U.S. Sees Shift of Extremist Power Away From Al-Qaida’s Core

United States Department of State (Washington, DC)

Jeff Baron

28 April 2011

Washington — A top U.S. counterterrorism official says that al-Qaida is getting weaker, but that its affiliates have grown more powerful and independent.

Daniel Benjamin, the State Department’s coordinator for counterterrorism, also told a conference April 27 at a Washington policy research organization that the al-Qaida affiliates are more dangerous not only because they are stronger and more technically sophisticated but also because, in many cases, the countries in which they operate are going through upheavals.

“We are in a fast-changing landscape — a season of transformative change in the Middle East whose full implications are still taking shape,” Benjamin said. “The changes of government and broad-based efforts to win new freedoms for the people of the region hold enormous promise.”

In the long run, if that promise is fulfilled, he said, al-Qaida’s “single-minded focus on terrorism as an instrument of political change would be severely and irretrievably delegitimized. That would be a genuinely strategic blow.”

In the meantime, though, he warned that instability is offering opportunities to such groups as al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula and al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb. Al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb specializes in kidnapping for ransom, which Benjamin said has become a leading tool for financing al-Qaida groups worldwide. And al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula “continues to demonstrate its growing ambitions and strong desire to carry out attacks outside of its region” while becoming a leading source of propaganda, Benjamin said.

Al-Shabaab, though not an affiliate of al-Qaeda, also is growing in strength in Somalia, which lacks a strong government.

Benjamin said that thanks to counterterrorism efforts in cooperation with Pakistan, “the [al-Qaida] core has had significant leadership losses and is finding it more difficult to raise money, train recruits and plan attacks outside of the region.” It and other groups, such as Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan, the Haqqani Network and Lashkar e-Tayyiba, remain a menace in South Asia, he said.

And Benjamin said al-Qaida in Iraq continues to carry out occasional attacks but has dwindled in power and support.

To counter the shifts in the terrorism threat, Benjamin said, the United States is working to strengthen other governments for short-term improvements in security and longer-term improvements in governance and the rule of law.

Much of the effort has been in Pakistan, which Benjamin said “today is more willing to take on extremist groups that directly threaten Pakistani targets, such as military bases, intelligence offices and police stations.”

Although Yemen has been in upheaval in recent weeks, Benjamin said he is hopeful that the government that emerges will want to cooperate against terrorism. The U.S. effort is designed to improve the Yemeni government’s ability to provide security and other services for its people, along with a substantial increase in development.

Benjamin said efforts are expanding through regional groups as well as in U.S. programs with individual countries. The goal, he said, is for those regions and governments to have a greater capacity to undercut terrorist groups in the long run.

(This is a product of the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://iipdigital.usembassy.gov/iipdigital-en/index.html)

AllAfrica – All the Time