| Osama bin Laden’s death will fuel, not dampen, the efforts of Al Qaeda supported terrorists By Réhab El-Bakry |
| So Osama bin Laden is dead. So what? As people took to the streets — some to celebrate, others to mourn — the real focus should not have been him, but about what his death will actually mean to the security of people around the world.I hate to be the one who points this out, but bin Laden’s organization Al Qaeda is most certainly not dead, and we as citizens of the world are likely to be in a lot of danger. In fact, this organization is likely to be more violent and a lot more unpredictable now that he’s no longer in charge. It’s not that bin Laden was a timid or reasonable person who showed restraint in Al Qaeda operations. However, unlike what most people think, his contribution to radical terrorism in the world was not Al Qaeda itself but its ideology and mode of operation. The US has always fixated on the idea of seeking revenge for the September 11, 2001 attacks by killing bin Laden, and no one is arguing that they shouldn’t have. But just as the US sought its revenge, the members of Al Qaeda will likely seek theirs. And just as this revenge came by declaring war on two countries, this group will seek its revenge not just on the US but on the citizens of countries around the world. The real challenge is, few people if any have accurate information as to where this new threat will come from next, who exactly will be carrying it out and who will be the target. The asymmetrical war that bin Laden and Al Qaeda had declared against the world so many years ago meant that in order for the group to have any chance at carrying out a single act of violence against the target, its modus operandi had to be different. That is why Al Qaeda was never structured to be a single cohesive entity. Instead, it’s a franchise of sorts. Built on the notion of recreating the ummah (borderless Islamic community) and the cosmic battle between good and evil, the ideology propagated by bin Laden and Al Qaeda was not that of a single entity that would declare war on the US, the West or secularists around the world. This was only one side of the coin. Instead, Al Qaeda built itself as the head office from which terrorist organizations around the world can seek guidance whenever needed. Al Qaeda offers inspiration for recruits, training camps and spiritual and/or political guidance. It offers all the main components that can help brainwash members to turn them into hardened terrorists. Functioning almost like a multinational, Al Qaeda has managed to create offshoots throughout various areas in the world over the past 10 years. These groups might be pledging allegiance to bin Laden and Al Qaeda to carry out attacks on their behalf, but what is even more important is that these groups are also given semi-autonomy to implement their own personal agendas. One of the most notable examples of this was Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian-born leader of Al Qaeda who was killed in Iraq in 2006. During the heyday of insurgency in Iraq, al-Zarqawi opted to declare war not just against the US and British troops and other Westerners, but he also declared war on the country’s Shiite population. This, in fact, was against the ideology of bin Laden, who often argued that now was not the time for Muslims to fight one another — instead, the focus should be on fighting the West. However, that main point of disagreement did not stop al-Zarqawi from becoming the leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq, nor did bin Laden attempt to stop al-Zarqawi from carrying out his own personal agenda alongside that of Al Qaeda. The understanding of Al Qaeda is that each subgroup can still implement its own agenda, which is highly dependent on the actual country in which this subgroup functions. For some countries, the subgroup’s targets are Shiites, in others they are Christians and in others still, they are secularists. While bin Laden’s death means that Al Qaeda has lost a strong and charismatic speaker, in reality, this doesn’t actually mean much change for the entity itself. It is likely that Ayman Al Zawahiri, Al Qaeda’s number-two man, will replace bin Laden as head of the group. He might not be the most popular of people within Al Qaeda. He might not be a captivating speaker, a fact that had always hindered the popularity of his own organization, Al Jihad, within Egypt before he moved on to Al Qaeda. But Al Zawahiri was bin Laden’s most trusted aide and was often seen as the real strategist behind Al Qaeda’s planning. Moreover, Al Qaeda itself is a very structured entity with a well-known and respected hierarchy as well as clear steps when it comes to identifying who leads the entity next. Based on information accessed over the past 10 years via Al Qaeda’s computers, the entity’s structure is more sophisticated than most give it credit for. Its headquarters might have been in the caves, but it has procedures and processes that would make most corporations envious. It offers medical insurance to Al Qaeda members, vacation time and plane tickets home whenever possible. It also has a buyout plan for those who decide that a lifetime of jihad is not for them. So for those who feel compelled to dwell on who will sit at the top of the organization, or whether not the video from the raid will be released, go right ahead. But the bigger point of concern should be who will be seeking revenge for the killing and how many more people will pay with their lives for this revenge. This is particularly important given that the 10th anniversary of 9/11 is just around the corner, and Al Qaeda as well as its affiliates are very big on anniversaries. If they stick to their traditional mode of operation, then the minor attempted attacks that have taken place over the past few years — the so-called “underwear bomber” in 2009 and the booby-trapped ink cartridges sent to the US from Dubai in 2010 — were just feelers to test international security measures. The long and the short of it is, we should all brace ourselves. |
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