Killing the Hydra

If you follow such things, you’re probably aware that two-thirds of Al Qaeda’s leadership has been captured or killed. So why, then, do terrorist operations continue to escalate? Americans love to have identifiable enemies, and it is tempting to see Osama bin Laden or Abu Musab Zarqawi or any of the other Al Qaeda leaders as the faces of evil, the ones responsible for terrorism. If only they could be removed from the equation, the logic goes, then terrorism would end. But that’s not how Al Qaeda works. It never really did, and it certainly doesn’t today.

Al Qaeda has always been part of a loose-knit, violent, Islamic revivalist social movement held together by a common idea: the global Islamist jihad. It is a loose network with fuzzy boundaries.

For a brief period, when the Taliban provided sanctuary for him in Afghanistan, Bin Laden was able to establish a headquarters and training camps to school jihadists in terrorist operations. Formal induction procedures were implemented, and a central staff of experts was on hand to plan large-scale operations. Through their control of training and support, Bin Laden and his lieutenants were able to grab the reins of the movement, giving rise to the illusion that it was a more formal hierarchy than it actually was. Under Bin Laden’s leadership, Al Qaeda became involved in the careful planning of sophisticated, long-term operations, like the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in Africa and the 9/11 attacks.

But the Afghan sites, which gave Al Qaeda its control over the movement, were also its Achilles’ heel because they became specific military targets. After 9/11, U.S. and allied forces destroyed all identifiable terrorist targets: training camps, residential compounds and support facilities. Communications were disrupted. The network lost much of its internal glue and reverted to being small clumps of terrorists loosely connected to each other.

Today, there is no longer a formal initiation into the movement, and there is no fixed number of individuals who are terrorists. Rather, there are a few full-time terrorists among a pool of people sympathetic to their ideology. The number available to carry out acts of terrorism fluctuates according to local grievances and the international situation. Far from having a formal command structure, wherein followers strictly obey orders from above, these networks are self-organized from the bottom up and demonstrate a great deal of local initiative and flexibility. Like the Internet, they function very well with little coordination from the top.

Gaps in the network don’t last long. If a leader is eliminated, the most aggressive terrorists step up to fill the void. A successful operation against the West attracts eager followers to its perpetrator. It’s a team effort, and the player with the hot hands gets the ball. Right now, Zarqawi is hot, and his successes against Americans in Iraq have attracted attention. His growing reputation has generated a following and made him a de facto leader. So although two-thirds of the 2001 leadership has indeed been eliminated, a new leadership has been reconstituted, one that is more widely dispersed and more aggressive than the old one.

There is good news and bad news in all this. The lack of central support and planning now prevents the execution of large-scale, sophisticated and costly operations. But at the same time, we’re seeing operations that are more frequent, reckless and hurried -- and they can wreak havoc. From Saudi Arabia to Madrid to Jakarta, we’re seeing destructive attacks that were planned, supported and carried out by local operators without control from above.

This new wave of terrorist operations demonstrates the flexibility and resilience of the network and its ability to adapt to new circumstances. As the West has hardened itself as a target, Al Qaeda and its loosely affiliated partners have reverted to attacking local, softer targets in countries with lax anti-terrorist policies. In some regions -- including the Philippines, Indonesia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Algeria and Morocco -- Islamic terrorists have successfully converted deep-seated local grievances into full-blown insurgencies.

U.S. mismanagement of postwar Iraq is rejuvenating this Islamist revivalist social movement worldwide. Potential terrorists are attracted to Iraq, where a collection of local jihads may coalesce into a more united, international one, just as occurred in Afghanistan in the 1980s.

But despite a re-energized movement fueled by strong anti-U.S. sentiments, it is unlikely that the U.S. will again be the victim of such a devastating and sophisticated operation on its soil. Post-9/11 vigilance has made the U.S. homeland a difficult target. And indigenous Al Qaeda cells failed to take root in the U.S. Before Sept. 11, Al Qaeda activities in the U.S. were largely limited to raising money. The rare Americans attracted to Al Qaeda’s ideology left the U.S. for Afghanistan, which meant that when it came time for the attacks of 2001, terrorists had to be imported.

Americans have fretted about the possibility of “sleeper cells,” but there is little or no evidence that they exist here. In fact, true sleepers -- fully operational agents who remain undercover and inactive for a long period to escape detection before being reactivated to carry out an operation -- are extremely rare. Al Qaeda-style terrorism is a group phenomenon. Without the support of close friends or family, it is difficult to sustain the motivation that drives terrorism.

How do we fight such fuzzy, idea-based terrorist networks? We’ve already hit the hard targets that can be taken out in military actions. Now we must move on to a more difficult phase. Idea-based networks can only be attacked through a war of ideas. The jihadist vision that has inspired terrorism must be taken on, and Muslims worldwide must be engaged to help in the fight. The aim is to alter Muslims’ perception that their interests are hostile to the West. This demands a two-prong strategy: a negative one, aimed at de-legitimizing terrorist ideas, and a positive one, aimed at promoting an alternative vision of a just and fair Islamic society living in harmony with the West.

This war of ideas promises to be a long war of narratives, fought on a battlefield of interpretations. But it is the only thing that can work.