Al Qaeda’s secret: How it manages to pose another potential threat

According to international analysts, Al Qaeda, the organization responsible for its terrorist attacks 11^ης September 2001, not only is it still alive and active, but it is still a threat capable of bloodshed again for humanity.

The oxymoron is that while most terrorist groups survive for up to 10 years, the Al Qaeda it continues to exist 33 years after its creation, in 1988. But how did it manage to do that? But proving in practice the well-known motto “Adapt or die”, the Anglo-Saxon “adapt or die”.

The publication states that in these 33 years of its existence, the organization changed its goal many times while at the same time it had to face its potential “opponents” in the same goal, that of jihad, such as the Islamic State.

And let us know it, definitively and irrevocably, on September 11, 2001, when she made her presence felt in a terrorist attack with 3,000 dead in New York.

After 9/11, what Al Qaeda did was essentially try to radicalize new members and gain new followers. Bin Laden, in the years before his death, is said to have partially renounced “violence for violence’s sake” while even considering changing his name to the organization. His assassination by American commandos in Abbottabad, Pakistan, along with several other leaders, left a “horror vacui” within the organization, but bin Laden’s successor was immediately found.

The Egyptian deputy head of the organization, o Ayman al-Zawahiri, took the helm of Al Qaeda and turned it elsewhere: instead of turning its attention to the West, it began to spread its nets to regional forces in the region, Yemen and Afghanistan to sub-Saharan Africa.

Al Qaeda overthrew governments and raised her backed representatives to new government structures and then managed to bridge its ties with the Taliban.

Until 2019, Al Qaeda continued to exist, but only behind the scenes, until just then, with the collapse of the Islamic State, the organization came to the fore again. Following the fall of Kabul on 15 August, the organization issued a statement outlining a new approach, much more modest but dynamic enough. She characteristically states, without raising her voice, that her ultimate goal remains her dominance in the Middle East, and she has pledged to achieve this by using the (previously rejected tool called) Internet as it does not forget social networks and their role in jihadist propaganda.

“The war is not over”

Al Qaeda, however, is clear and unequivocal: its war against the United States anything but over, repeats again and again.

In a recent exclusive interview with CNNi, through mediators, two high-ranking members of Al Qaeda said that “The war against the United States will continue on all fronts, until they are expelled from the rest of the Islamic world.”

In its response to CNN, Al Qaeda declares its victory in Afghanistan. “The Americans are now defeated,” he said, likening the situation to the Soviet Union’s withdrawal from the country three decades ago and its subsequent collapse. “The American war in Afghanistan played a key role in hitting the US economy,” they say over and over again.

And all this is happening at the same time that the leader of Al Qaeda, Ayman Al Zawahri, who succeeded him Osama bin Laden, is rumored to be alive. Al-Zawahiri, who is believed to have been killed in a raid in 2020, appeared in one video on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the black anniversary of September 11th.

According to SITE Intelligence Group, the American NGO that monitors the online activities of Islamist jihadist organizations, Al Zawahri was spotted in a video released last year. Saturday.

There are, however, doubts that are raised whether the video of 60 minutes is recent. This is stated by the site administrator, Rita Katz as it does not refer to the Taliban victory in Afghanistan and its reference to the “withdrawal of the Americans from Afghanistan” may mean that the video has filmed after February 2020 and the Doha Agreement.

So far it has not existed some confirmation of al-Zawahiri’s death, and no one knows what he is doing or where he is, with some saying he is seriously ill and may be counting months in his life.

In any case, geopolitical experts are paying particular attention to the re-emergence of Al Qaeda, while concluding with meaning that “it will continue to do everything in its power to bring other local communities into its sphere.” its influence “.

For the first time, humanity did not manage to protect itself from the threat of the jihadists. We hope this time, 20 years later, that her lesson has been taught.