On Bin Laden's 50th Birthday, Al Qaeda Structure Still Strong

Osama bin Laden could not have imagined as he fled the battlefield in Tora Bora in 2001 that he would have lived to see his 50th birthday this Saturday, March 10.

But he has done that and more -- restructuring al Qaeda despite its losses, creating new base areas in Africa and Iraq, expanding into Europe, drawing in thousands of new recruits around the world, reviving the Taliban movement in Afghanistan and turning Pakistan into a terrorism depot.

In February, United States intelligence officials revealed that Bin Laden had wanted to die fighting in Tora Bora alongside his followers, but they forced him to flee into Pakistan's mountainous tribal area. [For details, see the Eurasia Insight archive]. From here, bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman al Zawahiri, reshaped al Qaeda."

Although bin Laden takes part in strategic decision-making, daily running of the movement is in the hands of al Zawahiri, an Egyptian doctor who has placed fellow Egyptians in many of the key leadership positions in the movement.

Before 9/11, Saudis and Yemenis mostly staffed senior posts in al Qaeda. There have been long-standing rumors of tensions among the Arabs, but bin Laden has always been weak on organization and is reported to have accepted al Zawahiri's major contribution in al Qaeda's revival.

While bin Laden remains the spiritual and military inspiration for the movement, al Zawahiri has fashioned a core group of no more than 100 Arab trainers -- all experts -- in the fields of explosives, finances, communications, military training, urban warfare and propaganda who lend themselves out to all comers.

Unlike before 9/11, when al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan taught the whole jihad compendium to recruits, tight secrecy and deliberate compartmentalization mean that today's trainers only expose themselves to new recruits in those fields where they need training.

Thus, at least two of the July 2005 London bombers were trained in explosives, while the Taliban have been helped in fund raising and organization and Pakistani extremists who back up al Qaeda have been taught logistics, communications and propaganda.

Zawahiri, a long-time believer in suicide bombings and so-called "fedayin attacks," where militants attack soft targets in order to maximize enemy casualties but still have a chance of escape, has injected these modes of warfare into places like Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq where they were not part of tradition or culture. Afghanistan saw 139 suicide bombings in 2006 compared to just 27 in 2005.

Zawahiri's trainers have also helped encourage the cross-fertilization with a dash of expertise and experience so that the Taliban now travel to Iraq, Pakistanis to Somalia and European Muslims sign up for suicide bombing in the Middle East.

At the same time, the centralization of al Qaeda before 9/11 has been replaced by a decentralized organization where groups such as those in Iraq or Algeria exercise independence in decision making and strategy planning -- even as they still pledge allegiance to bin Laden.

What unites and inspires all these groups remains the global jihad ideology of the original al Qaeda. In his most recent speeches, rather than talk about day-to-day events as al Zawahiri does, bin Laden expounds on the theory and practice of global jihad -- the toppling of corrupt Muslim rulers, uniting the Muslim world under one leader, spreading Islam and taking on the West.

However, the truth remains that bin Laden has survived half a century not due to luck or competence, but due to the failed policies of the United States, which declined to chase him down when it was much easier to do so and instead focused on invading Iraq.

Those truly celebrating today will be the al Qaeda foot soldiers who urged bin Laden to flee the snow-bound, freezing Tora Bora mountains, allowing al Qaeda to survive and thrive. If bin Laden were to die tomorrow, his message and organization would still remain a major threat to the world.