Bin Laden could embrace dying because he believed the war he had declared on Jews and “crusaders” was bigger than him and any other individual. It would sweep the Muslim ummah, or nation. “I am just a poor slave of God,” he said in December 2001, shortly after slipping away from the American bombardment of Tora Bora in eastern Afghanistan. “If I live or die, the war will continue.” With God’s grace, he said, the “awakening” had begun.
Now bin Laden is dead, assassinated by U.S. commandos in a May raid on his secret compound deep inside Pakistan. And indeed, the war between al-Qaeda and its many enemies continues. But al-Qaeda’s destructive nihilism is becoming a lonelier and lonelier pursuit. A decade after its most spectacular and murderous success, al-Qaeda is a shrunken shell of what it once was, rejected by increasing numbers of Muslims and even its onetime spiritual allies.
There is an awakening taking place in the Muslim world, but it is not of the sort envisioned by bin Laden. Uprisings that have shaken capital cities from Tehran to Tunis were led by some of al-Qaeda’s greatest foes: secularists, democrats, and liberated women. They are already stronger than bin Laden ever was. And their legacy will last longer.
Predicting the demise of al-Qaeda is risky. Its new leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, has released at least a dozen messages this year, more than triple his propaganda output in 2010. And the group is always just one spectacular attack away from renewed and invigorated infamy. Information captured during the raid that killed bin Laden reportedly suggests he was planning such an assault to mark the 10th anniversary of 9/11. It’s safe to assume plots are ongoing.
And yet to properly judge al-Qaeda’s status today, it helps to remember its strength 10 and even five years ago.
On Sept. 10, 2001, al-Qaeda had a secure base in Afghanistan. Its cohorts didn’t run the country, but were nurtured and protected there. The Sept. 11 attacks brought them America’s fury and should have finished the organization. But in what was arguably the United States’ first major mistake in its war with al-Qaeda, America did not deploy enough troops to Tora Bora when bin Laden and his colleagues were trapped there. They absconded to Pakistan.
Soon after, in March 2003, the United States and several allied nations invaded Iraq. “It was sort of a life raft that was unexpectedly handed to them,” Peter Bergen, author of The Longest War: The Enduring Conflict Between America and al-Qaeda, said in an interview with Maclean’s. The invasion fed al-Qaeda’s narrative about America’s supposed attempt to subjugate the Muslim world. Al-Qaeda established a franchise in Iraq that controlled one-third of the country by 2006. Then, says Bergen, “they sunk the life raft.”
Al-Qaeda in Iraq’s attempts to impose a Taliban-like theocracy on the Sunnis of Iraq backfired. Iraqis who had previously fought American troops now turned to them for help fighting al-Qaeda. George W. Bush gambled on surging thousands more troops to the embattled country. It paid off. Al-Qaeda in Iraq is now a diminished force without territory.
Even the fragment of territory al-Qaeda can claim to control in northwest Pakistan isn’t much of a safe haven. Its leaders sheltering there frequently fall victim to U.S. drones. Last month, one such missile strike killed Atiyah Abd al-Rahman, al-Qaeda’s latest second-in-command. Membership in the organization is becoming increasingly dangerous.
This doesn’t mean al-Qaeda won’t again successfully hit the United States and or its allies. And the group will always have its adherents, as well as independent copycats who commit outrages in al-Qaeda’s name. It has not been defeated. But al-Qaeda’s power and influence are dwindling.
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