Security Studies

13 years after the tragic events of 9/11, al-Qa‘ida can count on as many regional nodes as never before, as well as on a still significant influence over the most extreme parts of the wider radical Islamist galaxy. The movement survived to the loss of its sanctuaries in Afghanistan, to the elimination of its founder and several of its top leaders, as well as to the ephemeral victories obtained by the Muslim Brotherhood and its sister organizations, after the Arab Spring toppled several of the regimes it vowed to destroy. Victories that, till a couple of years ago, were described as the final nails in the coffin of al-Qa‘ida’s armed struggle: a global jihad that did not tolerate any compromise and that considered the ballot boxes as no more than a tool in the hands of the enemies of Islam. An armed global jihad tasked with the restructuring of the international system and with the restoration of the Golden Age of Islam.
Despite all the requiems sang in the past decade by experts and officials alike, then, al-Qa‘ida is alive, albeit not as dangerous as in 2001. But, differently from the past, the group seems not to be alone. The last few years witnessed the emergence of a series of actors that, while sharing several features with al-Qa‘ida, developed new and often competing interpretations able to threaten its supremacy over the whole jihadi community. The swift ascendance of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, its creation of an emirate ruled by extremely rigid shariah norms, and the dispute soared between its leader, the “Caliph” Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, and the amir of al- Qa‘ida, Ayman al-Zawahiri, are the most tangible evidences of this process. But they are just a part of a wider picture. In Tunisia and Libya the local branches of Ansar al-Shariah gave birth to an hybrid stream of jihadism, mixing appeals to social justice with calls to renew the armed struggle in defense of the Islamic community. In the “post-Morsi Egypt” the restive Sinai peninsula appears to have become the seat of a new “jihadist international”, able to gather a composite array of violent groups extolling objectives and modus operandi close to the ones expressed by al-Qa‘ida but not officially under its clouts. At the same time, growing numbers of foreign volunteers responded to the appeal launched by jihadist organizations fighting in Syria and Iraq - their ranks replenished by would be jihadist (often in their twenties or even younger) coming from all over the world, Europe included. A phenomenon that has been described by the main intelligence agencies as the most serious threat the West will have to face in the mid-long term.
How did the Islamic State emerged in Iraq and Syria and how serious is its challenge for the international community and for al-Qa‘ida? What could be the impact of the different Tunisian and Libyan Ansar al-Shariah branches operating over north Africa and beyond? Can Sinai become the next frontier of jihadism and how is it affected by the instability pervading Libya and Palestine? Who are the European jihadists fighting in Syria and Iraq and what could be their impact once they decide to return to their homes? How do security agencies perceive the threat of transnational extremist networks and which are the strategies they implement to counter them? These are some of the questions this volume aims to address taking in account the heterogeneity of a phenomenon that has been aptly described as an hydra, capable of regenerating from every single blow and – above all – of spawning new heads once one is cut off.