The “War” on Terror after Bin Laden

Ten years after the attacks of September 11, 2001, the death of Saudi Osama bin Laden is, above all, a symbolic victory in the fight against terrorism. This success is important for the United States and President Barack Obama, who has succeeded where his Republican predecessor, George W. Bush, failed. It also serves as proof that his decision to place the emphasis on Afghanistan and Pakistan rather than Iraq was strategically justified.

But America is not alone. Bin Laden’s death is also an achievement for the 27 NATO allies, who, in the aftermath of the attacks against the United States in 2001, invoked for the first time since its creation in April 1949 Article 5 of its charter on collective solidarity: “An armed attack against one or more of them…shall be considered an attack against them all.” Furthermore, the disappearance of the West’s public enemy number one is good news for powers like Russia and China, who have also led fights against Islamist fundamentalism in Chechnya and Xinjiang, respectively. Osama bin Laden armed the Chechen rebels in their “jihad” against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, which made him one the leading terrorists in the world. His death thus closes a somber period in Russia that began with the 1978 invasion of Afghanistan.

However, we must not have any illusions. On the ground, getting the leader of al-Qaida out of the way was not a historical turning point – and for several reasons. “The strategic decline of al-Qaida,” asserts François Heisbourg, special counsel to the Foundation for Strategic Research, “started well before.” Since the attacks in London in July 2004 and those in Madrid in March 2004, the Saudi’s influence could not achieve any large-scale projects in the “industrialized world,” emphasizes Heisbourg, who at the time had popularized the concept of “hyperterrorism.” Numerous attempts, like that of May 1, 2010 in Times Square in New York City by an American of Pakistani origin or the attempted attack on a flight from Amsterdam to Detroit in late 2009, were effectively foiled. What’s more, the collapse of the Taliban regime in Kabul in 2001 was a severe blow to al-Qaida in Afghanistan and more recently in Pakistan.

This decline also needs to be taken in the context of the democratization of the Muslim world. In Tunisia, Egypt and then in Syria and Libya, references to religious fundamentalism were not the trigger – far from it. In the events in Cairo that led to the fall of Hosni Mubarak, the role of the Muslim Brotherhood, of which bin Laden himself was a member, cannot be exaggerated. The other reason is that al-Qaida transformed itself from a largely centralized organization in the form of an octopus to several regional groups – “franchises” not linked to a base (“al aqaida” in Arabic). As a result, notes the Institute of Heidelberg, “most acts of transnational terrorism in 2010 could again be blamed on militant Islamist groups.” Thus, in Somalia, the Shabbaab movement (originating from the Islamic Courts Union), pursued its actions in the territory but also in Kampala in Uganda. Al-Qaida in Iraq (AQI) and especially Aqmi in Maghreb are still active.

This evolution is largely confirmed by statistics from the World Bank. Over the last 10 years, 86 percent of the 50,000 victims of terrorism can be linked to attacks on “non-Western” targets. However, in the present, it is difficult to see how these movements will successfully bring about a “Great Day,” achieving Osama bin Laden’s objective of creating a sort of alternative caliphate that rivals Saudi Arabia.

Therefore, terrorism is far from being eliminated at the international level because it is fundamentally not an end but a means. Unlike groups like the Republican Army in Northern Ireland, the ETA in Spain, the PPK (Party of Kurdish Workers) in Turkey and even Hamas in the Gaza Bank and its PLO predecessor led by Yasser Arafat, al-Qaida and its affiliates do not have a national or territorial objective but emphasize a founding ideology based on a broad interpretation of the notion of Ummah, which refers to the community of believers that unites virtually the entire Muslim world far beyond their individual nationalities. Paradoxically, the existence of al-Qaida is also largely linked to the fact that the world at the beginning of the 21st century saw fewer wars between states but more conflicts between non-state groups for ideological or social reasons (notably unemployment). Globalization also had its effects.

Under the current situation, the death of bin Laden poses a crucial question to the West and to NATO. Do they need to remain in Afghanistan or can they leave gradually as planned in the summer of 2011? “This will reinforce the trends in public opinion in the United States,” but also in Europe, in favor of departure, asserts François Heisbourg.

We should not forget that the search for Osama bin Laden, deemed responsible for September 11, was the primary motivation for the military intervention in Afghanistan. The War on Terror should be increasingly handled by gendarmes and the police and less by military forces.