WarSclerotic

The US issued a worldwide travel alert on Friday warning Americans that al-qaida may be planning attacks and decided to close 21 embassies and consulates on Sunday, located in the Middle East, North Africa, and South Asia. US intelligence agencies picked up on the Qaeda plot through surveillance technologies, members of Congress briefed on the matter said on Sunday.

Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which allows for the collection of communications intelligence concerning targets outside the United States, gives legal cover for the programs that led to the tips.

Service providers are compelled by court order to supply the relevant information, similar to recently uncovered programs housed in the National Security Agency.

The threat came to light as the American public continues to debate the breadth of its surveillance programs, after Edward Snowden revealed their reach within the communications networks domestic to the United States.

This warning follows recent attacks on the US embassy in Egypt and the US Mission in Benghazi, Libya on September 11, 2012. Al-Qaida linked jihadists are believed to be behind both attacks as well as a September 14, 2002 attack on the embassy in Tunis, Tunisia, according to a report by Thomas Joscelyn in The Long War Journal.

Joscelyn, a terrorism analyst specializing in al-Qaida and a senior editor of The Long War Journal as well as a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies told The Jerusalem Post in an interview on Sunday said that many people in the US have been trying to argue that al-Qaida is dead, but this news demonstrates that this was not a correct assessment.

Recent reports indicate that the intelligence that led to the warning was above the level of general chatter and that it coincides with the naming of a new al-Qaida general manager.

Al Qaeda leader Ayman al Zawahiri, according to a report by CNN on Saturday, appointed Nasir al Wuhayshi, the Yemeni leader of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), for the role. Consequently, Wuhayshi rose to number two in the terrorist organization, a position held by Libyan Abu Yahya al Libi before his death in a drone strike in Pakistan in June 2012.

The report states that the move could be meant to help the organization remain focused in the Arab world and raise funds from Gulf States. Wuhayshi previously was Bin Laden’s private secretary during the latter’s time in Afghanistan, fleeing to Iran, where he was arrested and sent to Yemen in 2003.

Joscelyn says that this position is incredibly important because it “manages infrastructure and affiliates.” It could be that “this plot is tied to his appointment as a big coming out party,” he said.

“The Arab Spring was said to be the death knell for al-Qaida, but this idea was false all along,” he said adding, “just look at Syria, which has one of the most thriving al-Qaida affiliates on the planet – more fighters are there now than have been in any one location in a long time.”

Just because al-Qaida was not behind the revolutions does nto mean that al-Qaida is not smart and does not know how to take advantage of them, he added.

Some in the US sought to differentiate between the core jihadists in Afghanistan and Pakistan and their affiliates in various countries, argues Joscelyn noting that it is true that each affiliate has its own unique history and development, but these “are not local nationalist movements that are disconnected from the global threat.”

He goes on to assert that many of these al-Qaida affiliates threaten the West though it may not be their primary motive at this point as they are primarily trying to seize territory. But this is not less worrisome, he says.

Asked how effective US president Barack Obama’s drone strikes are, he responds that it has been effective at taking out select commanders and dealing with immediate threats, but it is a tactic, not a strategy.

From Israel’s perspective al-Qaida and its affiliates are gaining a greater presence than they probably have ever had on Israel’s borders, he says. Look at what is happening in Sinai, Gaza, Syria, and al-qaida logistical operations run out of Lebanon and Jordan and you see an organization that is far from dead, concludes Joscelyn.

Yoram Schweitzer, a terrorism expert at the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) in Tel Aviv, told the Post that the argument by the US administration that al-Qaida was on its last legs might have been connected to the US presidential election. Such a definite declaration on al-Qaida’s demise was clearly too soon.

What we are seeing is what happens when the US withdraws from the region and from its war in Afghanistan, said Schweitzer adding that al-Qaida and their affiliates are busy recruiting new people. “So they are long from finished,” he said.

Gary Schmitt, the former executive director of the president’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board during president Ronald Reagan’s second term and the co-director of the Marilyn Ware Center for Security Studies at the American Enterprise Institute, agreed with the assessment that al-Qaida is not near its end, stating to the Post, “There is an obvious gap between the administration’s repeated statements that the armed conflict with al-Qaeda is in its final stages and daily reports of new affiliates popping up in Iraq, Syria and North Africa – the decision to close embassies, and the jail brakes of hundreds of new terrorists throughout the region.

This is “just another sign of how feckless the administration has become when it relates to the Middle East,” he added.

Michael Wilner contributed to this report.