Al-Qaeda’s Heirs

Osama bin Laden is dead. So is much of the influence his organization, al-Qaeda, built with its attacks on the U.S. on Sept. 11, 2001. Its spirit, however, lives on through a collection of like-minded jihadists, fighting to overthrow governments they consider heretical and establish their concepts of purified Islamic societies. In the Mideast and North Africa, they have capitalized on the security and political vacuum left by the toppling of autocrats in the 2011 Arab Spring.

By taking responsibility for attacks in Paris in November 2015 and Brussels in March 2016, Islamic State, a jihadist group that emerged from the Iraqi branch of al-Qaeda, signaled that it was expanding its reach. Previously, the group, which holds large swaths of territory in Iraq and Syria on which it has declared a self-style caliphate, or Islamic state, had focused on what jihadists call the “near enemy,” its foes in the Muslim world. Al-Qaeda concentrated on attacking U.S. and European powers — the “far enemy” — in an effort to push them to abandon regimes bin Laden wanted to unseat. Even with periodic attacks in the non-Muslim world, the bloodiest battlegrounds remain Iraq and Syria. Jihadists also cause significant carnage in such places as Nigeria, Yemen, Somalia and the Philippines. The number of jihadist groups sharing al-Qaeda’s goals rose to 49 in 2013 from three in 1988. Increasingly, groups have pledged allegiance to Islamic State rather than al-Qaeda, which cut ties to its former affiliate in 2014. Islamic State practices extreme brutality — massacring civilians and executing prisoners. It had been particularly effective at attracting recruits, not just from the Arab world but from the U.S., Europe and Chechnya, although U.S. military officials say the flow of foreign fighters has diminished. A U.S.-led coalition began airstrikes in August 2014 intended to help Iraqi forces and secular Syrian rebels contain the group. A year later, Russia started an air campaign on behalf of Syria’s regime, targeting Islamic State among other groups.