Over at the LA Times, Nabih Bulos has an interesting expose on al Qaeda
Seventeen years after Sept. 11, Al Qaeda may be stronger than ever
In the days after Sept. 11, 2001, the United States set out to destroy Al Qaeda. President George W. Bush vowed to “starve terrorists of funding, turn them one against another, drive them from place to place, until there is no refuge or no rest.â€
Seventeen years later, Al Qaeda may be stronger than ever. Far from vanquishing the extremist group and its associated “franchises,†critics say, U.S. policies in the Mideast appear to have encouraged its spread.
What U.S. officials didn’t grasp, said Rita Katz, director of the SITE intelligence group, in a recent phone interview, is that Al Qaeda is more than a group of individuals. “It’s an idea, and an idea cannot be destroyed using sophisticated weapons and killing leaders and bombing training camps,†she said.
The group has amassed the largest fighting force in its existence. Estimates say it may have more than 20,000 militants in Syria and Yemen alone. It boasts affiliates across north Africa, the Levant and parts of Asia, and it remains strong around the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.
It has also changed tactics. Instead of the headline-grabbing terrorist attacks, brutal public executions and slick propaganda used by Islamic State (Al Qaeda’s one-time affiliate and now rival), Al Qaeda now practices a softer approach, embedding itself and gaining the support of Sunni Muslims inside war-torn countries.
Look, Obama did a decent job in quietly going after Islamic terrorists while president. He loved him some drone strikes and sending in special forces. Some serious strikes. But, the very fact is that people like Obama and his people refused to acknowledge that radical Islam is an idea, and that it is growing, especially as more and more Muslims are indoctrinated into the hardcore beliefs. Al Shabbab is one of AQ’s largest franchises, then you have the Nusra Front in Syria, which is working with the rebels against Bashar Assad. These types of groups enjoy more support amongst Muslims than ISIS, being less brutal and attempting to be more inclusive.
They’re growing, being in Libya, Syria, Somalia, and Yemen, among others. Until you call out the mindset that creates the hardcore Islamists, you can’t hope to defeat it.
(graphic from this article)
