It is tempting to imagine that the ranks of terrorist organizations are uniquely unified in their purpose and means. By definition, extremists are wholly committed to a radical set of beliefs. Accordingly, it would seem that when extremists band together to form like-minded organizations, the banal disagreements plaguing most conventional organizations would fall to the wayside in the wake of a powerful shared ideology.

This popular misconception could not be further from the truth. The US Department of Defense recently released a treasure trove of Al Qaeda documents recovered during US military operations; included in files from the “Harmony Database” of Al Qaeda communications is the following question, posed by a new recruit to Osama bin Laden at a paramilitary training camp in June of 2000:

Has the Al Qaeda Organization under your leadership made a pledge of allegiance to the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, and if so, how is it that you raise the call to fight America, knowing that the Taliban wouldn’t hear of such a thing, for reasons of the safety and security of Afghanistan (may God protect the Taliban)?

Less a question than an overt critique of one of bin Laden’s most fundamental and contentious strategic decisions, what makes this remarkable is that a neophyte trainee posed it to the “Lion of Jihad.” Examples of disagreement and even out right insubordination are many in Al Qaeda’s history and they are by no means limited to the lower ranks of the organization. This poignant episode demonstrates the degree of dissension, frustration, and turmoil within the ranks of the Al Qaeda organization, pre-September 11, 2001.

Despite this adversity, bin Laden has successfully led Al Qaeda through an unprecedented and sustained campaign by the international community to counter and deconstruct Salafi jihadist terrorism. Under his leadership, Al Qaeda has withstood loss of infrastructure and sanctuary, interdiction and denial of financial and material resources, and substantial attrition of its leadership ranks. With his deputy Ayman al Zawahiri and a network of talented, strategic thinkers, bin Laden has dramatically transformed the paradigm of Salafi jihadist terrorism in the 21st Century.

Al Qaeda’s core leadership, vision, patience, toughness, willingness to take great risks, and its strong, consistent judgment have enabled the organization to overcome internal and external adversity to affect strategic change of the highest order. As a result of Al Qaeda’s political leadership, the paradigm of Salafi jihadist terrorism has shifted from a system centered on defined terrorist organizations to one organized around the social movement itself with shared strategy as the directive element. This paradigm shift fundamentally alters the nature of the terrorist threat to the United States. It redefines the strengths and vulnerabilities of terrorist organizations and necessitates an entirely new approach to counterterrorism policy. Failure to comprehend and appreciate the consequences of this decentralization of Salafi jihadist terrorism could have grave implications for the United States’ ability to prevail in the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT).

US soldiers guard suspected Al Qaeda militants during a night raid in Baquba early June 28, 2007. Photo courtesy of REUTERS/Goran Tomasevic.

While much has been written about the organizations and ideas that have come to define Salafi jihadist terrorism, scholars such as Randy Borum note that a remarkable dearth of research into the role of leadership in paramilitary groups, specifically terrorist organizations, persists. This article attempts to fill that gap by exploring how systemic change in the nature of Salafi jihadist terrorism is affecting the role of leadership at the highest levels of Al Qaeda.

LEADERSHIP ANALYSIS

The Principle Challenge of Leadership in Today’s Al Qaeda

Conventional wisdom suggests that Al Qaeda’s center of gravity, the key to its success, and the genius of leadership, has been its virulent ideology. A growing number of articles and theses squarely identify Al Qaeda’s extremist ideology as the movement’s center of gravity. The US Department of Defense Dictionary (2007) defines the center of gravity as “[t]he source of power that provides moral or physical strength, freedom of action, or will to act.” It is the critical element within the adversary’s system without which resistance collapses. Al Qaeda’s center of gravity would then presumably be the central focus of its leadership.

Al Qaeda’s true center of gravity lies not in its ideology but rather in its strategy. The organization is influential and relevant because of its strategy’s success and Al Qaeda’s corresponding ability to inspire other groups to adopt such a strategy. Therefore, the primary task of Al Qaeda’s leadership is to develop and market a strategy that is effective, replicable, and adaptable. Organization theory suggests that Al Qaeda’s leadership will be concerned first and foremost with the survival of the organization as an end.

As Al Qaeda’s core leadership group is incapable of achieving its ends through a command-and-control hierarchy, it must resort to the ultimate expression of soft power: influencing independent terrorist organizations and extremist cells to adopt and adhere to Al Qaeda’s militant strategy. Ideology is simply a means to this end. If ideological or theological concerns were the center of gravity of this global insurgency, then one would expect to see bin Laden and Ayman al Zawahiri among the most prolific modern ideologues and theologians. However, careful analysis by researchers at the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point suggests that bin Laden is only marginally important in the Salafi jihadist ideological landscape and Zawahiri is totally insignificant. Al Qaeda will only remain relevant and organizationally viable as long as its ideology remains appealing and its strategy continues to be judged effective. Failure on either of these counts could result in the unraveling of Al Qaeda as an organization.

Strategic Leadership

Al Qaeda has gone to great lengths to market its strategy to the Salafi jihadist community. The organization’s overarching objectives and campaign plan to achieve them are openly available in Al Qaeda’s vast body of published literature. The principle objective is to reinstitute a strict interpretation of shari’a law across a broad swath of “traditionally Islamic lands” stretching from Indonesia to the Iberian Peninsula. Analysts Sammy Salama and David Wheeler have divided Al Qaeda’s campaign plan to achieve this end-state into eight phases. First, awaken the masses and expose the United States’ hostility to Muslims; second, initiate a long-term war of attrition; third, sever Western-Muslim alliances, compel US withdrawal from the Middle East, and sever alliances among moderate “apostate” regimes; fourth, overthrow “apostate” regimes; fifth, manage barbarism after governments are overthrown, with Al Qaeda administering conquered lands; sixth, establish shari’a law and await the return of the Muslim caliphate; seventh, liberate all Muslim lands, including Israel, Kashmir, and the Iberian Peninsula; and eighth, reestablish the Islamic caliphate of the Golden Age.