Al-Qaida Shows Signs of Decline- How Terrorist Groups Hurt Themselves

NPR

Today on NPR, Dina Temple-Raston has an interesting story entitled “As Support Fades, Al-Qaida Shows Signs of Decline” she focuses on how terrorist groups can end, or at least how their efforts can oftentimes be counterproductive.  In the story Professor Audrey Cronin of NDU and I are both quoted.   What’s interesting about this story is its relationship to the Obama administration’s broader counter-terrorism/counter-insurgency strategy which has seen a dramatic increase in drone attacks coupled with a heavy focus on minimizing civilian casualties through restrictive Rules of Engagement on the ground.  The hope of these efforts is to cripple the organization operationally (by killing key leaders and facilitators), while also undermining al-Qaeda’s recruitment efforts by delegitimizing the group amongst the local population.

The full story is here, and here are some key excerpts:

Support for al-Qaida is already waning as evidenced by popular attitudes in the Muslim world toward the terrorist group:

“You can really see a sea change in the Muslim world with respect to its attitude toward al-Qaida,” she said. “And I think there is a broad feeling that al-Qaida has hurt Muslims more than anyone else.”

According to the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, 99 percent of al-Qaida’s victims in 1997 outside the war zones of Afghanistan and Iraq were non-Western. In 2008, 96 percent of them were. Cronin says that those kinds of numbers — not just drone attacks — could lead to al-Qaida’s undoing.

“Popular repulsion to that kind of behavior is a classic way for a group to be undermined and sometimes reach its end,” she said.

Gregory McNeal, who teaches national security law at Pepperdine Law School, says the U.S. can accelerate al-Qaida’s demise by eroding the group’s support among Muslims.

“What’s really been neglected for a long period of time is this political component,” he said.

McNeal says the U.S. can try to delegitimize the organization, undermine its grass-roots support and the foot soldiers willing to carry out attacks.

That’s already happening. Polls carried out in Muslim countries by the Pew Charitable Trust late last year show a huge shift in public sentiment against al-Qaida. Pakistanis with an unfavorable opinion of al-Qaida jumped from 34 percent to 61 percent last year. Only 9 percent of those surveyed in Pakistan have a favorable view of al-Qaida.