Despite targeting Al-Qaeda for the past sixteen years and killing Usama bin Laden (UBL) in 2011, the United States and its allies have been unable to destroy what was once considered the most dangerous terrorist group in the world.
Sanctuaries for the core leaders and members of Al-Qaeda remain in parts of Afghanistan and Pakistan, and its franchises, while geographically dispersed, remain potent forces in places like Yemen, Syria, Somalia, Nigeria, and elsewhere. Since the death of UBL, Al-Qaeda has adopted a much more decentralized organizational model, mostly relying on franchises and affiliated groups to continue its operations in places with collapsed states and weak governance.
Because Al-Qaeda has survived the death of UBL, and even expanded its operations in the last six years, Al-Qaeda’s resiliency may call into question reliance on a strategy of leadership decapitation for defeating terrorist groups, particularly when they are willing and able to adopt a more decentralized organizational structure. While decentralization poses its own challenges for a terrorist organization, embracing such a structure likely means that such a group can never truly be eradicated.
Though Al-Qaeda has had something of a leadership vacuum since the death of UBL, the organization may be on the cusp of developing a new charismatic leader in the person of Hamza bin Laden, the most radical of Usama bin Laden’s surviving sons, who could help the group increase its influence among would-be jihadists, particularly in the wake of the eventual, anticipated collapse of the Islamic State.
If Hamza bin Laden comes to have broad appeal for would-be jihadists, especially in a post-ISIS world, Al-Qaeda could easily begin a resurgence, building on its strong, decentralized foundation of the past few years.
Since 2014, the West’s attention has mostly been absorbed by the rise of the Islamic State; that relative inattention has given Al-Qaeda the time it needed to regroup after UBL’s death and even expand its operations. This highlights the problems arising from the lack of a truly comprehensive, global counterterrorism strategy that delivers steady pressure against all significant terror groups and works to address the problems of weak governance in failed and failing states that provide groups like Al-Qaeda the environment they need to survive and prosper.