Al Qaeda is losing

Richard Kemp:

‘God willing, our raids on you will continue,” said Osama bin Laden — or someone purporting to be him — in a message broadcast on al-Jazeera over the weekend. The blunt message to “Obama from Osama” is intended to reaffirm that, despite Barack Obama’s overtures to the Islamic world, he and his country remain infidels, every bit as evil as they were under George W. Bush.

But ignore the bloodcurdling rhetoric. That bin Laden was reduced to claiming that the failed Christmas Day attempt to blow up an airliner was comparable to 9/11 is a sign of al-Qaeda’s current parlous state. The new recording also revealed another weakness: al-Qaeda fears that it is losing the battle for hearts and minds.

President Obama and the Western world were not his true audience. His broadcast was aimed at Muslims — hence its focus on the Israeli- Palestinian conflict, a cause that has never been important to the leader of al-Qaeda. Bin Laden knows well the powerful emotion inspired around the globe by the Palestinians’ plight. By feigning support for them he hopes to regain some of al-Qaeda’s dramatically diminished popularity.

Former sympathisers have become disillusioned by the death toll inflicted by bin Laden’s terrorists in Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan; they have killed many more Muslims than non-Muslims since 9/11. The Combating Terrorism Centre in the US concludes that only 15 per cent of the 3,010 victims killed by al-Qaeda between 2004 and 2008 were Westerners.

But the loss of support is not bin Laden’s only concern: al-Qaeda’s leadership has been decapitated. After it was ejected from Afghanistan, key elements of the leadership fled to Iraq, Iran and Pakistan.

Those who went to Iraq butchered thousands, mainly fellow Muslims, but have now either been killed or are barely able to operate. The so-called “management council” that ended up in Iran — along with one of bin Laden’s wives, six children and 11 grandchildren — are under house arrest. The core leadership of al-Qaeda, on the run in Pakistan, are forced to spend most of their time and effort just staying alive. Pakistani military operations continue to damage their outer defence of Taleban fighters. And US drone strikes have killed key al-Qaeda figures, including the external operations chief, Abu Sulayman al-Jazairi, and the head of its weapons of mass destruction programme, Abu Khabab al-Masri.

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... To achieve his aim of a global caliphate he needs to inflict mass casualties against “the enemies of Islam”. This means further spectaculars on the scale of 9/11 — or at least to compare with the crippling of the USS Cole in 2000 and the devastating attacks against US embassies in East Africa in 1998.

But al-Qaeda cannot succeed without an Afghan-style base from which to plan, train and launch attacks. That’s why the operations against al-Qaeda in Pakistan and Afghanistan remain critical. Al-Qaeda does now have footholds in Yemen and Somalia. But its footing is not yet sure, and neither country adequately replicates the conditions of pre-9/11 Afghanistan.

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The desperately want a mass casualty event, but the death cult can't pull it off at this point and it keeps losing its operation officers who are supposed to plan such attacks. As the Hellfire attacks continue to take their toll in Pakistan and Afghanistan, they are losing their circle of protectors. Everyday the face the fact that they are only seconds away from seeing Hellfire.