20 years after September 11: no country is immune to the new global, decentralized and autonomous terrorism

September 11, the first foreign armed attack suffered by the United States on its metropolitan territory in nearly two centuries, had enormous effects on the field of international security. And there was a clear protagonist, Osama Bin Laden, head of the Al-Qaida organization. This group symbolized a new type of terrorism, different and much more deadly than its previous versions: a terrorism based on religion, global in scope, decentralized and autonomous.

The origins of this group date back to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Osama, a Saudi millionaire, financed the transfer to Afghan soil of thousands of Muslim volunteers from various backgrounds, and their combat training, to repel the Red Army. After the end of the war, most of these very radicalized “Afghan fighters” returned to their country of origin with the intention of continuing this jihad, which would adopt specific and non-transferable characteristics according to local particularities. Thus, organizations using terrorist methodologies based on religious considerations have proliferated, displacing the ideology and narrative of “national liberation” typical of the Cold War. Other non-state entities that fit into this matrix, and are still active, were the armed wing of the Lebanese Shiite organization Hezbollah and the Palestinian Sunni movement Hamas, linked to the Muslim Brotherhood. In the absence of more appropriate words, academics have rightly called these actors “fundamentalists” (Eric Hobsbawn) or “fundamentalism” (Roger Garaudy). Today, a better knowledge of the phenomenon it allows them to be classified more precisely as variables of “jihadist Salafism”.

However, these veterans remained subordinate to Osama bin Laden, who maintained the strategic leadership of the movement, first from Saudi Arabia and then from Sudan. Closing the circle, he will settle in Afghanistan after the triumph of the Taliban in the hard civil war which followed the Soviet withdrawal. In this context, Al-Qaida continued to develop until it became something more than an organization: it evolved into a network or cluster of groups or entities, present to varying degrees in organizations. dozens of countries. Around this time, experts in the field began to speak of the “globalization of terrorism” as its most advanced stage.

Throughout this expansion process and before September 11, directly or through subsidiaries, the management of Al-Qaeda has carried out numerous coups against the United States, early identified as “enemy”. Washington’s allies in the war campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq after September 11, 2001, were also targets of Al-Qaeda actions: this was the case in Madrid in 2004 and London in 2005. In in both cases, located thousands of kilometers from on the fronts of the Middle East and Central Asia, the terrorists were local citizens: “the enemy at home”.

With the antecedent of Al Qaeda in the previous decade, during the decade he played The Islamic State Iraq and the Levant have once again raised the bar on terrorism. The group exhibited even greater religious radicalism as its predecessor and the same degree of economic autonomy, the proceeds from different sources of funding, including the sale of oil and the marketing of archaeological material through illegal channels. In addition, he has demonstrated a masterful use of the media and the Internet to publicize his actions, spread his preaching, intimidate his opponents and recruit new members. The Restoration of the Caliphate, announced by its leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi after the conquest of Mosul in June 2014, has produced the adhesion of tens of thousands of Muslims in different parts of the globe. Thus, a global, decentralized and autonomous terrorist network has been recreated with nodes in at least twenty countries of the Maghreb and Sahel, the Middle East and Asia.

A significant proportion of the membership came from Western Europe. Many of them traveled to Syria and Iraq to fight in the ranks of the organization, where they learned skills which they then applied in their home countries, where they returned after their experience of the war. Other supporters never left their places of residence, as they received training and instructions from the group through various social networks. In both cases, the “enemy at home” scenario repeated itself, now with the so called “lone wolves”. This format, always geared towards the civilian population, has made its effects felt in cities on all continents, killing hundreds.

It is true that, After Osama’s expulsion from Pakistan in May 2011, Al Qaeda accelerated its decline. However, it continues to be active in different regions, notably in the Maghreb and in the Arabian Peninsula. ISIS, for its part, lost its last territorial stronghold with the fall of the Syrian city of Baghouz in March 2019; However, a large number of specialist sources report their active status in cyberspace with intentions of reorganization. For this reason, as of this writing, the danger of this radicalized, global and autonomous terrorism has not ceased, with extensive use of cyberspace, which could even attempt the use of weapons of mass destruction. And as Argentina has verified with the Israeli Embassy and AMIA, no country is immune to this scourge.

* The author has a doctorate in international relations. University professor and researcher. Professor at the Inter-American Defense Board.

KEEP READING: