Not Running Just Yet: Al Qaeda is Staying Put in Pakistan
Al Qaeda has been in the news in recent days, most prominently in reports that its operatives re-infiltrated Afghanistan from neighboring Pakistan. While this may look like an al Qaeda attempt to break out of the box that it has been confined to by a barrage of drone strikes, U.S. and allied operations in Afghanistan, and Pakistani military operations across the border, don’t count your al Qaeda terrorists before they’ve run.
According to the White House’s recently released Report on Afghanistan and Pakistan, “al Qa’ida’s senior leadership in Pakistan is weaker and under more sustained pressure that at any other point since it fled Afghanistan in 2001.” A recent New York Times article reported that “a small but steadily growing stream of Qaeda fighters and lower-level commanders from other parts of the world, including Pakistan, are making their way to Yemen to join the fight there.” Taken in tandem with this piece in the Wall Street Journal, which looks at al Qaeda’s attempts to expand back into Afghanistan, the evidence would seem to support those of the persuasion that territory is unimportant in the war against al Qaeda due to the “whack-a-mole” effect. According to its adherents, the whack-a-mole theory purports that al Qaeda could simply relocate its operational base once the pressure begins to pile on.
This belief is flawed on several accounts. While it is true that al Qaeda does maintain some capacity to relocate, there are definite limits on where, how far, how quickly and how completely they can move. While individual fighters frequently experiment in new areas of operation, a specific set of conditions is required in any potential host country before al Qaeda’s core leadership can think about relocating as an organization. For this reason, the number of potential “Site Bs” for an al Qaeda relocation is finite.
Furthermore, as far as al Qaeda is concerned, its current bolt-hole in Pakistan provides it with a number of natural advantages which will make it hesitant to move (we can call this Territorial Inertia). For al Qaeda to consider organizational relocation, it will need to face a level of pressure that it knows it cannot survive or adapt to, as well as discover a new operating environment with enough natural advantages and ease of transfer that would surmount existing Territorial Inertia.
Two places that have the potential to fulfill those conditions are Yemen and Somalia. In her latest piece, my colleague at AEI’s Critical Threats Project, Katherine Zimmerman, examines both the advantages and challenges that Yemen and Somalia present as operating environments for al Qaeda. One observation she astutely makes is that “al Qaeda leaders [likely] recognize the challenges of relocating and…they have judged it more advantageous to remain in an established safe haven for the time being.”
Al Qaeda has come under immense pressure in the tribal areas of Pakistan. It has suffered a multitude of drone strikes, a loss of territory and network disruption as a result of Pakistani military operations, flagging public support, and paucity of funds. It appears to have, nevertheless, made the conscious decision to stick around. According to Pakistani intelligence sources, al Qaeda and its affiliates in Pakistan have adapted their modus operandi by diluting operative cells and by preparing alternative leadership structures in order to “confuse counter-terror agencies” and mitigate the disruptive effects of sudden assassinations by drone strike and targeted actions. The group no longer openly accepts new recruits and has severely restricted its own movement, operations, and training to prevent being pinged by the business-end of a hellfire missile.
For al Qaeda, there are good reasons to endure such hardships rather than move. First, there are only a limited number of places the group can relocate to and even those few locations present enough disadvantages as to give serious pause. Second, Pakistan isn’t such a bad place to be if you are a violent Islamist. Despite drone strikes there are still parts of the country where government forces cannot, or will not, operate. There is a large, well-supplied and long-established network of like-minded individuals in the form of the Pakistani Taliban, Lashkar-e Taiba, Punjabi terror groups, the Haqqani network, and others with whom al Qaeda shares a certain level of bonhomie and upon whom it can depend for support. The group also enjoys a level of familiarity in the region due to the fact that it has been operating there for many years; its networks of trust have the force of history behind them. As a colleague of mine at the Institute for the Study of War, Jeff Dressler, and I will lay out in a forthcoming paper on the Haqqani network in Kurram agency, al Qaeda’s potential areas of operation in Pakistan’s northwest are potentially expanding.
Pakistan, furthermore, is a radicalizing country of 180 million people with an economy and physical infrastructure far more developed than those of Yemen, Somalia, or other any other serious contender for “Most Dangerous Place in the World.” Facilities like good national (and international) transportation networks, the internet, established financial networks and institutions for fundraising, laundering and transferral of cash, and a population large enough to easily disappear in are only some of the benefits which al Qaeda would be loath to lose or reestablish elsewhere.
Al Qaeda is, indeed, facing some of the heaviest pressure since its inception and certainly since the onset of war in 2001. It is not yet, however, responding to this pressure by fleeing en masse in search of a new home. The organization, especially the core leadership, is choosing stubbornly to stay put. It likely knows that attempting to move may be even more dangerous than attempting to stay. For the moment, al Qaeda Central’s bets are firmly on Pakistan.
Reza Jan is the Pakistan Team Lead at AEI’s Critical Threats Project.
