies in its ability to construct networks of independent transnational affiliates who are otherwise independent but have pledged loyalty to al-Qaeda and agreed to operate under its strategic vision. Today, prominent al-Qaeda affiliates include the Yemen-based al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) and the Sahel-based al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). In Somalia, al-Shabaab is al-Qaeda’s largest, wealthiest, and most prominent affiliate, with as many as 12,000 fighters under its control. 

Several factors have caused the frequency and intensity of al-Qaeda attacks to fall in recent years. For example, the decades-long occupation of Afghanistan by the U.S. and its allies, including the widespread use of drone strikes and air assaults, was a more robust response than al-Qaeda had reportedly anticipated. These efforts, combined with Western crackdowns on al-Qaeda cells and sympathizers in Europe and elsewhere, made al-Qaeda a shadow of its former self in the years leading up to bin Laden’s 2011 killing. The group’s influence continued to wane under the leadership of bin Laden’s successor, Ayman al-Zawahiri, whose comparatively restrained approach to global jihad and relative lack of charisma failed to engender the same cultish following throughout the organization. 

Resistance to Zawahiri’s military strategy and other ideological differences led to the 2013 breakaway of al-Qaeda’s Iraqi affiliate. This faction later re-emerged as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), eventually giving rise to the broader Islamic State (IS) movement that regularly dominates global headlines with brazen and catastrophic attacks. Although a U.S. drone strike killed Zawahiri in Kabul in 2022, al-Qaeda remains a potent global threat. It continues to base its international operations in Afghanistan, just as it did at the time of 9/11. 

Osama bin Laden (left) led al-Qaeda from 1988 until his death in 2011. Ayman al-Zawahiri (right) led the organization from 2011 until his death in 2022. Image source

Down but not out

Although al-Qaeda has yet to announce Zawahiri’s successor, it is widely believed that veteran jihadist Saif al-Adel has taken charge of the group. Under his supposed leadership, al-Qaeda has been rebuilding its old stronghold of Afghanistan, which is now under the de-facto rule of its long-time ally and ideological cousin, the Taliban. Since the Taliban’s 2021 return to power, al-Qaeda has been quietly amassing wealth and resources, reportedly raising over $194 million from gold and gem mines in the country’s Badakhshan and Takhar provinces. UN reports claim that al-Qaeda is also helping anti-state groups conduct attacks in neighboring Pakistan. 

Al-Qaeda has long excelled at the production and distribution of propaganda and now does so in conjunction with the Taliban. The group reportedly produces al-Mersaad (Arabic for the watchtower), a media campaign that operates in multiple languages on various social media platforms, taking the form of a pro-Taliban news agency. Al-Mersaad regularly produces propaganda targeting Afghanistan’s neighbors, including Pakistan and Tajikistan. Through its propaganda, al-Qaeda affiliates also regularly exploit the Israel-Hamas conflict and have used the October 7 attacks to attempt to inspire attacks on U.S. and Israeli targets worldwide. According to al-Adel: “we have to open a series of fronts on them to disperse them, weaken them, and defeat them.” The conflict has also brought into focus that large sections of Muslim populations maintain grievances with the West and often with their local governments. These grievances create fertile ground for al-Qaeda to exploit.

Al-Qaeda’s threat is not merely ideological, as the group maintains training camps in 10 of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces. Although estimates of its strength vary, the group reportedly has hundreds, or possibly thousands, of fighters operating under its banner in Afghanistan. Al-Qaeda also maintains substantial operations in Iran, where a number of its senior members, including Adel and others such as Zawahiri’s son-in-law, Abd al-Rahman al-Maghribi, are reportedly based. Tehran also reportedly maintains ties with Somali-based al-Qaeda affiliate al-Shabaab. 

Al-Qaeda’s various affiliates still pose a significant threat to the local governments and Western interests in their respective territories. One such threat is that posed by Al-Shabaab, which reportedly maintains vast pan-African money laundering networks and has a propensity for launching attacks both inside Somalia and targeting neighboring countries such as Ethiopia and Kenya. According to some estimates, al-Shabaab collects over $100 million annually, giving it substantial means to continue to pose a severe regional threat. 

Al-Qaeda’s relative operational silence is not due to a lack of trying. Within one year of bin Laden’s demise, AQAP attempted to blow up a US-bound flight. In 2019, a Royal Saudi Air Force officer participating in a Pentagon-sponsored training program shot and killed three people at a naval air station in Florida; AQAP later claimed responsibility for the attack. These attempts indicate that al-Qaeda is constantly refining its external attack capabilities while reaching global ideological sympathizers.   

Somali-based al-Shabaab maintains a heavily armed fighting force of some 12,000 individuals. Image source

Conclusion

Al-Qaeda continues to pose a significant global threat due to its long-term view of jihad, focus on attacking the West, and vast geographic capabilities. Although policymakers are currently focused on the more prominent threat of groups such as IS, Washington and its allies must adopt a cohesive approach to assess and deal with this threat as it continues to evolve.