Al-Qaeda Is Using the War with IS to Plan Its Next Move—in Pakistan

Oct. 30 2014

Al-Qaeda’s leadership may not have been happy about Islamic State’s declaration of a new caliphate, but it now wishes to use the current war between IS and the U.S.-led coalition as a smokescreen while it plans its next move. Fortunately for Israel, it is not (yet) al-Qaeda’s top priority. But al-Qaeda is particularly dangerous because it wants to reclaim its stolen thunder, contrary to what some U.S. officials have claimed.

[Al-Qaeda head Ayman al]-Zawahiri . . . is striving to leverage international focus on IS in order to divert attention from his organization’s preparations to take advantage of the American withdrawal from Afghanistan at the end of this year. Al-Qaeda . . . also used the Syrian theater to identify and recruit new volunteers with suitable credentials, in order to expand its manpower and train operatives for future operations. That was apparently, the purpose of the “Khorasan Army,” whose existence and objectives were recently unveiled, following the bombardment of its camp in Syria.

These preparations are also reflected in the establishment of the “Al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent” (AQIS) organization, whose founding was announced by al-Zawahiri at the beginning of September this year. The declared purpose of the organization is to reinforce jihadist activity in Pakistan, India, Burma, and Bangladesh. According to both official reports from Pakistan and the organization’s own announcements . . . the new organization has already tried to carry out an ambitious and daring attack designed to damage a Pakistani warship and to attack an American destroyer. Action on this scale, had it succeeded as planned, would have caused great damage and cost many lives, in addition to harming the prestige of the fleets of the targeted countries. Furthermore, the planning of such attacks indicates that al-Qaeda is not resting on its laurels, and refutes the assessments by senior American administration officials that al-Qaeda is a spent force.

Read more at Institute for National Security Studies

More about: Al Qaeda, ISIS, Pakistan, War on Terror

Egypt Is Trapped by the Gaza Dilemma It Helped to Create

Feb. 14 2025

Recent satellite imagery has shown a buildup of Egyptian tanks near the Israeli border, in violation of Egypt-Israel agreements going back to the 1970s. It’s possible Cairo wants to prevent Palestinians from entering the Sinai from Gaza, or perhaps it wants to send a message to the U.S. that it will take all measures necessary to keep that from happening. But there is also a chance, however small, that it could be preparing for something more dangerous. David Wurmser examines President Abdel Fatah el-Sisi’s predicament:

Egypt’s abysmal behavior in allowing its common border with Gaza to be used for the dangerous smuggling of weapons, money, and materiel to Hamas built the problem that exploded on October 7. Hamas could arm only to the level that Egypt enabled it. Once exposed, rather than help Israel fix the problem it enabled, Egypt manufactured tensions with Israel to divert attention from its own culpability.

Now that the Trump administration is threatening to remove the population of Gaza, President Sisi is reaping the consequences of a problem he and his predecessors helped to sow. That, writes Wurmser, leaves him with a dilemma:

On one hand, Egypt fears for its regime’s survival if it accepts Trump’s plan. It would position Cairo as a participant in a second disaster, or nakba. It knows from its own history; King Farouk was overthrown in 1952 in part for his failure to prevent the first nakba in 1948. Any leader who fails to stop a second nakba, let alone participates in it, risks losing legitimacy and being seen as weak. The perception of buckling on the Palestine issue also resulted in the Egyptian president Anwar Sadat’s assassination in 1981. President Sisi risks being seen by his own population as too weak to stand up to Israel or the United States, as not upholding his manliness.

In a worst-case scenario, Wurmser argues, Sisi might decide that he’d rather fight a disastrous war with Israel and blow up his relationship with Washington than display that kind of weakness.

Read more at The Editors

More about: Egypt, Gaza War 2023