Two years ago today, SEAL Team Six sent Osama bin Laden on his way to Davy Jones’ Locker — but his Islamist terror machine is anything but sinking to the depths. It remains a vicious, global threat.
Since Osama’s demise, the terror group’s strength has ebbed in some areas, but flowed strongly in others.
Indeed, one current estimate concludes that al Qaeda affiliates and associates (i.e., groups, cells or operatives) are active in more than 30 countries (of some 190) on four continents.
Including our continent. While we don’t yet know the whole story behind the Boston bombing, just last week in Chicago the feds arraigned an American teen, who wanted to join an al Qaeda-linked group in Syria. Oh, and the Canadians busted up a plot to bomb a Toronto-New York train, supported by al Qaeda operatives in Iran.
That same week, the Spanish arrested suspects linked to al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb.
In Syria, the most effective fighting force against the Bashar al Assad regime is al Qaeda & Co. The main group, Jabhat al-Nusra, has conducted suicide attacks and seeks an Islamist state under sharia law. (The feds have also charged a former American GI for fighting alongside al Nusrah.)
The Syrian group works closely with al Qaeda in Iraq, which once again numbers in the thousands. It has rebounded from the departure of US forces in 2011 and is the source of ghastly violence across the country.
The Iraqi and Syrian al Qaeda allies have reportedly proclaimed the creation of an Islamist state called “al Sham.” The Associated Press reports that they’ve set up camps along the Syria-Iraq border.
Al Qaeda has also popped up in the Sinai in Egypt.
To the South in Yemen, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (once deemed al Qaeda’s most dangerous wing) continues the fight, although weakened due to the government’s efforts and US drone strikes.
Al Qaeda is surging in Africa as well.
Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and its splinter groups have been on a tear since the fall of Libya’s Moamar Khaddafy. AQIM and its allies are responsible for terror attacks in Libya (including on the US consulate in Benghazi last fall and on the French embassy last week), as well as the deadly raid on a gas plant in Algeria.
In Mali, Ansar al Dine once held ground the size of Texas. French troops forced a retreat — but the Islamist insurgency continues..
Elsewhere in Africa, the Nigerian government is battling al Qaeda’s kindred spirit, Boko Haram. In Somalia, al Shabab has suffered setbacks, but hasn’t given up the ghost by any stretch.
In Russia, al Qaeda has long seen the Caucasus as a key battlefield in the fight against the infidels. Chechnya supplies fighters to Syria and an al Qaeda-linked group operates in the shadows in neighboring Dagestan.
The terror group is holding on in Asia, too.
In Pakistan and Afghanistan, al Qaeda’s “core” is weakened, but its allies like the Taliban, Lashkar e Taiba and others fight on, seeking control of those countries.
While Osama’s a goner, al Qaeda’s not. Some al Qaeda acolytes are in the doldrums, but others have the wind in their sails.
The comforting narrative that we’re in a post-al Qaeda world is just plain wrong. The terrorists’ goal of a global caliphate built through violence isn’t relegated to the history books yet — and complacency on our part is a sure killer.
Peter Brookes is a Heritage Foundation senior fellow and a former deputy assistant secretary of defense.
Twitter: @Brookes_Peter