Although 9/11 electrified the global jihadist movement and further raised Al Qaeda’s profile on the world stage, the U.S. embassies in Africa and the 9/11 attacks inside the United States transformed Al Qaeda into a potent brand. For jihadists facing annihilation at the hands of their regimes, the choice was easy-join Al Qaeda, adopt an anti-Western agenda and live to fight another day. Al Qaeda training camps were the Ivy League of jihadist education. By the mid-1990s, he wanted to reorient the movement as a whole, focusing it on what he saw as the bigger enemy underwriting all these corrupt local regimes: the United States.Īl Qaeda’s emphasis on fighting the “far enemy” (the United States) over the “near enemy” (repressive regimes in the Muslim world) was a break from the traditional jihadist agenda, but for local jihadists, pledging allegiance to bin Laden and adopting the Al Qaeda brand meant obtaining access to a wide range of assets: money, weapons, logistical support, expertise and, of course, training. His goal was to bring together under a single umbrella the hundreds of small jihadist groups struggling, often feebly, against their own regimes.
Bin Laden’s vision was to create a vanguard of elite fighters that could lead the global jihad project in a clear, strategic direction. As the Soviets prepared to withdraw, Osama bin Laden and a few of his close associates-high on their perceived victory over the mighty Soviet Union-decided to capitalize on the network they had built to take jihad global. Washington must also adjust its counterterrorism policies to recognize the implications of this rivalry.ĪL QAEDA emerged out of the anti-Soviet jihad in Afghanistan in the 1980s. The United States can exploit this split, both to decrease the threat and to weaken the movement as a whole. However, the implications of one side’s victory or of continuing division are profound for the Middle East and for the United States, shaping the likely targets of the jihadist movement, its ability to achieve its goals and the overall stability of the Middle East. The two are now competing for more than the leadership of the jihadist movement: they are competing for its soul. When Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi rejected Al Qaeda’s authority and later declared a caliphate, he split the fractious jihadist movement.
Although the Al Qaeda leader might be expected to rejoice at the emergence of a strong jihadist group that delights in beheading Americans (among other horrors), in reality the Islamic State’s rise risks Al Qaeda’s demise.
Even in many Arab countries where the Islamic State does not have a strong presence, its rise is radicalizing those countries’ populations, fomenting sectarianism and making a bad region even worse.īut there is one person for whom the Islamic State’s rise is even more frightening: Ayman al-Zawahiri. Islamic State forces carved out a haven in Syria and, in June 2014, routed the Iraqi army, capturing large swathes of territory and prompting the Obama administration to overcome its long-standing aversion to a bigger U.S. ALMOST OVERNIGHT, the Islamic State sent its enemies reeling-and turned U.S.