The
West thought it was winning the battle against jihadist terrorism. It should
think again
Sep
28th 2013 From the print edition of the Economist
A FEW months ago
Barack Obama declared that al-Qaeda was "on the path to defeat". Its surviving
members, he said, were more concerned for their own safety than with plotting
attacks on the West. Terrorist attacks of the future, he claimed, would resemble
those of the 1990s-local rather than transnational and focused on "soft
targets". His overall message was that it was time to start winding down George
Bush's war against global terrorism.
Mr Obama might argue
that the assault on the Westgate shopping mall in Nairobi by al-Qaeda's Somali
affiliate, the Shabab, was just the kind of thing he was talking about: lethal,
shocking, but a long way from the United States. Yet the inconvenient truth is
that, in the past 18 months, despite the relentless pummelling it has received
and the defeats it has suffered, al-Qaeda and its jihadist allies have staged an
extraordinary comeback. The terrorist network now holds sway over more territory
and is recruiting more fighters than at any time in its 25-year history
(see article). Mr Obama must
reconsider.
Back from the
dead
It all looked
different two years ago. Even before the killing of Osama bin Laden in 2011,
al-Qaeda's central leadership, holed up near the Afghan border in Pakistan's
North Waziristan, was on the ropes, hollowed out by drone attacks and able to
communicate with the rest of the network only with difficulty and at great risk.
Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), its most capable franchise as far as
mounting attacks on the West is concerned, was being hit hard by drone strikes
and harried by Yemeni troops. The Shabab was under similar pressure in Somalia,
as Western-backed African Union forces chased them out of the main cities. Above
all, the Arab spring had derailed al-Qaeda's central claim that corrupt regimes
supported by the West could be overthrown only through
violence.
All those gains are
now in question. The Shabab is recruiting more foreign fighters than ever (some
of whom appear to have been involved in the attack on the Westgate). AQAP was
responsible for the panic that led to the closure of 19 American embassies
across the region and a global travel alert in early August. Meanwhile
al-Qaeda's core, anticipating the withdrawal of Western troops from Afghanistan
after 2014, is already moving back into the country's wild
east.
Above all, the
poisoning of the Arab spring has given al-Qaeda and its allies an unprecedented
opening. The coup against a supposedly moderate Islamist elected government in
Egypt has helped restore al-Qaeda's ideological power. Weapons have flooded out
of Libya and across the region, and the civil war in Syria has revived one of
the network's most violent and unruly offshoots, al-Qaeda in Iraq, now grandly
renamed the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham.
The struggle to depose
the Assad regime has acted as a magnet for thousands of would-be jihadists from
all over the Muslim world and from Muslim communities in Europe and North
America. The once largely moderate and secular Syrian Free Army has been
progressively displaced by better-organised and better-funded jihadist groups
that have direct links with al-Qaeda. Western intelligence estimates reckon such
groups now represent as much as 80% of the effective rebel fighting force. Even
if they fail to advance much from the territory they now hold in the north and
east of the country, they might end up controlling a vast area that borders an
ever more fragile-looking Iraq, where al-Qaeda is currently murdering up to
1,000 civilians a month. That is a terrifying prospect.
No more wishful
thinking
How much should
Western complacency be blamed for this stunning revival? Quite a bit. Mr Obama
was too eager to cut and run from Iraq. He is at risk of repeating the mistake
in Afghanistan. America has been over-reliant on drone strikes to "decapitate"
al-Qaeda groups: the previous defence secretary, Leon Panetta, even foolishly
talked of defeating the network by killing just 10-20 leaders in Pakistan, Yemen
and Somalia. The general perception of America's waning appetite for engagement
in the Middle East, underlined by Mr Obama's reluctance to support the moderate
Syrian opposition in any useful way has been damaging as
well.
A second question is
how much of a threat a resurgent al-Qaeda now poses to the West. The recently
popular notion that, give or take the odd home-grown "lone wolf", today's
violent jihadists are really interested only in fighting local battles now looks
mistaken. Some of the foreign fighters in Syria will be killed. Others will be
happy to return to a quieter life in Europe or America. But a significant
proportion will take their training, experience and contacts home, keen to use
all three when the call comes, as it surely will. There is little doubt too that
Westerners working or living in regions where jihadism is strong will be doing
so at greater risk than ever.
The final question is
whether anything can be done to reverse the tide once again. The answer is
surely yes. When Mr Bush declared his "war on terror", his aim was the removal
of regimes that sponsored terrorism. Today, the emphasis should be supporting
weak (and sometimes unsavoury) governments in Yemen, Somalia, Iraq, Libya, Mali,
Niger and elsewhere that are trying to fight al-Qaeda. Even Kenya and Nigeria
could do with more help. That does not mean a heavy bootprint on the ground, but
assistance in intelligence, logistics and even special forces and air support.
Most of all, it means more help to train local security forces, to modernise
administrations and to stabilise often frail economies.
The most dismaying
aspect of al-Qaeda's revival is the extent to which its pernicious ideology, now
aided by the failures of the Arab spring, continues to spread through madrassas
and mosques and jihadist websites and television channels. Money still flows
from rich Gulf Arabs, supposedly the West's friends, to finance these activities
and worse. More pressure should be brought to bear on their governments to stop
this. For all the West's supposedly huge soft power, it has been feeble in its
efforts to win over moderate Muslims in the most important battle of all, that
of ideas.
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