The_Guardian_-_2016-12-29

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Al-Qaida
‘A more dangerous long-term threat’: Al-
Qaida grows as Isis retreats
Group has been seeking to build support across Islamic world – from south Asia to Africa – through
outreach instead of fear
Jabhat Fateh al-Sham fighters in Idlib province, Syria, in August. Western officials fear JFS may
provide a springboard for al-Qaida to launch strikes in Europe. Photograph: Ammar
Abdullah/Reuters
Jason Burke
Thursday 29 December 2016 07.00 GMT Last modified on Thursday 29 December 2016 07.04 GMT
When three al-Qaida veterans were killed in Syria, Yemen and Afghanistan in October, it barely
created a ripple. So dominant has Isis become in the realm of jihadist lore, that you could be forgiven
for thinking that its precursor has been relegated to a mere footnote.
You’d be wrong. Those three deaths, all in US airstrikes, paradoxically hint at a resurgence of al-
Qaida, at a time when Isis is in retreat in Iraq, Syria and Libya. Quietly, and more through soft power
rather than harsh atrocity, al-Qaida is trying to mount a revival.
The Pentagon said that at least one of the three leaders killed, Haydar Kirkan, a 20-year veteran of the
group, had been actively planning attacks against the west at the time of his death. This is a
controversial claim as al-Qaida, founded in 1988, has in recent years foresworn such long-range
operations in favour of a strategy privileging a slow and steady building of influence and capability at
a local level within the Islamic world.
In part, this decision – taken by Ayman al-Zawahiri, the leader of al-Qaida, shortly after he succeeded
the late Osama bin Laden in 2011 – was forced on the group by its weakness after years of being
targeted by the US and allies in the wake of the attacks of 11 September 2001.