Al-Qaeda's (substantial) weaknesses

Here is how Brynjar Lia, of the FFI, assesses them. Lia, and his colleague Thomas Hegghammar (see post below) are two of the very best terrorism analysts in the world. Here is some of what he said at a recent lecture in Dubai:

A major weakness of groups such as al-Qaida is that it is always difficult to justify the killing of civilians. You will recall that there were mass demonstrations in Jordan and Morocco against al-Qaida following terrorist attacks by al-Qaida-related groups. A number of leading militant ideologues, from Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi in Jordan, to Sayyid Imam al-Sharif in Egypt, have severely censured al-Qaida for its acts of violence. Such criticism does not go unheeded. Ayman al-Zawahiri felt compelled to respond to al-Sharif’s criticism in a 200-page document that was posted on the Internet this year. Al-Zawahiri even described the document as being the most painful text he had ever written.

Such schisms are not new to al-Qaida. In fact, recently declassified documents reveal that there has been far more internal dissent in al-Qaida than has hitherto been acknowledged. These internal tensions started right after al-Qaida’s foundation, and have been a recurrent feature of the organisation. In recent years, issues such as the repeated massacres of Shia Muslim civilians in Iraq by al-Qaida’s Iraqi branch, have been a particularly controversial issue inside al-Qaida. Last year, there were also quite contradictory statements by al-Zawahiri and bin Laden regarding al-Qaida’s future course of action vis-à-vis Pakistan following the Lal-Masjid showdown during the summer of 2007.

Another inherent weakness of al-Qaida is that it does not seem able or willing to prepare for a future transition to politics. Al-Qaida’s appeal is totally dependent on the continuation of violence. Its brandname is simultaneous car bomb attacks with suicide bombers, not state building and party politics. Bin Laden has said that al-Qaida’s victory is simply to inflict pain and economic losses on the enemy, and undermine its political resolve. But this also means that al-Qaida’s appeal will diminish quickly wherever the population grow tired of violence that does not lead anywhere. At some point, al-Qaida’s image will inevitably fade; just as all extremist ideologies have a limited life span, so too does al-Qaida’s extremist interpretation of Islam. Some time in the future, al-Qaida will loose its attraction among the youth, and to pose as a jihadist will no longer be “cool”