Harvest 2020: Successive setbacks and uncertain future awaits old al-Qaeda

Mustafa Kamel

The year 2020 was not good for the old al-Qaeda organization, as it was affected by the loss of many of its main leaders due to the successive and painful security strikes this year, which led to the depletion of its capabilities amid the return of internal conflicts for leadership.

The year was a nightmare for al-Qaeda due to the liquidation of a large number of its leaders or the talk about the death of some of them, the most prominent of which was the recent discussion of the death of the organization’s leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, which has not yet been confirmed, in addition to the state of stagnation that the terrorist organization is experiencing this year, unlike previous years.

Liquidation of leaders

The most prominent leader of the organization killed in 2020 was Qasim al-Rimi, nicknamed Abu al-Humayra al-Sanani, the leader of the organization in the Arabian Peninsula, as he was killed in a special operation in Yemen on February 6, 2020. Al-Qaeda announced after that the appointment of Khaled Batarfi as his successor.

In mid-2020, and specifically in June, the French army forces on the African coast, known as Barkhane forces, killed the organization’s leader in the Maghreb, Abdelmalek Droukdel, who founded several terrorist organizations in Algeria, and a number of his closest associates during an operation in northern Mali, with the support of local partners, and they also managed to kill Tawfiq al-Shayeb, who was responsible for the organization’s propaganda.

Five months after the killing of Droukdel, the organization announced in November 2020 that the Algerian Mubarak Yazid, called Abu Obeida Youssef al-Annabi, was appointed as his successor.

The liquidation of the al-Qaeda leaders did not stop. Rather, in October 2020, the Afghan authorities managed to liquidate Abu Mohsen al-Masri, a prominent leader in al-Qaeda, also known as Hussam Abdul-Raouf, who is accused in the United States of providing a foreign terrorist organization with equipment and resources, as well as planning to murder US citizens, according to the FBI.

In addition, Ba Ag Musa was killed in November 2020, who was responsible for several attacks against the Malian and international forces and was considered one of the main jihadist military leaders in Mali, specifically tasked with training new recruits. The French force in Africa’s Sahel and Sahara region announced that it was able to identify a first-class operational leader associated with al-Qaeda whose name has been mentioned in recent years in several attacks in the region.

In the end, news has recently been raised about the death of Zawahiri, the leader of the organization, which was a shocking matter for the followers of al-Qaeda, as accounts affiliated with extremist base elements, including the Guardians of Religion Organization, one of the branches of the terrorist organization in Syria, announced the death of Ayman Al-Zawahiri, confirming that Guardians of Religion had been cut off from communications with Zawahiri some time ago, likely due to his death. It added that his last instructions were to avoid direct military confrontation with Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) in Syria, noting that the leader of the organization that succeeded Osama bin Laden in 2011 has died from liver cancer.

No control

Al-Qaeda’s central leadership is no longer a scanty version of what it was in the past, although the name of al-Qaeda is still active, thanks to the branches that bear its name and the groups that pledged allegiance to it, but it does not control the operations or alliances of these groups, which follow a local approach.

Regarding global reactions after the killing of many of the organization’s leaders, outgoing US President Donald Trump commented on the killing of Qassem al-Rimi by saying that the organization in Yemen committed acts of violence against civilians and sought to implement and inspire its supporters to carry out attacks against the United States and its forces, confirming that his death will weaken the organization in the Arabian Peninsula and throughout the world, indicating that this process brings the US administration closer to eliminating the threat of these groups that threaten US national security.

Meanwhile, Chris Miller, director of the US National Counterterrorism Center, affirmed that the removal of Abu Mohsen al-Masry from the battlefield represents a major setback for a terrorist organization that is constantly suffering strategic losses.

The appointment of a leader of the organization in the countries of the Maghreb five months after the killing of Abdelmalek Droukdel indicates the organization’s inability to find a successor, and an indication of the existence of conflicts within it, despite its attempts to revive its terrorist activity in the region, taking advantage of the deals to release foreign prisoners through financial returns.