Forget ISIS: Al Qaeda Is Back

Matt Purple

Security, Middle East

The stage is set for a reawakening.

In Islamic State, the world has encountered the most brutal jihad syndicate it’s ever faced. But brutality has its limits.

The mass graves, the crucifixions, the suffocating tyranny have earned ISIS an unprecedented array of enemies—from the United States, to Sunni powers like Jordan, to Shiite militias, to the Kurds—who together have forced it off 40 percent of its territory in Iraq and 20 percent in Syria. Its ruthlessness has emptied cities: Ramadi lost almost 98 percent of its population by the time it was retaken by the Iraqi army, and half a million people have fled Mosul. Having alienated Sunnis and jeopardized its own territory, the safest bet is that the Islamic State will eventually fade into some dark alcove of history, or at least see its power seriously diminished.

But even if ISIS is rolled back, sophisticated Sunni jihadism won’t be. There’s another terrorist organization that’s making inroads in the Middle East. This enemy is an old one: Al Qaeda.

To understand why the group that bombed the Twin Towers is staging a comeback, you have to examine the schism between Al Qaeda and ISIS. Al Qaeda’s operating procedure—and the reason for much of its success—is its focus on the distant enemy: the “crusaders,” that is, the United States and its Western allies. Attacks on fellow Muslims were downplayed. This has solid backing in Islam itself, from Muhammad’s proscription on killing innocents to both sides’ hesitation to spill Muslim blood before the Battle of the Camel.