Can fragmented al-Qaeda capitalise on instability?

The house in Abbottabad where Osama bin Laden was killed has been demolished – the Pakistanis didn’t want it to become a tourist site or place of pilgrimage.

This time last year I was outside, watching the local kids selling bits of the crashed American helicopter to onlookers for a few rupees.

The organisation bin Laden headed is similarly fragmented.

Even before bin Laden’s death, al-Qaeda had ceased to be unified force it once was. There has been no major attack on the USA since 9/11, and none in western Europe since the Madrid and London bombings of 2004 and 2005. Drone strikes have damaged the organisation in Afghanistan and Pakistan, killing many leaders and disrupting their ability to communicate. But such attacks have dislodged rather than destroyed the organisation.

Al-Qaeda is like a liquid, filling whatever cracks it finds. Nowadays the cracks are mostly in Africa and the Middle East.

Ali Saleh, who hung onto the presidency of Yemen as long as he could last year, made it a self-fulfilling prophecy that after he went, al-Qaeda would rise. As the Yemeni military grew weaker through lack of leadership, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQIP) took more territory in the south of the country, especially the region of Abyan. Government forces are battling to regain control, but negotiations between tribal elders tend to have more success.

Boko Haram, which carries out almost weekly acts of terror against Christians in Nigeria, is believed to be affiliated to al-Qaeda, as is Al Shabaab, the Islamist group in Somalia.

Al-Qaeda in the Mahgreb (AQIM) operates across the Sahel, and its Tuareg members have recently benefitted from an influx of weapons from Libya – Colonel Gaddafi armed the nomadic Tuareg to fight his enemies inside Libya and out. Now AQIM is believed to be in control of Timbuktu and other towns in Mali, after fighting both government forces and secular Tuareg who want their own state.

Bin Laden was replaced as al-Qaeda leader by Ayman al-Zawahiri, an Egyptian. His deputy is Abu Yahya al Libi, a former member of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, which waged jihad against Gaddafi. Most members of of the LIFG distanced themselves from bin Laden several years back, and some are playing a key role in post-Gaddafi politics. In a video message in late 2011, al Libi addressed his old comrades: “At this crossroads you have found yourselves, you either choose a secular regime that pleases the greedy crocodiles of the West, or you take a strong position and establish the religion of Allah,” he said.

It was inevitable that Islamists, suppressed so harshly in Yemen, Egypt and Libya for so many years, would increase their influence after the “Arab Spring”. The question now is will al-Qaeda, with its new North African leadership, be able to capitalise on the politcal instability which follows revolution?

You can follow Lindsey on Twitter @lindseyhilsum