ICYMI – Debate: Is al-Qaeda a global terror threat or a local military menace? – The Globe and Mail

Globe debate on Al-Qaeda and whether its strength today. Arguing for it being weaker is J.M. Berger:

Al-Qaeda has not abandoned terrorism, but it has adopted a default position of encouraging “lone wolf” attacks by non-networked supporters in the West. While this obviously represents an ongoing problem, individual actors do not represent the same magnitude of threat that manifested itself on September 11, nor do they require al-Qaeda to spend its own resources.

Holding territory is an inherently local activity, which has focused the resources of many jihadists on the countries where they dwell, rather than on attacking the U.S. homeland. Even al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula — widely held to be the most dangerous al-Qaeda threat to the West — has attempted only a handful of attacks on the U.S. homeland. Each of the plots that have become public knowledge were lightly staffed and funded on a shoestring budget. AQAP’s resources are instead overwhelmingly devoted to battling the government of Yemen, where it is based.

For the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, Daveed Gartenstein-Ross argues the contrary:

But we should be cautious about repeating past mistakes, and prematurely penning the obituary of al-Qaeda’s senior leadership.

For their own part, al-Qaeda insiders reject the characterization that the group has become decentralized. Abu Sulayman al-Muhajir, an al-Qaeda official currently in Syria with its official affiliate, the Nusra Front, recently spoke at length about al-Qaeda’s bureaucracy. He described system known as aqalim – regionalization — wherein a different leader oversees each of the geographic locations where the group operates, but is subordinate through an oath of bayat (fealty) to al-Qaeda emir Ayman al-Zawahiri. One senior al-Qaeda official, known as the masul aqalim, is responsible for overseeing all the affiliates operating in different regions, coordinating with the regional emirs. Rather than disparate groups connected by little more than “loose ideology,” Abu Sulayman described a group with bureaucratic direction. His account appears more credible than that of The New York Times.

Debate: Is al-Qaeda a global terror threat or a local military menace? – The Globe and Mail.