When the United States began its campaign of airstrikes against Islamic State targets in Syria on Sept. 22, it also used Tomahawk cruise missiles to attack a series of al Qaeda-related facilities in the Aleppo area. The strikes targeted al Qaeda's regional franchise in Syria, Jabhat al-Nusra, as well as personnel belonging to the al Qaeda core who were in Syria working with Jabhat al-Nusra and other jihadists. The U.S. government has referred to the al Qaeda personnel it attacked in Syria as the "Khorasan Group," but they are clearly personnel from the al Qaeda core who have been dispatched to Syria and not from some other organization.
It appears the strikes caught the al Qaeda militants by surprise, and there are reports that al Qaeda operative Muhsin al-Fadhli, reported to be Ayman al-Zawahiri's senior operative in Syria, was killed in the strikes. The United States also claimed that al-Fadhli and his fellow al Qaeda members were working on plots to strike the United States and Europe from their base in Syria. The group reportedly was the reason for an alert issued on July 2 warning that al Qaeda elements in Syria were working with bombmakers from al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula in a new plot to smuggle concealed explosive devices onto U.S.-bound aircraft.
The fact that al-Fadhli and his companions were dispatched to Syria to plot attacks against the United States should not be surprising. The group and other jihadist militants have long operated in lawless areas in countries such as Yemen, Algeria, Somalia, the Philippines, Indonesia, Pakistan, Nigeria, Mali, Libya, Iraq and Syria. The al Qaeda core also has a long history of seeking to attack the United States. We have seen the al Qaeda core dispatch operatives to work with groups of local jihadists to conduct attacks in New York (1993 World Trade Center bombing) and Africa (1998 East Africa embassy bombings.)
The U.S. strikes against al Qaeda targets in Aleppo are noteworthy because they highlight the need of al Qaeda groups to seek sanctuary in places such as Syria. The strikes also serve as a reminder that while the campaign against al Qaeda has weakened the group since 9/11, the group can revive if it has time and space within which to operate.
Sanctuary
It is important to understand that sanctuary alone is not enough to produce sophisticated transnational terrorist attacks. Indeed, there are many jihadist groups that are operating in lawless areas across a wide arc of the world stretching from West Africa to the Sulu Archipelago. However, only a small number of these groups possess the requisite combination of intent and capability needed to conduct transnational attacks. Many of these groups are nationally or regionally focused and therefore have no aspiration of striking targets beyond their areas of operation. Friction between nationally focused and transnationally focused jihadists has resulted in rifts and infighting among the members of groups such as al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and al Shabaab. But even those jihadist groups that aspire and threaten to commit transnational attacks have been constrained by their limited capabilities. Projecting terrorist power across continents is not as easy as it appears in the movies.
As we have previously discussed, fighting an insurgency and conducting transnational terrorist attacks are two distinct things, and possessing the ability to conduct insurgent warfare does not mean that a militant group can automatically use its insurgent capabilities to carry out terrorist strikes. To project terrorist power transnationally, a militant group needs to develop the capability to employ advanced terrorist tradecraft.
Frustration over their inability to project power from their areas of sanctuary has led al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and the al Qaeda core to call for jihadists living in the West to conduct simple attacks close to home — to "build a bomb in the kitchen of your mom" as the Boston Marathon bombers almost literally did. This is because simple attacks do not require advanced terrorist tradecraft. However, these simple attacks cannot create the type of mass carnage the terrorist groups aspire to inflict. Furthermore, the calls for simple attacks have not produced many attacks, and those advocating them have certainly been disappointed by the meager response to their call.
Terrorist groups like al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula have also sought other ways to extend their reach from places of sanctuary to attack the United States and Europe. One way they have sought to do this is by using concealed bombs to attack aircraft. For example, in the 2009 underwear bomb plot and the 2010 computer printer bomb attempt, the perpetrating group sought to use innovative and imaginative explosive devices created in its Yemeni bases to attack international aviation targets. This is because making explosive devices in areas where there is access to military-grade explosives and bomb components is easier than sending an operative to create a device from improvised components in a hostile environment.
In response to the group's failed attacks, security agencies have dramatically increased the scrutiny of people and cargo originating from Yemen. The country was already a fairly isolated place due to its geography, making it difficult to dispatch people and bombs without detection. The area along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, where the al Qaeda core is believed to be hiding, is also quite isolated and under heavy scrutiny by intelligence agencies. Because of this, relocating cells to Syria to plan and execute plots against the West makes sense. There is also an immense amount of traffic going both ways across the Syria-Turkey border, facilitating travel to Turkey as the far more convenient location to get to the United States and Europe than Yemen or Pakistan.
Slowing the Spread of Terrorist Tradecraft
Militants seeking sanctuary in northern Syria would still need to master terrorist tradecraft to carry out a transnational attack, and that is what the personnel from the al Qaeda core and al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula have to offer. People like al-Fadhli have the tradecraft to plan and facilitate transnational terrorist travel, funding and operations. Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula's Ibrahim al-Asiri has demonstrated that he is capable of designing creative and imaginative bombs that can circumvent security measures — even if they have not always functioned as intended.
This is why the U.S. airstrikes against al Qaeda targets in Syria are so necessary. Although they do little to reduce the sanctuary militants still enjoy there, killing figures such as al-Fadhli and his companions who can teach this type of tradecraft is quite worthwhile because it reduces the transnational terrorist threat emanating from the area, at least until others can replace those killed. This increases the strain on terrorist groups because operatives possessing terrorist tradecraft skills — what I refer to as "exceptional individuals" — are extremely difficult to replace.
Since the 9/11 attacks, the United States and its allies have been able to weaken the al Qaeda core and erode its battlefield effectiveness. Washington has also experienced success against several regional jihadist groups. But the world is a big place and there will always be lawless areas where jihadist groups can find sanctuary to survive, regroup, plan and scheme. At its heart, the battle against jihadism is essentially an ideological battle. While military, law enforcement, intelligence, financial and diplomatic tools can be used to contain or reduce the power and reach of particular jihadist groups on the physical battlefield and capture or kill key individuals, as long as the jihadist ideology persists and continues to attract adherents faster than they can be killed or arrested, it will not be possible to end the threat using traditional counterterrorism programs.
The Islamic State's resurgence reflects this fact that there is not a military answer to the jihadist problem. In 2010, the group was reduced to a fraction of its strength by the American surge in Iraq and the Anbar Awakening. Since 2011, however, it has been able to regenerate and return to the battlefield stronger than ever in 2014.
There is no doubt that al-Zawahiri and the rest of the al Qaeda leadership also seek to regenerate their operational capabilities. It is possible that the activities of al-Fadhli in Syria are a sign that they are moving in that direction. In addition to its operations in Syria, al Qaeda has also sent operative Abd al-Baset Azzouz to Libya to serve a role similar to that of al-Fadhli in Syria. Al-Baset Azzouz's responsibilities apparently not only include liaising with and training local jihadists, but also planning and facilitating attacks against the United States and Europe.
As we discussed in the assessment of the jihadist movement we published in December 2013, the al Qaeda core has been weakened by international counterterrorism efforts, but that weakness is not necessarily permanent. As long as radical ideologies persist, terrorist groups will be able to rebuild and continue to pose a regional threat. However, eliminating operatives like al-Fadhli can make this regeneration cycle longer and more difficult, keeping jihadist groups from posing transnational threats. Unless they can project terrorist attacks to the world beyond, terrorist groups' sanctuary is good for little more than survival.
