Jihad 2020: los planes de al´Qaeda.

 

           



Jihad 2020: Assessing Al-Qaida’s 20-Year Plan

By Aaron Y. Zelin, on 11 Sep 2013       

  

Since the Arab uprisings erupted two and a half years ago, the global jihadi movement has metastasized to a variety of new locales across the Arab world, most recently in Syria, Libya, Sinai and Tunisia. While these upheavals surprised many in the region, al-Qaida had predicted such events unfolding in a 20-year strategic plan (2000-2020) that came to light in 2005. That blueprint has gone according to plan so far, albeit more because of outside and structural forces than the efforts of jihadis themselves. As a result, the movement was well-positioned to take advantage of the new developments.

In his book “Al-Zarqawi: Al-Qaida's Second Generation,” Fouad Hussein details al-Qaida’s 20-year plan, which has seven phases, with 2013 representing the beginning of the fifth. Here is how al-Qaida, which leaked the plan to Hussein, envisioned each of them playing out:

First phase: “The Awakening,” 2000-2003. The aim of the 9/11 attacks was to provoke the U.S. into declaring war on the Muslim world and thereby “awaken” Muslims. Al-Qaida also hoped the attacks would help broadcast its message to a global audience. When doing field research in Tunisia this past February, I heard members of the jihadi group Ansar al-Sharia echo this sentiment. “Many became more educated in this field,” one of them told me, referring to this period. “Even if we lost sympathizers, we gained new supporters.”

Second Phase: “Opening Eyes,” 2003-2006. In this period, al-Qaida hoped to transform itself from an organization into a broader movement as well as spread its base to other Arab countries. Iraq would be the center of the jihad to prepare cadres for future arenas.

There are signs that this phase also bore fruit. The jihadi group Jama’at Tawhid wa-l-Jihad became al-Qaida in the Land of the Two Rivers (Iraq) in 2004. Two years later, a group of escaped Yemeni prisoners created al-Qaida in Yemen, which subsequently became al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula when it merged with the Saudi branch in 2009. In early 2007, the Algerian-based jihadi organization the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat joined the fold as well, pledging “bayah” (allegiance) to Osama bin Laden and changing the organization’s name to al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb.

Third Phase: “Arising and Standing Up,” 2007-2010. This phase—which was to see a greater focus on the Levant, specifically in Syria but also including attacks on Israel, Turkey and Jordan—was a complete failure. Some rockets were launched at Israel but did little damage, even as the jihadis in Gaza were heavily suppressed by Hamas. In Jordan, after the 2005 wedding bombing in Amman, Jordanians soured on the jihadi cause, and many of the movement’s key members were imprisoned. Meanwhile, a sustained low-level terrorist campaign against the Assad regime in Syria was contained and defeated.

Fourth Phase: 2010-2013. Al-Qaida predicted that this time period would see the downfall of the Arab tyrant regimes as well as acts of cyberterrorism against the U.S. economy.

Though possibly lucky, al-Qaida was also quite prescient with regard to the Arab regimes’ inherent unsustainability. Jihadis played no role in the uprisings that brought down the regimes in Tunis, Cairo, Sanaa and Tripoli, and which led to the ongoing war in Syria, but the movement has been able to take major advantage of the upheaval. Through a program of “dawa” (missionary work) in countries that have opened up, jihadi groups—including the new Ansar al-Sharia organizations in North Africa—have been able to spread their message and broaden their base from a vanguard to a social movement.

The jihadi movement has also shown it has learned from its failures in Iraq. In war zones like Syria, it has tried to garner support through the provision of social services. It has also tried to avoid alienating the Sunni population with excessive violence, instead focusing its target selection on military and security forces as well as non-Sunni Muslims.

While off by one phase, by 2013 the global jihadi movement had opened up a front in Syria, gaining a logistical base to facilitate operations in southern Turkey. It also established an ascendant jihadi presence in northern Sinai to project terror at Israel, and a resurgent al-Qaida organization in Iraq still maintains close ties with the Salafis in Jordan. Therefore, the overall movement has set itself up well for the next few phases of its broader plan.

Fifth Phase: 2013-2016. In the three years ahead, al-Qaida hoped to establish an Islamic state or caliphate, thanks to waning Western influence in the Muslim world as well as a weakened Israel. U.S. and Western influence in the region has indeed been diminished, as illustrated by Washington’s recent impotence to shape events in Egypt and Syria. That said, the U.S. still maintains a major military presence as well as ties to Arab countries. And due to the instability throughout the region, Israel has even more of a qualitative military edge than previously.

Sixth Phase: “Total Confrontation,” 2016-2020. By this period, al-Qaida anticipated an all-out war with the unbelievers, leading to its seventh and final phase in 2020, “Definitive Victory,” which would result in defeat of the unbelievers and the success of the caliphate.

These last two phases appear somewhat fanciful, due to major obstacles remaining in al-Qaida’s path forward. First, while the West is indeed facing economic difficulties and its influence has declined relatively, it is not in an existential crisis, as al-Qaida anticipated. Neither is Israel. Second, jihadis’ track record in governance is poor, especially once they begin instituting their narrow interpretations of Shariah; high-profile failures include Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Yemen and Mali, due to extreme brutality and the pursuit of social norms that are far more conservative than those of the local populations. Therefore, there will probably be backlashes against any new projects in Syria or elsewhere.

Nevertheless, the continued instability in the broader region means that the jihadi movement, which is quite nimble and learns from its past experiences, will likely continue to find sympathizers. It is highly implausible that jihadis will achieve a “definitive victory” and establish a caliphate over the entire Muslim population. But al-Qaida is not going to disappear anytime soon. Though the last stages of its strategic plan remain farfetched, the group is a reality that will likely endure in the decades to come.

Aaron Y. Zelin is the Richard Borow fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.