FOUNDATION

Resurgence of Al-Qaedain South Asia Post-US DrawdownIntroductions 2014 came to a close, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation(NATO) ended its then 13-year-old military operations inAAfghanistan against the Taliban and al-Qaeda. The US-ledinternational military coalition began its withdrawal on 28 December2014, and although the US is maintaining some military presence inAfghanistan over the next few years, this residual force is a substantiallyreduced one.The military campaign, named 'Global War on Terrorism' by NATO, costthe world over a trillion dollars and several thousand lives of civilians andsoldiers. Needless to say, the extraordinary cost far exceeded the finaloutcome: al-Qaeda is far from decimated and several of its affiliates, likethe Haqqani Network, remain a potent force in Afghanistan. In fact, al-Qaeda, against all odds, has survived despite severe attrition andfragmentation. A principal reason for its continuing operational presenceis the emergence of new affiliates like al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula(AQIP), al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, and Jabhat al-Nusra in Syriaand Iraq.In the Middle East, a series of events, beginning with the so-called 'ArabSpring' to the Western intervention in Syria to oust President Bashar al-Assad, has created a new set of terrorist groups, besides shoring up al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, and Jabhat al-Nusra in Syria and Iraq.www.orfonline.org 1