The_Guardian_-_2016-12-29

and they’re still there. The death of al-Qahtani is a blow, but they’ve suffered worse and still come
back,” said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Yemen heading map
Another key battlefield has been Yemen, where, in perhaps the most striking unintended consequence
of the Saudi-led military intervention in the country, al-Qaida was able to run a mini-state on Yemen’s
coast for many months.
The substantial and strategically situated port city of Mukalla provided the group with a revenue of an
estimated $2m a day. A 2015 US government report estimated that al-Qaida in the Arabian peninsula
(AQAP), the Yemen-based affiliate, could muster at least 4,000 fighters, four times the total a year
previously. The group has also built ties with southern Yemenis, who have felt marginalised by the
country’s northern elite for years.
“We may be facing a more complicated al-Qaida, not just a terrorist organisation, but a movement
controlling territory with happy people inside it,” said a regional diplomat who follows Yemen.
Africa map
Al-Qaida has also successfully expanded its presence in Africa. The violence and brutality
associated with the Nigerian-based Boko Haram group, which has now split over its nominal
allegiance to Isis, and the Isis expansion into Egypt, Tunisia and Libya, have overshadowed the less
spectacular but arguably more effective efforts made by al-Qaida affiliates on the continent.
In Somalia, commanders of the al-Shabaab movement ruthlessly eliminated pro-Isis factions that
wanted to repudiate the group’s five-year-old allegiance to al-Qaida. A last dissident group is
currently under siege from Somali forces in the far north of Somalia, in semi-autonomous Puntland,
and facing annihilation.
In the Sahel, although one new faction has emerged to launch attacks in the name of Isis, it is the
coalition of factions that form al-Qaida in the Maghreb (AQIM) that is dominant.
AQIM has exploited deep ties – some through marriage – with local communities and levered ethnic
disputes to gain support and capabilities in Mali, a key state that French and other international forces
have been unable to rid of extremists. “Al-Qaida is on a trajectory to become by far the most
powerful jihadist movement in Africa,” said Gartenstein-Ross.
Levant heading map
The most significant theatre may well turn out to be the Levant. Though most analysts believe Isis will
remain a powerful – even if fragmented – force in the region for years to come, al-Qaida may be the
biggest winner.
The key to its strategy has been the Syria-based group now called Jabhat Fateh al-Sham (JFS).
Formerly known as al-Nusra Front, the powerful faction was rebranded in late July as a force without