According to a report by some analysts, al Qaeda has shifted its strategic focus from Yemen to Syria, but continues to pursue a globalist agenda by seeking ways to attack Western targets. Following the rise of the Islamic State in 2014, al-Qaeda has encountered certain difficulties in maintaining its leadership as the representative of the Sunni insurgency around the world. But in a report published last week on the RAND Corporation website, two al-Qaeda experts argue that the militant group is reorganizing.
The authors, Charles Listeris, senior colleague of the Middle East Institute, and Colin Clarke, senior political scientist at RAND, wrote that al Qaeda followed a pragmatic and patient strategy after 2014. In particular, the group remained on the sidelines and " deliberately let the Islamic State bear the brunt of "the West's counter-terrorism campaign."
At the same time, al-Qaeda has tried to remain relevant by shifting the center of its activity from Yemen to Syria. This decision seems to have been made in the 2014, when the group systematically started transporting goods and resources from its traditional strongholds of Afghanistan and Pakistan to Syria.
Observers are still evaluating the implications of al-Qaeda's strategic shift. Listeris and Clarke note that counterterrorism experts have yet to fully understand them. What seems certain is that the al-Qaeda branch in Syria, the al-Nusra Front, "has proved to be the most powerful military actor on the battlefield" in the Levant. He did so by operating largely independently of al-Qaeda's command and control center, which allowed him to act swiftly in pursuit of a tightly localized agenda that attracted many local followers.
At the same time, al-Nusra's independence made it separate from its parent organization. Many al-Qaeda loyalists accused the group of abandoning al-Qaeda principles and abandoned it when it renamed itself the Jabhat Fateh al-Sham (Levantine Conquest Front) in 2016 and the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (Organization for the liberation of the Levant) in 2017.
Al-Qaeda itself denounced Hayat Tahrir al-Sham in 2018 and today supports a number of smaller militias operating on Syrian territory. These smaller groups appear to be extremely professional and experienced and are run by "veterans with decades of experience at the highest levels of al Qaeda". What does this mean about al-Qaeda's strategic priorities? Listeris and Clarke argue that Syria remains al-Qaeda's priority. But the group remains focused on the attack on the West while also pursuing the guerrillas in Syria. This reflects al-Qaeda's general narrative of fighting in local conflicts while pursuing the "distant enemy": the West.