But… but… but… path to defeat!
LONDON, Jan 16 (Reuters) – More than two years after the death of Osama bin Laden, the turbulent aftermath of the “Arab Spring” has helped his group – or more accurately, its offshoots and successors – gain ground.
Two weeks ago, fighters from al Qaeda affiliate the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) took over much of the central Iraqi city of Falluja, reversing their defeat at the hands of U.S. forces and local tribal allies almost a decade ago.
Western officials fear associated groups will carve out havens in Libya, Syria, West Africa and perhaps Afghanistan once NATO troops withdraw.
But the new generation is very different to the tight-knit group that planned the September 11, 2001 attacks, security experts and officials say.
Groups such as ISIL, Somalia’s al Shabaab or Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) have primarily local aims and are much less concerned with the Western “far enemy”.
In a video posted on YouTube on December 17 which Western intelligence agencies have been studying, a man in a balaclava snaps rounds into a Glock handgun magazine and, in a pronounced English Midlands accent, calls on British Muslims to join him in Syria, “the land of Jihad”.
But the unidentified man does not mention attacking the West once. Instead, his ire is directed at the forces of Syrian President Bashar al Assad and the western-backed Free Syrian Army.
Heightened strains over the Syria war between Shi’ite Muslim Iran and Sunni power Saudi Arabia, who back opposite sides in the conflict, are contributing to sectarian tensions around the region and encouraging Gulf Arab sympathizers to increase funding of aggressively Sunni al Qaeda affiliates.
But there is little sign of common purpose.
“There are probably more people fighting now under the al Qaeda banner than ever before,” says Richard Barrett, head of the United Nations al Qaeda and Taliban monitoring team until last year and now at the Soufan Group consultancy. “But that doesn’t mean they are necessarily fighting for the same thing or even on the same side.”
HT: FRA