Article link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/alqaida/story/0,,2031450,00.html

This article takes stock of the strength of Al-Qaeda on the anniversary of the 3/11 Madrid train bombings. It is interesting to look at the structure of Al-Qaeda, particularly after the war in Afghanistan which was purported to have largely disrupted it. This British report finds that Al-Qaeda is experiencing a resurgence, with a plethora of cells across the Middle East (particularly in Iraq and Afghanistan, although the report states that the Afghani cells are fringe groups and that the Iraqi groups are largely home-grown rather than comprised by foreign disruptive agents) and Western nations (particularly in Europe). These cells share an ideology and an overlying coordination but otherwise operate largely independently. This Al-Qaeda has its hub in western Pakistan and has, contrary to the official claims of the U.S. and U.K. governments, been strengthened by the war in Iraq.

The remaining Al-Qaeda organization, so far as it can be made out, can be described as a network of roughly four tiers: the well-known familiar leaders such as Osama bin Laden and Ayman Al-Zawahiri, a new “middle-management” that coordinates the propaganda, attacks, and training of recruits, the local groups in various countries that concern themselves with the concrete, localized preparations for an attack, and individuals in Western and Middle Eastern countries who are willing to carry out the attacks.

The interactions between tiers are largely unidirectional top-bottom to make it harder for investigators to trace back from the bottom up, although interactions within a tier can be two-way.

Al-Qaeda’s power lies mainly in its “middle-management” tier: certainly, the many local groups depend upon it for resources, and this tier also wields the power of exclusion over which local groups will receive Al-Qaeda’s official support and resources. As well, the middle-management tier may experience satiation; this tier has its pick of offers from Al-Qaeda cells all over the world but will only endorse so many projects, so localized cells must offer more sophisticated and perhaps more sensational attack plans in order to get the attention and support of the middle-management tier.

Recognizing the unique power of the middle-management tier, which is stronger than that of the figurehead top tier according to the criteria of power that we discussed in class, it is now the middle-management tier that is being targeted by
U.S. forces. However, this strategy has so far yielded little success due to the fact that the “middle-management” tier has no dearth of willing replacements despite the low life expectancy associated with the job; the tier is a very large and extensive network of its own, making it impossible to wipe out in one fell swoop. 

So what effect would capturing Osama bin Laden have on Al-Qaeda’s power structure? Little, it appears. While this would be a key political move in shoring up support for the war on terror in the West, eliminating bin Laden would do almost nothing to disrupt the day-to-day functions of Al-Qaeda as the middle-management tier would continue to keep Al-Qaeda working.