Will al Qaeda Make a Comeback?

Although the United States has focused its efforts on defeating the Islamic State (also known as ISIS), al Qaeda has quietly lingered on and is attempting to make a comeback. But whether it will succeed is up for debate. Assessments about its future vary between two broad camps. Some, such as Georgetown University’s Daniel Byman, maintain that the group has been in decline because of limited popular support, effective counterterrorism efforts by the United States and other countries, and al Qaeda’s killing of Muslim civilians. He concludes that there is “good reason to be optimistic that al Qaeda’s decline is for real and might even be permanent.”

Others, such as former FBI agent Ali Soufan, disagree. Soufan contends that al Qaeda is transitioning from a small terrorist outfit with struggling affiliates to a potent transnational network of branches that has gained in numbers and fighting strength and now spans the Middle East, Africa, and Asia. Daveed Gartenstein-Ross of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies argues that the group has “emerged stronger by pursuing a strategy of deliberate yet low-key growth.”

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