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1 1 (June 14, 2021)

handle is hein.crs/govedqz0001 and id is 1 raw text is: Congressional Research Service sa ~4,Inforrning the legislative debate since 1914 S June 14, 2021 Al Qaeda: Background, Current Status, and U.S. Policy Al Qaeda (AQ) is a transnational Islamist terrorist organization and network of affiliates that the U.S. intelligence community describes as one of the greatest Sunni terrorist threats to U.S. interests overseas and a potential source of inspiration to domestic violent extremists. Sustained counterterrorism (CT) pressure appears to have weakened the group since it perpetrated the September 11, 2001 (9/11) attacks. In April 2021, the U.S. intelligence community told Congress that Al Qaeda's senior leadership has suffered severe losses in the past few years but they expect that remaining leaders will continue to plot attacks and seek to exploit conflicts in different regions. In recent years, U.S. officials have characterized the AQ threat as stemming mainly from its affiliates, which have generally focused on local issues in their respective areas of operation, where they threaten local U.S. personnel, interests, and partners. Background In 1988, Osama bin Laden established Al Qaeda from a network of Arab and other foreign veterans of the Afghan insurgency against the Soviet Union, with the aim of supporting Islamist causes in conflicts around the world. After the 1991 Gulf War, citing opposition to the decision by Saudi Arabia to host U.S. troops, the group set on the United States as its primary target. Bin Laden left his native Saudi Arabia that year and relocated to Sudan, until the Taliban took power in Afghanistan in 1996 and offered refuge to AQ members and other armed Islamists. Al Qaeda conducted a series of terrorist attacks against U.S. and allied targets, including the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania (after which the United States launched airstrikes against targets in Afghanistan and Sudan) and the 2000 attack on the USS Cole in Yemen. The United States designated Al Qaeda as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) in 1999. After the 9/11 attacks, the United States launched military operations to topple the Taliban government in Afghanistan and redoubled its CT efforts worldwide. AQ leadership fled to Pakistan, where U.S. forces killed Bin Laden in 2011. AQ attacks against U.S. and Western targets worldwide continued in the years after 9/11, but the group has not successfully carried out a major attack inside the United States since then. Leadership AQ's leader, or emir, is Ayman al Zawahiri, an Egyptian who succeeded Bin Laden. Some attribute purported AQ struggles (including its failure to strike inside the United States) to what they describe as al Zawahiri's understated leadership, as compared to Bin Laden's charisma. Others argue that Zawahiri's more restrained approach is an asset that has created space for AQ affiliates to pursue regionally tailored strategies and make inroads into local communities and conflicts. Periodic reports that Zawahiri (70) has been ill or died have raised questions about the group's future leadership. Zawahiri's former deputy, Abu Khayr al Masri, was killed by a U.S. drone strike in Syria in 2017; his successor was killed in Iran in August 2020, reportedly by Israeli agents. Their deaths, and that of Bin Laden's son Hamza (whose killing in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region was announced by President Trump in 2019), leave Saif al Adl as Zawahiri's likely successor. Al Adl is reported to reside in Iran, which for years has allowed AQ figures to operate on its territory despite occasional enmity between Sunni Al Qaeda and Iran's Shia Islamic Republic government. AQ leaders may view Iran as relatively safe from U.S. counterterrorism operations, while Iran may view AQ's presence as leverage against the United States, as well as an opportunity to support another U.S. adversary. Structure Al Qaeda once had a hierarchical organization, a relatively small and geographically contained membership, and claimed to be the vanguard and global leader of Islamist terrorism. The attenuation of AQ core leadership, the growth of regional affiliates, and the rise of the Islamic State (IS, aka ISIS/ISIL) have changed Al Qaeda greatly. For years, analysts have debated how to characterize the shifting ties between AQ leaders and groups that have pledged allegiance to Al Qaeda, and among these self- described affiliates. Some contend that Al Qaeda remains essentially a centrally governed organization, with the group's leaders providing marching orders to its various affiliates; others describe a hub and spoke model in which leaders provide inspiration, strategic vision, and some financial support but little in the way of direct tactical supervision. Still others see the growth of affiliates as having undermined the status and importance of the core, with the affiliates' respective local interests driving their actions more than any kind of centrally directed ideology or program. Al Qaeda may persist as a group that inspires ideologically motivated terrorism against U.S. interests around the world and opportunistically enters (or secures the allegiance of participants in) local conflicts. Changes in the relative balance of these elements of the group's identity and structure may in turn spur changes in the focus of U.S. counterterrorism efforts over time. Status in Afghanistan U.S. officials assess that many AQ core leaders are based in Afghanistan, where the group has been weakened but not eliminated. According to a December 2020 Department of Defense (DOD) report, AQ's remaining core leaders pose a limited threat to U.S. and coalition forces in Afghanistan because they are focused primarily on survival. ittps://crsreports.congress.gov

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