Net effect
Among the most coherent arguments raised by opponents to the US-led military intervention in Iraq was that it would, by further inflaming anti-Western sentiment and distracting attention from counter-terrorism efforts, increase transnational Islamic terrorism. This may well be occurring. Further, terrorist activity seems to have been refocused on the Gulf and North Africa, with major bombings occurring in Riyadh and Casablanca on 12 May and 16 May, respectively. These bore the hallmarks of al-Qaeda operations: suicide attacks were coordinated and virtually simultaneous; they targeted sites at which Americans or Jews were likely to be killed; and they appear to have involved local extremists who have passed through al-Qaeda's training camps in Afghanistan or had other operational contacts with higher-level al-Qaeda figures.
The administration of US President George W. Bush was aware that there could be a short-term upsurge in al-Qaeda activity after the Iraq war. But it calculated that an al-Qaeda weakened by the global counter-terrorism campaign could be contained, and that the long-term political dividends of regime change in Iraq in terms of discouraging terrorism would exceed considerably its more immediate costs. This was arguably a reasonable gamble, given that transnational Islamic terrorism has been thwarted in North America and Europe since the 11 September 2001 attacks. Even a reinvigorated al-Qaeda may be containable in those areas. Yet, it is less probable that regime change will have the profound counter-terrorism effects that the Bush administration has posited.
Unaltered objectives
The US military presence in Saudi Arabia and American support for Israel in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict are cited in post-11 September al-Qaeda videotapes aired on al-Jazeera, the Qatar-based news network, as justifications for terrorist operations. In line with US Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz's plans, the Iraq war removed the need for the large US deployment in Saudi Arabia and has enabled the Pentagon to plan a withdrawal. Deeper US re-engagement in the Israeli–Palestinian peace process may also moderate al-Qaeda recruitment.
Yet, overall, the US occupation of Iraq has enlarged the American military footprint in the Persian Gulf and dramatically demonstrated the American determination to change the political status quo in the Arab world in ways that cater to US strategic and political interests. Insofar as al-Qaeda seeks, among other things, to purge the Arab and larger Muslim world of US influence, these inflammatory factors outweigh any calming effect that the prospective US withdrawal from Saudi Arabia might have. Indeed, the Riyadh operation could be construed as an act of combative triumphalism, whereby al-Qaeda intended to convey that it had successfully driven the US from the land of Islam's two most holy sites and would complete the job of 'sanitising' the rest of Islam.
Moreover, al-Qaeda appears to have added the Iraq intervention to its list of grievances and refocused terrorist efforts on the Arab world. The tape broadcast by al-Jazeera on 21 May 2003, apparently recorded by second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahiri, brands several Arab states – including Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, Egypt, Yemen and Jordan – as collaborators in the war against Iraq. The Riyadh and Casablanca attacks suggest al-Qaeda's renewed operational preoccupation with 'apostate' Arab countries.
Notwithstanding heavy force protection, the substantial exposure of US troops in Iraq is likely to draw transnational terrorist attention. An influx of jihadists into Iraq was reported early in the war, and there were several fatal hit-and-run guerrilla attacks on American soldiers in late May and early June 2003. More broadly, the Iraq intervention should be expected to increase the inclination of some Muslims to turn towards radical Islam and potentially terrorism. Al-Qaeda's recruitment therefore should improve. Any conclusive failure to find weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in Iraq would only exacerbate these effects.
Al-Qaeda rhetoric highlights the alleged historical humiliation of Islam at the hands of the Judeo-Christian West, and contemplates no truce with the West until the US has been tamed by fatalities in the millions. Drawing down American military deployments in Saudi Arabia and constructive US involvement in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict alone are not likely deter al-Qaeda from seeking the debilitation of the US. This objective continues to take the form of an absolute religious imperative. The May 2003 al-Zawahiri tape declares that 'the crusaders and the Jews only understand the language of murder, bloodshed […] and of the burning towers'. Al-Qaeda is unsusceptible to placation through political compromise or conflict resolution.
Resilient means
Intelligence agencies believe that Al-Qaeda is present in over 60 countries, and that at least 20,000 jihadists were trained in its Afghanistan camps. Since 11 September, military and law-enforcement efforts have resulted in the deaths or permanent detention of up to one-half of al-Qaeda's 30 senior leaders but no more than 2,000 confirmed rank-and-file members. This leaves a rump leadership intact and over 18,000 potential al-Qaeda terrorists still at large.
Offensively al-Qaeda has been hobbled since the Afghanistan intervention, but defensively it has benefited. Deprived of a comfortable physical base for training and operations, al-Qaeda lacks a magnet for enlistees and a secure command-and-control centre. Heightened global intelligence and law-enforcement efforts have also made communications, travel and financing more difficult. By the same token, however, al-Qaeda's greatest current advantage is the logistical and operational flexibility afforded by having no state to defend, which allows it to maintain a flat, transnational, clandestine and 'virtual' framework with minimal physical infrastructure. Operatives are now harder to detect. Al-Qaeda's cells still appear to operate semi-autonomously, maintaining links through field commanders to leaders, most of whom are probably hiding in Pakistan's cities, or 'tribal areas' near the Afghan border.
