As the anniversary of the death of notorious Al Qaeda kingpin Osama Bin Laden is approaching, the United States administration and its intelligence agencies are still hinting 12 most wanted Al Qaeda men, who are still on hiding. This week marks one year since Osama bin Laden's death. We're hearing a lot about what the anniversary means for the larger struggle against Islamist violence around the world. Most assessments of the "War on Terror" fall into one of two categories -- al-Qaeda is stronger than ever or al-Qaeda is dead or dying. Whatever you think about al-Qaeda specifically, the global movement of violent Islamism is more complicated.
Analyst Seth Jones is leading the argument that al-Qaeda is doing better than we realize, that "the obituaries are premature" (Jones also has a book coming out soon taking a similar position). This argument is based in part on the idea that al-Qaeda's affiliates are part of the same larger collective as the and Pakistan-based group that Osama bin Laden helped lead. Mary Habeck says that al-Qaeda in Pakistan commands its subordinate groups in Iraq, Somalia, Yemen, and the Sahel through "broad strategic guidance and resources as needed, but not specific daily orders with daily reportage back up the chain of command." This control is not perfect, she concedes, but the arguments rests on the assumption that the groups are so similar, and so interlinked, that they can all be accurately referred to as "al-Qaeda."
Of course, lots of groups take on the role of advisers and mentors. The U.S. is fond of using proxies in many wars -- the mujahidin who defeated the Soviet Army in Afghanistan in the 1980s, for example -- but we don't assume that "mujahidin" and "American forces" are analytically interchangeable. Their goals and interests aligned for a time and thus they joined forces; they did not, however, become the same force. The relationship between Pakistan-based al-Qaeda Central (AQC) and its many affiliates is similar: they came into being separately, and only later did they reach out to the central group in Pakistan for legitimacy and support.
Terrorism is not getting worse. According to data released by the National Counter Terrorism Center on worldwide terrorist attacks, current levels of violence, though high, are far below their peak in 2006. The most recent year for which the NCTC has data, 2011, shows only a moderate reduction in violence from 2010, but it is still a reduction in violence.
Probably the most difficult challenge facing the U.S. right now is not so much al-Qaeda itself but the growing number of insurgencies reaching out to al-Qaeda for legitimacy and support. These groups are spread across the Middle East and North Africa -- coincidentally, perhaps, along the periphery of the Arab Spring, in countries that did not experience a rapturous collapse of their tyrannical regimes. They confound easy attempts at labeling, too, since they combine elements of insurgencies, terrorist movements, local concerns (and local names -- al-Qaeda in Iraq, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, and so on), and global allies.
The US administration has recently released the list of "Dirty Dozens", who are believed to be continuing jihadist activities from unknown hideouts. The most wanted dirty-dozens of Al Qaeda are:
Ayman al-Zawahiri
A physician, long time deputy to Osama Bin Laden who recently was named leader of al Qaeda following Bin Laden's death. He has been seen and heard in numerous al Qaeda videos and audio tapes on the web. He is on the FBI Most Wanted Terrorists list, was indicted in the U.S. for his role in the 1998 bombings of the US Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.
Saif al-Adel
A member of the senior leadership of al Qaeda who is believed to be in Iran. He is on the FBI Most Wanted Terrorists list and was indicted by the U.S. in connection with the 1998 bombings of the US Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.
Anas al-Liby
A computer expert for al Qaeda who is on the FBI Most Wanted Terrorists list, and has been indicted for his role in the 1998 bombings of the US Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.
Ibrahim al-Asiri
Suspected of being the chief bombmaker for AQAP, Asiri is believed to be responsible for designing the explosive devices used in the unsuccessful Christmas Day 2009 plot to blow up a US airliner as it landed in Detroit and in the cargo plane bomb plot in 2010.
Adnan el Shukrijumah
A senior leader of al Qaeda's external operations program who is on the FBI Most Wanted Terrorists list and has been indicted by the U.S. in the 2009 plot to attack the New York City subway system as well as targets in the United Kingdom.
Hakimullah Mehsud
A leader of the Pakistan Taliban with close ties to al Qaeda and the Afghan Taliban. He claimed responsibility for the 2009 bombing a the Khost Forward Operating Base which killed 7 CIA employees. He is on the FBI Most Wanted Terrorists list.
Abu Yahy al-Libi
Islamic scholar, high ranking member of al Qaeda, seen as the public face of al Qaeda, appearing frequently in internet videos.
Adam Gadahn
American propagandist for al Qaeda who is frequently seen on al Qaeda website videos. He is on the FBI Most Wanted Terrorists List and has been indicted for treason and material support for al Qaeda.
Mullah Mohammad Omar
Leader of the Afghanistan Taliban who allowed Osama Bin Laden and al Qaeda safe haven in Afghanistan when the Taliban controlled the country prior to the 9/11 terrorist attack on the U.S.
Nasser Al Wahishi
Leader of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), former private secretary to Osama Bin Laden. He has vowed to avenge Bin Laden's death.
Sirajuddin Haqqani
Senior leader of the Haqqani network in Afghanistan which maintains close ties to al Qaeda and who is believed to have planned an assassination attempt against Afghani President Hamid Karzai.
Wali Ur Rehman
Senior member of Pakistani Taliban who has participated in cross border attacks against US and coalition forces in Afghanistan.
Osama's last wish:
Osama bin Laden bemoaned "disaster after disaster" inflicted by the US onslaught on al-Qaeda before his death a year ago and even mulled changing his terror group's name.
