US fears Al Qaeda resurgence 20 years after 9/11 attacks

Two days before the twentieth anniversary of the attacks of September 11, 2001, the United States warned this Thursday against the risk that Al-Qaeda trying to regroup in Afghanistan after the Taliban seized power.

“The whole community is watching what’s going on and whether or not Al Qaeda has the capacity to regenerate in Afghanistan,” the US Secretary of Defense said. Lloyd Austin.

He added: “The nature of Al Qaeda and the Islamic State group is that they will always try to find a space to grow and regenerate, whether it is there, or in Somalia, or anywhere. I think that’s the nature of the organization ”.

The group founded by the deceased Osama Bin Laden laid its foundations on Afghanistan during the first Taliban government between 1996 and 2001. From there were organized the terrorist attacks of 2001 against New York and Washington, of which this Saturday marks the 20th anniversary.

During decades of US military presence in Afghanistan, al-Qaeda has been seriously undermined, although the Taliban’s return to power has cast doubt on a revival of the group.

Austin said the White House warned the Taliban they would not allow Al Qaeda to return. “We warn you that we will not allow this to happen,” he said.

He also stated that the US military is capable of containing Al Qaeda or any other terrorist threat from Afghanistan by using surveillance and attack aircraft bases elsewhere, including the Persian Gulf.

However, he acknowledged that it will be more difficult without having troops and intelligence teams in Afghanistan.

What is the present of Al Qaeda

Twenty years after the Twin Towers attacks that shocked the world, Al-Qaeda lost its founder, Osama bin Laden, killed on May 2, 2011 by US forces in Pakistan and overshadowed by its great rival, the State Islamic, also in decline. .

Barak mendelsohn, an expert on Al Qaeda and the jihadist movement at Haverford College, said EFE that the September 11 attacks “worked very well” for terrorist propaganda, but at the same time created expectations that “could not be met with their limited power”.

“As a group, the attack placed it at the top of the jihadist hierarchy. It was its moment of glory,” he said in turn. Torus Refslund Hamming, consultant on jihadism and creator of Refslund Analytics.

But the death of Bin Laden and his replacement by the Egyptian Ayman al Zawahiri it was a blow to the organization, which was further weakened by its division and the loss of many commanders.

“Al-Qaeda is a group with a few successful branches but weak central leadership. Al Zawahiri is in poor health and has difficulty communicating with his group and much more with the branches. And it suffers from ideological and strategic inconsistencies due to the gap between its transnational ideology and the predominantly local branches, ”Mendelsohn said.

The UN report

According to the latest UN Security Council report, in 2021 Al-Qaeda went through “a period of great erosion of its leadership, with multiple casualties in Afghanistan, Mali, Somalia, Yemen and the region. of Idlib, in the north-west of Syria ”.

The report also detailed that Al Zawahiri is “somewhere” between Afghanistan and Pakistan. “Information about his death has not been confirmed. One Member State reported that he is probably alive, but very fragile appear in propaganda, ”he said.

The irruption of the Islamic State

Bin Laden’s death was a blow to al-Qaeda, but three years later the emergence of Islamic State on the international stage eventually overshadowed its role and power in the sphere of international terrorism.

“The presence of the Islamic State has freed al Qaeda from much of the media attention. Suddenly, someone was more cruel and threatening. But that matched Al Qaeda’s ambitions, as the group was changing its image, ”Hamming said.

However, for Aymenn Jawad al Tamimi, an extremism expert at George Washington University, al-Qaeda continues to be “prominent in Somalia and Yemen”, where it is “more successful” than the Islamic State, although it has been dismissed in d other important areas, such as Syria and Iraq.

And now what

In Afghanistan, Al Qaeda is not alone. He faces off against EI-Khorasan, the Afghan branch of the Islamic State.

“There is no doubt that Al Qaeda is in Afghanistan and its presence is likely to increase.. But it will not be easy to maintain training camps if the Taliban government wants to have relations with Russia and China, ”argued Al Tamimi. EFE.

Therefore, for Mendelsohn, al-Qaeda will find it “easier to find refuge in Afghanistan, but it is not certain that it can use it to operate as it did before September 11”.

The Taliban, he continued, need “international acceptance and so far they have indicated that they do not consider being dishonest international actors”, added the expert.

And he concludes: “To ally with al-Qaeda would be counterproductive“For the new rulers in Kabul.