Has Al Qaeda been beaten?

• Author: Scherer, John L.
• Position: WORLDVIEW

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OSAMA BIN LADEN largely has been beaten. Founded in 1988, Al Qaeda (the Base) recruited Muslims who had fought against the Soviets in Afghanistan. Its most dating and successful raid destroyed the World Trade Center and damaged the Pentagon in September 2001. Spectaculars have included the bombing of the U.S. embassy in Nairobi, Kenya, in August 1998, and the attack on the USS Cole in Aden, Yemen, in October 2000. Some experts have linked Al Qaeda to attacks that killed more than 170 persons in Mumbai, India, in November 2008, but the connection remains tenuous. Investigators have blamed Lashkar-e-Toiba (Army of the Righteous) and the Pakistani Intelligence Service (ISI) for the Mumbai incidents. Assailants used AK-47s and hand grenades rather than powerful explosives favored by Al Qaeda. Pakistanis arrested the mastermind of the attacks, Zakiur-Rehman Lakhvi, in December 2008, and have cooperated with Indian officials to unravel the plot.

The U.S. government notes in its most recent report on global terrorism that Al Qaeda has "experienced significant defections, lost key mobilization areas, suffered disruption of support infrastructure and funding, and [been] forced to change targeting priorities." In 2006, for instance, the Ethiopian invasion of Somalia pushed Al Qaeda out of East Africa, although civil war persists.

Jemaah Islamiyah (Islamic Congregation, JI), a breakaway faction, appears to be the prime suspect in bombings of two luxury hotels in Jakarta, Indonesia, on July 17, 2009, but its last significant attack occurred four years earlier, when bombs in Bali, Indonesia, killed 20 persons, including three terrorists. Police have captured senior JI leaders Abu Dujana, Zarkasih, and Mas Selamat Kastari, and arrested 600 suspected members, virtually crippling the organization. Bin Laden's brother-in-law, Mohammed Jalam Khalifa, coordinated a series of attacks with Riduan Isamuddin ("Hambali") and Abu Bakar Bashir, the spiritual leader of the Jemaah Islamiyah. These included simultaneous bombings in Indonesia and the Philippines in December 2000; an attempt to assassinate Indonesian president Megawati Sukarnoputri; and, with the assistance of Kuwaiti-born Mohammed Mansour Jabarah, suicide attacks against U.S. interests in Southeast Asia. The October 2002 Jemaah Islamiyah bombing of the Sail Nightclub in Bali killed more than 200 individuals. A Saudi sheik linked to bin Laden reportedly wired $74,000 to Bashir to buy four tons of explosives, some of which were used to destroy the popular nightspot. Al Qaeda currently has no money to finance international exploits. Recent Al Qaeda tapes have begged sympathizers for funds.

Jafar Umar Thalib, a Yemeni, headed another Indonesian terrorist organization, Lashkar Jihad (Jihad Army), established in the Malukus islands in Indonesia in early 2000. He fought in Afghanistan during 1987-89, meeting bin Laden in 1987 at Peshawar. Bin Laden offered him money, but Thalib claimed to have found the fundamentalist leader insufficiently learned in Islam, and turned him down. Indonesian authorities arrested Thalib in May 2002, and Lashkar Jihad subsequently disbanded.

Terrorist operations of any weight have failed in the United Kingdom since July 2005 and in the U.S. since Sept. 11, 2001. The Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigades accepted responsibility for the July...