Section:OBS 2N PaGe:47 Edition Date:190804 Edition:01 Zone:S Sent at 3/8/2019 17:17 cYanmaGentaYellowb
- The Observer
Comment & Analysis 04.08.19 47
No longer does
al-Qaida grab the
headlines. That
might be the plan
Do you remember
al-Qaida? Not the al-Qaida of today
that no one pays any attention to,
but the one of a decade or so ago,
with its sinister mastermind leader
hidden in the deep cave complexes
of the Hindu Kush; the “sleeper
cells” all over North America; or,
more realistically, its ideology that
inspired young men in the UK to
travel to Pakistan to be trained in
the terrorist techniques used to kill
more than 50 people on tube trains
and a bus in London.
Probably not. If you’ve given
much thought to the organisation in
the past year or so, you’re a member
of a fairly select group.
This raises a profound question:
how is it that a group that
commanded such extraordinary,
unprecedented attention across
the world from 2001 to 2011 can
disappear from public attention so
completely?
Once, stories about new threats
posed by al-Qaida – biological
weapons smeared on door knobs
(false), explosives concealed asliquids and smuggled on to planes
(true) fi lled our newspapers.
Rappers parodied its propaganda
videos. Osama bin Laden’s every
utterance was parsed and picked
over. He was described, wrongly, as
a Muslim Che Guevara. His face was
on the leather jackets of Thai bikers
and T-shirts in Kenya, while his
name was given to a rogue elephant
in northeastern India.
The Guardian and Observer,
whose pages were once replete
with reports on the organisation,
mentioned al-Qaida just 11 times
in the past year and two of those
references were prompted by the
death of the son of Osama, Hamza
bin Laden , which was reported by
US offi cials last week. And when
al-Qaida did appear in speech notes
of the US president, it was misspelt.
One obvious reason for this
precipitous decline in the attention
given to the group has been the
appalling successes of Islamic State
in recent years, particularly its far
superior use of modern media
techniques and technology. Its rivals’
bloody videos have overshadowed
al-Qaida’s pedestrian efforts at
communication, which still often
comprise tedious lectures by its
wooden, uncharismatic, 68-year-old
leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri.
Could the digital revolution be
to “blame”? Though conventional
wisdom is that new media provide
opportunities to insurgents and
extremists, al-Qaida’s ability to
command global headlines peaked
well before digital technologies were
widespread. Its decline occurred
as they have spread. Perhaps, like
“legacy” news organisations, the
group has simply struggled to adapt
to the new media environment.
But this seems inadequate as analthough his name is still venerated
in jihadist circles.
The real reason for its lower
profi le is that al-Qaida has
dramatically changed its strategy
in recent years. It now eschews
spectacular attacks on western
target, or targets in the west, in
favour of a slow, careful expansion
in the Sahel, Syria, Yemen, Somalia,
Afghanistan and elsewhere. There
have been many setbacks, but this
approach brings some dividends – a
solid presence in important parts of
the Islamic world, loyal participants
in high-profi le confl icts, a distance
from Isis’s egregious brutality and a
signifi cant decline in attention paid
to it by western policymakers.
This leads to an important
conclusion. Al-Qaida’s eclipse is not
just the natural passing of a once-
dangerous group. Nathan Sales ,
the US state department’s counter-
terrorism co-ordinator, told reporters
on Thursday that “what we see today
is an al-Qaida that is as strong as
it has ever been”. It is a deliberate
choice, which implies that acquiringthe high profi le the group once
enjoyed was a conscious decision too.
After all, very often what you turn off,
you can turn back on.
This says a lot about the nature
of terrorism and the reaction
it produces. Bin Laden became
notorious by design, not accident.
He used violence to radicalise
supporters, mobilise backing and
terrorise enemies. He built his
brand, in the days before digital
media, by ensuring that what he did
received vast publicity.
Not only did he understand
that those targeted by terrorism
extrapolate from a single act to
imagine a general threat – one bus
has been attacked, so all are now
seen as dangerous ; one offi ce block
in one city has been destroyed, so all
such buildings are now at risk – but
that sympathisers did so too.
For everyone, including many
policymakers, a small number of
spectacular and very violent gestures
suggested a power and potential
to harm that was very much
greater than the group ever really
possessed. Even the 9/11 attacks in
2001 involved just 19 hijackers, plus
a relatively light support network
and a training camp or two. Most of
its operations involved fewer people
and resources. The cave complexes
and those secret weapons did not
actually exist.
This is not to say the group
never posed a threat – it did, as the
appalling carnage that resulted
from its attacks attests – but that for
much of its existence there was very
much less to al-Qaida than met the
eye. One aim of the violence was to
prompt a massive and in many ways
counterproductive response from
the west. In this, too al-Qaida was
successful.
No one knows which direction
the late and unlamented Hamza bin
Laden might have taken al-Qaida
had he assumed leadership. A
United Nations security council
report last week disclosed that
al-Zawahiri is in poor health with
“questions over his longevity”.
If a new head of al-Qaida decides
to ramp up the global profi le of the
group with a few attacks on western
interests, would we respond any
differently than we did between
2001 and 2011? I doubt it.One reason for
the precipitous
decline in
attention
has been the
appalling
success of Isis
CNBC
‘Threat of blackmail’“It is possible that Th ursday’s
tariff threat is meant to
spur China into buying
more American agriculturalproducts, but, they added,
Beijing is unlikely to respond
the way Trump hopes.
It would be ‘extremely
embarrassing’ for China to
step up imports from the U.S.
under the threat of blackmail.”
Eurasia Group analystsCNN Business
‘China has options’“China basically has a fewgood options. I think the
best tool they have, the
most powerful tool they
have, is the exchange rate- exports would become
cheaper if the yuan was
devalued. Th at’s really a tool
that would allow them to
directly off set quite a lot of
the impact of the tariff s.”
Julian Evans-Pritchard, senior
China economist at Capital
Economics
Retail Industry
Leaders Association
‘Families are pawns’
“Tariff s are taxes on American
consumers... American
families shouldn’t be a pawn
in this trade war. Today’s
announcement only moves
us closer to consumers
bearing the brunt of the pain.”
Hun Quach, vice-president of
international tradeReuters
‘We’re gonna fi x this’“For decades, China has
taken advantage of trade...
it’s time for that to stop.
President Trump said we’re
gonna fi x this. And to fi x it
requires determination, and
that’s what you saw this
morning.”
Mike Pompeo, US secretary
of stateThe world’s view on... Trump stepping up trade war with China
explanation for al-Qaida’s almost
total eclipse. There are others
that are simpler. One is that Bin
Laden, a perfect front man with his
backstory of relinquished riches
and quiet authority, was killed. But
it is interesting that, contrary to the
expectations of many, his death at
the hands of US special forces at
his hideout in northern Pakistan in
2011 did not create a cult following,Osama bin Laden T-shirts on
sale in Bangkok. Photograph
by Yvan Cohen/LightrocketThe death of Bin Laden’s
son should make us
focus on the group’s
new modus operandiJason
BurkeРЕЛИЗ
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