Terrorist Organizations

This commentary appeared in The Providence Journal on June 1, 2011.

In "The Wizard of Oz," Dorothy thought the wizard "a great head."

"A terrible beast," said the Tin Woodsman.

"A ball of fire," exclaimed the Lion. When the screen was pulled aside to reveal the great and terrible Wizard, he turned out to be an ordinary man.

So, too, did Osama bin Laden at his compound in Abbottabad. Like the Wizard, he was a skilled magician and propagandist preoccupied with his own image. One can imagine his asking himself: Should I wear the plain white robe when I threaten infidels with death and destruction, or the white robe with gold? Should I wear my beard long and gray or dyed the black of a virile warrior's?

But bin Laden was no ordinary humbug. He was a man who planned and reveled in the deaths of thousands, a man who aspired to kill millions, a man who spent his days figuring just how to do that.

The death of Osama bin Laden will have sent remaining al Qaeda leaders diving for cover. Drone strikes already have decimated their number. Bin Laden's death represents a major breach of security. His lieutenants must worry that documents captured at his hideout will lead the Americans to them, or that Pakistan, embarrassed by al Qaeda's presence in Pakistan and America's humiliating raid, may preempt further American strikes with apprehensions of terrorist leaders. No mode of communication is safe for the terrorist leaders. It is the line-level, individual instruments of al Qaeda's terrorist enterprise who seek martyrdom, not its general command.

Al Qaeda will seek to carry out some dramatic act of revenge—eventually—to demonstrate to its foes, and more importantly its followers that bin Laden's death does not end the terrorist campaign. But al Qaeda would be doing exactly the same thing had bin Laden not been killed.

In retaliation for Osama bin Laden's death, al Qaeda supporters may try to carry out attacks in the United States. Widely reported threats from the Pakistani Taliban and others have put officials on the alert for small-scale acts that can be executed quickly.

Just 48 hours after the president's announcement of bin Laden's death, police in the U.K. detained five London men in their 20s sitting in a vehicle near a nuclear plant in West Cumbria. They are being held pending further investigation.

The death of Osama Bin Laden at the hands of U.S. forces raises the possibility that his followers will try to strike back at the United States. Since attacks such as 9/11 take years to plan, some speculate that they may attempt to launch a crippling cyber attack. While some response can be expected, the likelihood of any large-scale cyber attack from Bin Laden's followers is low for three reasons: they have shown no capability for such an attack, a crippling attack takes months or years to plan and execute, and the sort of cyber attack Al Qaeda is likely to pull off would not offer the same propaganda value as a dramatic physical attack.

Al Qaeda has not demonstrated any real capability in this field. This is not to say that they could not conduct — or hire someone else to conduct — a cyber attack. But it would likely be Web-site defacement or temporary disablement of a corporate or ".gov" site. That kind of cyber attack occurred after Julian Assange was arrested, as angry followers apparently redirected traffic from a Swedish official's site to a pro-Wikileaks site and defaced a Swedish prosecutor's site. Attacks of this kind are a nuisance, but relatively easy to fix.

In the wake of Osama Bin Laden's death, Al Qaeda faces two immediate problems. Organizational survival is the No. 1 goal of any enterprise. Preservation of its leadership is also paramount.

Missile strikes over the course of the last few years had already decimated Al Qaeda's leadership. Now, the death of Bin Laden and the U.S. invasion into his secret compound represent a major breach of Al Qaeda's security. Surviving leaders will be obliged to lie low. No form of communications is now safe.

With initial reports claiming that the Taliban had collaborators among the prison staff, the breakout will be seen as just one more indication of official corruption. The timing is particularly unfortunate given the U.S. and NATO strategy emphasizing a hand-over of security functions to the Afghans.

Nonetheless, there are some sober observations to bear in mind. First of all, it is unlikely that all of these men were "experienced fighters," as has been claimed. Some detainees may have been jailed for providing materials or other support for the planting of land mines, or other support for terrorist acts. That does not make them experienced fighters.