Now without a point-target to focus on, the US and its counter-terrorism partners have few effective military options available to thwart al-Qaeda. They must depend instead on homeland security and law-enforcement and intelligence cooperation. This has proven effective in Europe and the US, where mature bureaucracies, robust security institutions and longstanding bilateral security relationships prevail. But where security institutions are weak or constrained by anti-American or anti-Western sentiment – as in Indonesia, Kenya, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Tunisia – there are vulnerabilities that are easier for al-Qaeda to exploit. Accordingly, the group has focused on these countries as targets of opportunity. While counter-terrorism cooperation improved in Indonesia and Saudi Arabia after the Bali and Riyadh attacks, respectively, domestic pressures may make gains difficult to sustain. Saudi cooperation had improved during the months following 11 September, but in spring 2003 Saudi security forces had reportedly ignored five US requests to deploy guards around likely Western targets.
Al-Qaeda's modus operandi
Owing to its relative offensive limitations, al-Qaeda must now rely more on local groups that may have only loose affiliations with – or are merely inspired by – the al-Qaeda leadership. Consequently, Osama bin Laden and his lieutenants are often compelled to relinquish substantial operational initiative and responsibility to local cells. Nevertheless, experienced al-Qaeda 'middle managers' can provide planning and logistical advice, materiel and financing to the smaller groups. Moroccan authorities indicate that the indigenous parties involved in the five suicide bombings in Casablanca were linked to a local outfit called Salafist Jihad, but received $50,000 in financial assistance from an al-Qaeda source abroad and were in possession of al-Qaeda training manuals and the sermons of Abu Qatada, a key al-Qaeda recruiter and 'fixer' who has been based in London. Al-Qaeda is likely to have operated in a similar manner with respect to the Bali bombing and the Mombassa attacks in late 2002, as well as the recent Riyadh operation. While these did not recreate the mass-casualty spectacle of 11 September, they killed Western Europeans, Australians and Israelis – all prominent enemies of al-Qaeda – and heightened insecurity worldwide.
Al-Qaeda affiliates suspected of involvement in post-11 September operations – Jemaah Islamiah in Indonesia, the Armed Islamic Group (GIA) of Algeria, al-Ittihaad al-Islamiya in East Africa, and the Salafist Jihad of Morocco, to name a few – probably have no direct operational links. Al-Qaeda, however, can act as their common ideological, financial and logistical hub. On the intangible side, bin Laden's charisma, presumed survival and elusiveness enhance the organisation's iconic power and its attractiveness to would-be terrorists. This unique position means that the new al-Qaeda remains a terrorist 'network of networks' with unparalleled global leverage.
The superior counter-terrorism institutions of the US and European countries will continue to make North America and Europe difficult operating environments for al-Qaeda. But given the group's absolutist objectives, it will try to infiltrate these areas and hatch more promising plans for terrorist operations. Al-Qaeda wants to develop the capability to effectively use WMD but probably has not yet done so. In the meantime, al-Qaeda is likely to keep hitting soft targets with a view to killing Americans, Europeans and Israelis. The group would probably prefer to keep up pressure in the Arab world to stress its outrage over US intervention in Iraq, but its dependence on the operational capabilities of local groups means it will be more opportunistic than selective. Following the Riyadh bombings, for example, credible current intelligence indicated that Fazul Abdullah Mohammed – a prominent al-Qaeda operative in East Africa, suspected in the 1998 US embassy bombings and the late 2002 Mombassa attacks – was orchestrating another attack in Kenya, possibly on a British airliner. Substantial non-specific intelligence 'chatter' also led to heightened homeland security precautions in the US and the UK.
Balance sheet
In opening the way to demonstrating the merits of political pluralism and participation in a reconstructed Iraq, the war may have improved the West's ability to address the root causes of Islamic terrorism through democratisation – though any such gains are as yet unrealised and by no means assured. More immediately, the war has denied al-Qaeda a potential supplier of WMD and discouraged state sponsors of terrorism – principally Iran and Syria – from continuing to support it. Some US analysts credibly consider Hizbullah, the Lebanese Shi'ite group, the most formidable terrorist outfit in the world, and believe that it has forged a tactical alliance with al-Qaeda despite the latter's predominantly Sunni/Wahhabi composition. Since the war has ended, Hizbullah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah has endorsed 'martyrdom in any Arab country against US or other occupation forces'. Yet even this statement is geographically circumscribed, and the fact that the Iraq war liberated Hizbullah's fellow Shi'ites argues against attacks on US occupying forces.
Further, Hizbullah's comparative quiescence before and during the Iraq war and its dependence on Iran and Syria suggest that it may not ramp up transnational operations against the US and its partners, although it may become more provocative in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict.
Less positively, the war has probably inflamed radical passions among Muslims and thus increased al-Qaeda's recruiting power and morale and, at least marginally, its operational capability. On balance, therefore, the immediate effect of the war may have been to further isolate al-Qaeda from any potential state supporters while also increasing its ranks and galvanising its will.
Certainly, al-Qaeda's continued viability as a terrorist organisation and its probable post-Iraq resurgence oblige Western governments and their partners to maintain the strong counter-terrorism posture established since 11 September and to seek continually to improve it. There remains a premium on inter-governmental cooperation because of al-Qaeda's transnational ubiquity and opportunism. Whether regime change in Iraq proves ultimately to ameliorate the terrorism threat depends significantly on the efficacy of US-dominated post-conflict operations in establishing an independent democratic polity in Iraq. So far, the process of securing the country and generating a political framework has been halting. But provided it eventually succeeds, American and British claims to legitimacy may be supportable (even if WMD are not uncovered). Such legitimacy would give concomitant diplomatic efforts to root out terrorism in the Gulf the best chance of a positive reception and of substantial implementation.
