The unrest generated by the Arab uprisings has given
Al-Qaeda room in which to operate, but at the same time these revolts or
revolutions- whatever one wants to define them- may serve as an antidote
against radicalism.
Experts’ point of view.
During a rare public conference in London, Jonathan Evans,
director of Britain's spy agency MI5, said the instability arising from a
collapse of the regimes ousted by uprisings has created an optimum environment
for Al-Qaeda to flourish. "It's the end of a cycle," he said.
"Al-Qaeda first set up in the 1990s in Afghanistan due to growing pressure
in its origin Arab states. It then left for Pakistan after the fall of the
Taliban. But now some are returning to the Arab world." He points to
evidence that some jihadist-trainees have gone to the Arab states in search for
militant opportunities, and that some might return to Britain and "become
threats."
Britain's intelligence chief noted that until recently
three-quarters of the agency's work focused on Pakistan or Afghanistan. The
figure has since dipped to less than 50 percent. But even as it has become less
monolithic, he said, the threat posed by Al-Qaeda has grown. "The
movements which are affiliated to it in Yemen, Somalia and in countries of the
Sahel have become more dangerous than Al-Qaeda in Pakistan, and they are
cooperating more and more" with each other, he added.
But other experts point out that the political renaissance
in the Arab states could help curb the violent streak of Islamist movements in
the mid- or long-term.
Dominique Thomas, an expert in Islamist movements at the
School for Higher Studies on Social Sciences (EHESS) in Paris, noted that
Al-Qaeda had adapted its public discourse to accommodate the shift towards
openness and democracy. "Be it Ayman al-Zawahiri” – generally acknowledged
as Osama Bin Laden's successor – “or the movement's main figures who have
communicated on the question, they have all set aside violence to concentrate
on societies and on the application of sharia," he said.
"They are acting as the defenders of Islam's 'real
values',” he added, noting that Al Qaeda now seeks to cast itself in the role
the opposition, and that “sharia” had largely replaced “jihad” as a focal point
in their statements.
"We see that in Egypt, in Tunisia and Libya: they no
longer preach violence on their territories, but are very active on religious
rhetoric. They are posing as the vanguards of what they present to be real
Islamic values," said Thomas. The Arab Spring and the opening of political
space have allowed jihad to become part of a marketplace of of ideas that can
be expressed in a completely open manner. “It's a ‘neo-jihadism’, with a rather
radical discourse which is found outside the system but without direct recourse
to violence."
Jean-Pierre Filiu, a professor at Paris' Sciences-Po who has
written extensively on the origins of Al-Qaeda, notes that "overall, a
year-and-a-half after the start of the Arab revolution, we see that Al-Qaeda
has become an obsolete reference in the countries concerned. This is due to the
"fact that the accent is now put on the electoral competition by all the
actors, including repented jihadists, as in Libya or Egypt."
Referring to the MI5 chief's comments, Filiu said that
"a part of the western intelligence community has a problem dropping its
decade-long focus on Al-Qaeda." But it is not in countries hit by the Arab
Spring, but in the Sahel, Somalia and Yemen – nations where entire regions have
escaped government control – that Al-Qaeda has the best chance of developing in
the months or years to come, he conceded.
That said, even though jihadists are proclaiming Al-Qaeda
ideology in these countries, they have mostly concentrated their violent action
in the country concerned, rather than exporting it abroad.
The exception is Yemen, where Al-Qaeda in the Arab Peninsula
(AQAP) has twice attempted to bring down commercial planes bound for the United
States. The group, many experts agree, is now Al-Qaeda's most dangerous
franchise, and the biggest threat to Western interests. No coincidence, then,
that United States has increasingly deployed armed drones and missiles in
Yemen, and that Washington's Number One target is the Saudi national Ibrahim
Hassan al-Asiri, the presumed chief of AQAP and the inventor of the “explosive
underwear” which is undetectable in the airports.
