Islamist fighters from the al-Qaida affiliate inward Syrian Arab Republic moving ridge their movement’s flag at the Yarmuk Palestinian refugee camp, southward of Damascus, inward July 2014. A novel propaganda video from a resurgent al-Qaeda shows its leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, positioning himself every bit the unifier of a fragmented jihadi movement. But it also echoes the group’s Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation focus on its historical arch-enemy: the United States. ISIS’s propaganda machine is going night every bit the grouping is cleared from its lastly strongholds inward Republic of Iraq together with Syria. Quietly inward the shadows, accompanying ISIS’s territorial demise has been an equal together with contrary resurgence past times its jihadi rival, al-Qaeda.
Perhaps the clearest joint of this rebalancing tin live seen inward the 2 groups’ media activity. Despite the presumed survival of ISIS’s so-called caliph, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, no world message has been heard from the group’s senior leadership since September 2017. But al-Qaeda’s leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, has published half dozen speeches inward 2018 alone. The latest, titled “America is the First Enemy of the Muslims”, highlights the group’s gradualist priority of remaining “loyal together with steadfast on the path of jihad”, a veiled dig at ISIS’s ideological impetuousness—the hare to al-Qaeda’s tortoise.
As ISIS has declined, al-Qaeda has experienced a “resurrection”, according to terrorism scholar Bruce Hoffman. Through its loose archipelago of franchises, the latter grouping has consolidated together with entrenched itself inward conflict zones worldwide, including the Sahel, the Horn of Africa, the Caucasus, Afghanistan/Pakistan, Syria, Republic of Yemen together with Kashmir. ISIS “can no longer compete” with its older sibling “in damage of influence, reach, manpower, or cohesion”, Hoffman notes.
By drawing on the Salafi-jihadi movement’s spiritual father, al-Qaeda has recognised bin Laden’s might to reach the sectionalisation plaguing the movement.
Despite these tectonic shifts inward the global jihadi landscape, peculiarly striking inward Zawahiri’s latest video is the continuity of al-Qaeda’s message from its high-water grade unopen to the fourth dimension of the 9/11 attacks. In 2001, al-Qaeda’s hence leader, Osama bin Laden, likened the U.S. of America to Hubal, a pre-Islamic god worshipped at the Kaaba inward Mecca earlier the rising of Islam. Today, Zawahiri echoes this allusion, using contemporary footage of Islamic scholar Abdallah bin Bayyah preaching moderation at the United Nations, every bit good every bit old US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson describing Saudi Arabia’s efforts to counter extremism, every bit examples of such “idol worship”. Now every bit then, the Arab League together with the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation are painted every bit “hypocrites” who “stood behind the caput of global unbelief . . . America together with its supporters”.
By drawing on the Salafi-jihadi movement’s spiritual father, al-Qaeda has recognised bin Laden’s might to reach the sectionalisation plaguing the movement. Compared with the Marmite outcome of Baghdadi together with of his divisive predecessor, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, bin Laden is an ideologue all Salafi-jihadis tin acquire on board with.
The 66-year-old Zawahiri, a veteran of the jihad inward Arab Republic of Egypt inward the 1970s together with Transitional Islamic State of Afghanistan inward the 1980s, has lived through the transformation of the global jihadi movement. His sense of a long crusade for hearts together with minds agency al-Qaeda has grasped the might of presenting America every bit a mutual enemy to unify an increasingly fragmented Salafi-jihadi landscape. But al-Qaeda has also learned to revel inward its against-all-odds underdog status. Zawahiri claims the grouping has “little capabilities, almost nil compared following with the Americans”, a major contrast to the triumphalism of ISIS videos that clit imagined invasions of Washington past times the “Soldiers of the Caliphate”.
Research published inward 2015 past times the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change showed that al-Qaeda affiliates, including its Syrian together with Yemeni arms, were twice every bit probable to clit themselves every bit underdogs inward their propaganda every bit ISIS was.
This emphasis has been a recurring subject inward the group’s propaganda. Research published inward 2015 past times the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change showed that al-Qaeda affiliates, including its Syrian together with Yemeni arms, were twice every bit probable to clit themselves every bit underdogs inward their propaganda every bit ISIS was. This interrogation was conducted at the pinnacle of ISIS’s power, pregnant that the discrepancy was probable due to the group’s fixation with presenting its caliphate every bit a fully functioning state.
Zawahiri’s rhetoric draws nostalgically on a golden historic menstruum when the displace focused on attacking the “first enemy of the Muslims” rather than engaging inward sectarian factionalism inward the Middle East. For al-Qaeda’s leader, this spirit tin live recaptured. The 9/11 attacks are held upward every bit a “practical example” that striking America straight is possible, spell al-Qaeda operations against US diplomats together with armed forces infrastructure inward Aden, Nairobi together with Dar es Salaam inward the 1990s are fondly depicted.
Such persuasion has echoes of an infamous 2005 missive of the alphabet written past times Zawahiri to al-Qaeda inward Iraq’s hence leader, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, condemning the group’s targeting of civilians. Zawahiri wrote, “Many of your Muslim admirers alongside the mutual folk are wondering almost your attacks. Don’t lose sight of the target.”Our Institute’s analysis shows the consistency of this focus over time. Al-Qaeda emphasises the far enemy l per cent to a greater extent than oft inward its propaganda than ISIS does.
Although its message may live consistent, al-Qaeda has identified the electrical flow US direction every bit a golden chance to sow its ideology. In the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, hence US President George W. Bush gave a important speech declaring that “Islam is peace”. Compare this with events inward 2017, when al-Qaeda inward the Arabian Peninsula’s al-Masra paper approvingly quoted hence White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon’s claim that the U.S. of America was at country of war “with Islam every bit a religion”. Claiming that the direction of US President Donald Trump has “revealed the truthful facial expression upward of America”, Zawahiri asserts that conflict with Washington “is a religious hostility at its core”, inward which a “Crusader textile secular West” is pitched against al-Qaeda’s version of “true Islam”.
Through its message of jihadi unity together with continuity, al-Qaeda has made a concerted seek to net from ISIS’s decline. But 22 years afterwards declaring waron the United States, the group’s leadership is refocusing on the old enemy every bit a agency of consolidating a jihadi displace that has suffered defeat on the battlefields of Republic of Iraq together with Syria. Counter-terrorism policymakers globally must non ignore long-standing threats, but rather acquire lessons from al-Qaeda’s resilience, acknowledging that armed forces victory, whether inward Transitional Islamic State of Afghanistan or the Levant, is only one-half the battle against extremist ideologies.
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