In the years since Sept. 11, 2001, understanding the Al Qaeda organization—its strategy, ideology and leadership structure—has become a major preoccupation of both scholars and security specialists. Policymakers and legal scholars have debated what legal tools and tactics we should and should not use to defeat the organization. And as the long war that began on 9/11 drags on, defining which precise individuals and groups constitute the group and its allies remains one of the most crucial questions national-security lawyers have to address.
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The U.S. killing of the al-Qaeda leader in Afghanistan was not justified in self-defense or under the international law of war or international human rights law. It looks more like an extrajudicial execution, or revenge murder, for past acts of terrorism.
In the culmination of a manhunt that lasted almost 21 years, the U.S. government appears to have located and killed Ayman al-Zawahiri. Here are the legal questions the Biden administration likely worked through before the strike.
The success of the operation is a testament to the CIA’s unrelenting focus on terrorism over the past 20 years.
Newly declassified information reveals that a 2002 al-Qaeda attack in Israel was thwarted at the last minute. The plot was kept secret for nearly two decades.
Editor’s Note: This article originally appeared on Order from Chaos.
Eighteen years after the 9/11 attacks, the al-Qaeda organization that carried them out is a shell of its previous self. The global campaign against Osama bin Laden’s creation has achieved notable success. The ideas that inspired bin Laden and his followers have lost some, but not all, of their attractiveness. There is no place for complacency, but the threat is different.
Editor’s Note: To the surprise of many observers, the al-Qaeda core under Ayman al-Zawahiri has not launched a major terrorist attack in the West for years, and the rise of the Islamic State seemed to signal the group’s further decline. Asfandyar Mir of Stanford argues that this lack of focus is a mistake. He contends that al-Qaeda remains resilient and that the group continues to pose a major terrorism threat.
Daniel Byman
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The Office of the Director of National Intelligence yesterday released a second set of documents recovered during the raid of Osama bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. The trance includes 113 newly declassified documents, adding to the government's publicly accessible "Bin Laden Bookshelf."
Editor’s Note: The United Nations can play an important role in counterterrorism, but it often fails to deliver. Much of the UN’s effort is channeled through the 1267 Committee, which designates terrorist groups and coordinates financial restrictions against them. Barak Mendelsohn, a professor at Haverford College and author of the forthcoming book “The al-Qaeda Franchise: The Expansion of al-Qaeda and Its Consequences,” dissects the 1267 Committee, describing its limits and explaining why it has underperformed.
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On this week’s Lawfare Podcast, Gregory Johnsen outlines the current state-of-play in Yemen. Johnsen, who is a writer-at-large for Buzzfeed News, a doctoral candidate at Princeton University, and an all-things-Yemen-expert, walks Ben through the byzantine power politics in Sanaa that led to the conflict now engulfing Yemen and he explains why the war shouldn’t be viewed as just another Sunni-Shia fight.
Editor’s Note: No one wants to give terrorists even a shred of legitimacy through negotiations, but even hardline counterterrorist countries like Israel have at times recognized the need to cut a deal with their enemies. This issue has come up again and again for the United States, particularly as it searches for allies in Syria: Some of the most effective forces against the Assad regime and the Islamic State are those of the Nusra Front (Jabhat al-Nusra), an al-Qaida affiliate.