Al Qaeda after 9/11: Setbacks, splintering, and staying power
File photo: REUTERS
A quarter-century after al Qaeda militants hijacked four commercial passenger jets and crashed them into New York’s World Trade Center towers and the Pentagon, the organization founded by Osama bin Laden continues to spawn regional affiliates and fuel militant movements across the globe.
While suffering major setbacks over the past 25 years - most notably the 2011 killing of Osama by US forces and the rise of the Islamic State - militancy experts emphasize that al Qaeda remains a major source of ideological inspiration and support, particularly across Africa.
The network originated in the late 1980s under the leadership of Osama, a wealthy Saudi-born militant who had personally fought and funneled assistance to Arab volunteers resisting the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
Al Qaeda evolved into a magnet for extremists aspiring to impose hardline Islamist rule while sharing deep hostility toward the United States, Israel, and US-allied governments in the region.
After Saudi Arabia revoked Osama’s citizenship in 1994 and Sudan expelled him in 1996, he secured sanctuary in Afghanistan. However, he had directed strikes against American targets even prior to reaching Afghanistan.
US recognized its first al Qaeda attack as the 1992 bombing of two hotels in Yemen intended to kill Somalia-bound US troops, though the servicemen had already departed or stayed elsewhere.
Upon settling in Afghanistan, Osama backed training camps and created a brigade composed of foreign fighters. He formally declared jihad in 1996 against US forces occupying Saudi Arabia. In 1998, he announced a “World Islamic Front” for jihad against “Jews and Crusaders,” proclaiming it a Muslim duty to kill Americans and their allies, both civilian and military.
Later that year, al Qaeda coordinated synchronized truck bombings against US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, killing 224 people.
The campaign culminated in the 11 September attacks, executed by 19 hijackers - 15 of them from Saudi Arabia. The assailants seized four airliners, the fourth of which crashed into a Pennsylvania field when passengers stormed the cockpit. The attacks claimed nearly 3,000 lives. In October 2001, the US invaded Afghanistan, ousting the Taliban regime and dislodging al Qaeda from its primary base.
Leadership decapitation and strategic expansion
Anti-Taliban forces overran al Qaeda’s stronghold in the Tora Bora mountains in December 2001, but Osama evaded capture for a decade. He periodically broadcast audio and video messages until US special forces killed him during a compound raid in Abbottabad, Pakistan, in 2011.
Meanwhile, authorities captured self-professed 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in Pakistan in 2003.
According to a Pentagon transcript of a military hearing released in 2007, Khalid admitted that he planned the 9/11 operation “from A to Z”. Following two decades of legal deadlock, a military judge recently ordered Khalid, held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, along with three co-defendants, to stand trial before a military tribunal in June 2028.
Osama’s successor, Ayman al-Zawahri, died in a US drone strike in Kabul in 2022. Today, Egyptian militant Seif al-Adel is believed to serve as al Qaeda’s de facto leader.
Despite the dispersion of its core leadership, militants linked to or inspired by al Qaeda launched devastating international strikes. Among the deadliest were the 2002 bombings in a Bali nightclub district that killed 202 people, the 2004 Madrid train bombings that killed over 190 people, and the 2005 London suicide attacks on underground trains and a bus that killed 52 people.
At the same time, official al Qaeda branches sprouted across the Middle East and beyond. One of its most formidable franchises emerged in Iraq, actively fighting US-led forces following the 2003 invasion.
Additional affiliates formed in North Africa in 2007 and on the Arabian Peninsula in 2009. Following the 2011 Arab uprisings, al Qaeda’s Nusra Front developed into a major force in Syria’s civil war. In Africa, affiliates expanded to include Al Shabaab in Somalia and Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM) in the Sahel region.
Al Qaeda also forged enduring ties with Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP), or the Pakistani Taliban, which conducts an insurgency against Islamabad. Antonio Giustozzi, a senior research fellow at the RUSI think-tank in London, noted that although al Qaeda suffered heavy losses and dislocation right after the Afghan invasion, its global profile expanded massively in subsequent years.
He explained that al Qaeda’s global influence peaked around 2013, just before its Iraqi branch broke away to establish the Islamic State.
Schisms, rivalries, and political shifts
In 2014, Islamic State founder Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi formally severed ties with al Qaeda and declared a “caliphate” across vast swathes of Syria and Iraq, igniting armed clashes with the Nusra Front.
Although coalition forces eventually stripped the Islamic State of its territorial hold in Iraq and Syria, the rivalry between al Qaeda and the Islamic State persists - most intensely in West Africa, where their respective affiliates regularly clash over territory and influence.
Al Qaeda suffered another major structural blow in 2016 when the Nusra Front broke away. Its leader, Ahmed al-Sharaa (then known by his nom de guerre Abu Mohammed al-Golani), subsequently overthrew Bashar al-Assad in 2024, assumed the Syrian presidency, and aligned Damascus as a Western ally.
Modern operating theaters and threat landscape
Somalia and West Africa’s Sahel region represent the primary African theaters where al Qaeda-aligned entities expand influence and exercise governance over significant territories. The TTP has escalated its armed insurgency in northwestern Pakistan.
A UN report released last month revealed that the TTP receives ongoing ideological guidance, training, and operational support from al Qaeda. Pakistan asserts that TTP’s leadership and numerous fighters operate out of Afghanistan, where the Taliban regained power in 2021 following the US withdrawal.
Moreover, a separate UN report published in February highlighted that al Qaeda “continued to enjoy the patronage of the de facto authorities” - referring to the Taliban government - in Afghanistan, adding that its “appetite for external operations” stayed “undiminished”.
Authorities in Kabul deny that al Qaeda operates within Afghanistan or that militant groups launch cross-border attacks into Pakistan from Afghan territory.
Assessing the group’s status, Giustozzi observed that while al Qaeda has passed its historical peak, “they’re still remarkably influential”. He noted that the network has strategically evolved to rely less on high-profile figures and more on a cadre of discreet, low-profile operatives who are “much more difficult to target and identify”.
Source: Reuters (adapted)
