Obsolete

Friday, September 11, 2009

Al-Qaida is dead. Long live al-Qaida.

Al-Qaida faces recruitment crisis, claims the Graun. One has to wonder if this isn't just to do with all the associated problems currently facing them in Pakistan, with the army apparently ready or getting ready to move into Waziristan, but rather because Ayman al-Zawahiri is an increasingly derided figure within jihadi circles while bin Laden may as well be dead, even if he isn't, such is his current input.

As well as that to contend with, it's the simple truth that al-Qaida in Pakistan is on the back foot. Young idealistic fighters aren't attracted to lost causes, hence why Iraq has also now dropped down the list of places that most wished to travel and fight in. Afghanistan suddenly looks attractive again, while probably the biggest success now is al-Shabaab in Somalia, a triumph for which American interference, in the form of the Ethiopian invasion to overthrow the Islamic Courts Union in Mogadishu a couple of years back can be squarely linked to. Al-Qaida in the Islamic Mahgreb, formerly the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat is also apparently proposing. The key here also is that these are nationalist struggles, not global ones. They might fight with the intention one day of going global, but nationalism rather than globalism can still motivate the locals far more than the utopian idealism of a global caliphate can.

Finally, there's also the fact that this could, despite so much academic concern, just be a fad, somewhat like the left-wing terrorism of the 70s and 80s in Europe was. There's also the fact that 9/11 is now to those who were only say, 10 at the time and are now entering adulthood, almost ancient history. Bin Laden? Who's he? There will be others, surely, to take his place, like Abu Musab al-Zarqawi already has to an extent in jihadist idealism, but bin Laden himself is not getting any younger. New heroes emerge as the old ones decay. The real thing to fear might well be the next generation of Islamic extremists, just as deadly in their ambition as Zarqawi, and with even less qualms about things like shedding blood, definitely including that of fellow Muslims. The old al-Qaida might be withering away, but a new one or a successor will surely take its place.

Labels: al-Qaida, al-Shabaab, Ayman al-Zawahiri, jihadists, Osama bin Laden, takfirists, terrorism