Although much has been made of the fact that Osama Bin Laden was not the operations chief of Al Qaeda, the death of its icon and spiritual leader is a serious blow to the organisation, mainly because the failure of the Americans to find him had been something of an embarrassment to the world’s superpower and a boon for the terror network.
Reacting to the news that Bin Laden had finally been tracked down and killed, Dave Cardinal, whose son-in-law was killed on 11 September, put it succinctly, ‘We’ve cut the head off the snake. It may not die for a while.’
While it won’t have a major impact on the ability of the franchise to organise and fundraise (this is thought to be in decline anyway), the most significant issue is that there is no obvious replacement for Bin Laden.
Ayman Al Zawahiri, a disciple of one of the earliest founders of political Islamism, Sayyib Kutb, was a mentor to Bin Laden, and acted as his main deputy and COO. He has been high-profile of late, releasing several videos this year, trying to claim that jihadism helped inspire the Arab Spring. But the Egyptian-born former doctor doesn’t have the same ‘inspiring’ backstory of having renounced wealth, and is nowhere near as visionary as Bin Laden. He is also a more divisive figure within Al Qaeda, viewed with suspicion by some as he often gets involved in local squabbles.
Nevertheless, the most likely scenario seems to be that Zawahiri will declare himself leader, but in fact the announcement will not matter greatly to the operation of many Islamist terror groups. Most are well established with their own regional command and control structures. The Pakistani Taliban is a separate entity which is thought to have been responsible for training and funding the Times Square bomber, Faisal Shahzad. The Lashkar-e-Taiba group is one of the main entities in the Punjab, and with alleged links to Pakistan’s ISI security services, was the major force behind the 2009 Mumbai attacks. Al Qaeda’s representatives in Iraq and the Maghreb, while still carrying out local attacks, such as the bombing in Marrakech, are limited in their scope.
However, none of these groups have the global focus that Al Qaeda and Bin Laden provided, which means they are less likely to be able to mount a major spectacular in the West. But the death of Bin Laden will probably provoke a reaction from Al Qaeda’s new leadership – so an attack may well be imminent in order to remind the world that they are still in business.
So the challenge for the west now is to go after the rest of Al Qaeda’s leadership and disrupt their ability to plan further operations. However, the bigger impact on Islamist terror groups will come from the Arab Spring.
One of the main gripes of groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood has been the support of western states for dictatorial governments in the Middle East. With such governments being challenged across the region by their own people it removes one of the main legitimate grievances of the Islamists. The second major issue is the Middle East peace process. It remains to be seen if the deal between Hamas and Fatah will help reignite serious negotiations, but it is an interesting development nonetheless, and one that may partly have stemmed from both parties’ concerns about the impact of the Arab spring.
But the biggest loser from the operation on Bin Laden may not be Al Qaeda, but Pakistan. From the failure – either deliberate or incompetent – to divulge that Bin Laden was living in a large compound just 60 miles from the capital, Islamabad, to the continuing presence of terror training camps in the country, Pakistan is increasingly in the spotlight as a major centre for extremist activity. In addition, AQ Khan, the father of Pakistan’s nuclear bomb has been a major conduit for proliferation to rogue states like Iran, Libya and North Korea, and Ayman Al Zawahiri is rumoured to be in Pakistan. While the government is at pains to stress that it has been fighting terrorist groups (their representatives often use the line that Pakistan has suffered more casualties than any other country in the war on terror), the ability to deliver more of Al Qaeda’s leadership will be an important test of Pakistan’s responsibility to the international community.
So while Bin Laden’s death has been a blow to Al Qaeda, his memory and perceived martyrdom will continue to inspire terrorists for generations to come. He is, in essence, gone but not forgotten.
OBL should have been put on trial ,not murdered in cold blood ( hot rage probably ) but we know what would have come out then of past American policy ? Yes he murdered but that does not mean we should act like animals too.
Pakistan starts OBL inquiry ; for goodness sake ,America probably knew where he was and something was about to be revealed which safe haven had been exchanged for keeping secret ? They could never have killed him and no one know or others would think him still alive.