What Al Qaeda's plans now (CNN):
On May 16 last year, a 22-year-old Austrian named Maqsood Lodin was being questioned by police in Berlin. He had recently returned from Pakistan via Budapest, Hungary, and then traveled overland to Germany. His interrogators were surprised to find that hidden in his underpants were a digital storage device and memory cards.
Buried inside them was a pornographic video called "Kick Ass" -- and a file marked "Sexy Tanja."
Several weeks later, after laborious efforts to crack a password and software to make the file almost invisible, German investigators discovered encoded inside the actual video a treasure trove of intelligence -- more than 100 al Qaeda documents that included an inside track on some of the terror group's most audacious plots and a road map for future operations.
Future plots include the idea of seizing cruise ships and carrying out attacks in Europe similar to the gun attacks by Pakistani militants that paralyzed the Indian city of Mumbai in November 2008. Ten gunmen killed 164 people in that three-day rampage.
Terrorist training manuals in PDF format in German, English and Arabic were among the documents, too, according to intelligence sources.
U.S. intelligence sources tell CNN that the documents uncovered are "pure gold;" one source says that they are the most important haul of al Qaeda materials in the last year, besides those found when U.S. Navy SEALs raided Osama bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, a year ago and killed the al Qaeda leader.
One document was called "Future Works." Its authorship is unclear, but intelligence officials believe it came from al Qaeda's inner core. It may have been the work of Younis al Mauretani, a senior al Qaeda operative until his capture by Pakistani police in 2011.
The document appears to have been the product of discussions to find new targets and methods of attack. German investigators believe it was written in 2009 -- and that it remains the template for al Qaeda's plans.
Investigative journalist Yassin Musharbash, a reporter with the German newspaper Die Zeit, was the first to report on the documents. One plan: to seize passenger ships. According to Musharbash, the writer "says that we could hijack a passenger ship and use it to pressurize the public."
Musharbash takes that to mean that the terrorists "would then start executing passengers on those ships and demand the release of particular prisoners."
The plan would include dressing passengers in orange jump suits, as if they were al Qaeda prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, and then videotaping their execution.
Lodin and a man called Yusuf Ocak, who allegedly traveled back to Europe with him, are now on trial in Berlin where they are pleading not guilty. Ocak was detained in Vienna two weeks after Lodin's arrest.
According to a senior Western counterterrorism official, their names were on a watch list, and when they handed over documents at a European border crossing, their names registered with counterterrorism agencies.
Both men have pleaded not guilty to terrorism charges. Ocak is also charged with helping to form a group called the German Taliban Mujahedeen, and is alleged to have made a video for the group threatening attacks in Germany.
Prosecutors believe the pair met at a terrorist training camp in Pakistan's tribal territories and were sent back to Europe to recruit a network of suicide bombers.
"We do not know what those men were up to but there are certain files of information that would make it plausible that they were probably thinking of a Mumbai-style attack," says Musharbash.
In the fall of 2010, a year after the document was written, European intelligence agencies were scrambling to investigate a Mumbai-style plot involving German and other European militants -- which sparked an unprecedented U.S. State Department travel warning for Americans in Europe.
"I think it is plausible to think that the 'Future Works' document is part of that particular project," says Musharbash.
"Future Works" suggests al Qaeda was an organization under great pressure, without a major attack to its name in several years, harried by Western intelligence. If anything, its predicament is even more dire today.
"The document delivers very clearly the notion that al Qaeda knows it is being followed very closely," Musharbash tells CNN. "It specifically says that Western intelligence agencies have become very good at spoiling attacks, that they have to come up with new ways and better plotting."
Part of the response, according to the document, should be to train European jihadists quickly and send them home -- rather than use them as fighters in Afghanistan and Pakistan -- with instructions on how to keep in secret contact with their handlers.
What emerges from the document is a twin-track strategy -- with the author apparently convinced that al Qaeda needs low-cost, low-tech attacks (perhaps such as the recent gun attacks in France carried out by Mohammed Merah) to keep security services preoccupied while it plans large-scale attacks on a scale similar to 9/11.
Those already under suspicion in Europe and elsewhere would be used as decoys, while others would prepare major attacks.
That is yet to materialize, but Musharbash believes a complex gun attack in Europe is still on al Qaeda's radar.
"I believe that the general idea is still alive and I believe that as soon as al Qaeda has the capacities to go after that scenario, they will immediately do it," he says.
While "Future Works" does not include dates or places, nor specific plans, it appears to be a brainstorming exercise to seize the initiative -- and reinstate al Qaeda on front pages around the world.
Wherefrom Al Qaeda is operating now?
It is a huge question in the minds of United States administration as well as intelligence agencies in particular and the entire international community of counter-terrorism specialist to determine the current strategies of Al Qaeda and its bases, especially after the death of Osama Bin Laden. While the international focus is still very much within Afghanistan and frontiers of Pakistan, which is still considered by the US administration as the base of Al Qaeda operations, it is learnt from a number of sources that Al Qaeda has basically spread in past few months onto rough mountainous areas in Indian and Pakistan portion of Kashmir as well as a vast track of areas in Nepal. Although Al Qaeda has been using the Nepalese land for past several years, especially considering its strategic advantages of finding easy hide-outs within various mountains in Nepal, since past five-sin months, Al Qaeda's presence in Nepal has greatly increased. It is learnt that the Al Qaeda jihadists have established a kind of unseen alliance with the Maoists in Nepal and under the protection of the Maoists; Al Qaeda terrorists are taking combat training. Al Qaeda also believed to have been making investments in various businesses in Nepal, keeping the Nepalese nationals at the forefront, which helps the Islamist terror outfit in generating fund as well as getting sympathy of the locals.
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