Confronting an Uncertain Threat: The Future of Al Qaeda and Associated Movements

WASHINGTON, September 9, 2011– The Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS) Director of Homeland Security and Counterterrorism Program Rick "Ozzie" Nelson and Deputy Director  of  the Transnational Threats Project Thomas M. Sanderson have written a new report: “Confronting an Uncertain Threat: The Future of Al Qaeda and Associated Movements.”  The report looks deeply at where Al Qaeda and its affiliates are going out to 2025, by analyzing where they’ve been over the last ten years since September 11th, 2001.

CSIS experts Rick “Ozzie” Nelson, Tom Sanderson and Juan Zarate, Senior Advisor to CSIS Transnational Threats Project and Homeland Security and Counterterrorism Program are available for comment on the 10th anniversary  of 9/11 and associated threats.  To reach them, please contact Andrew Schwartz at (202) 775-3242 and aschwartz@csis.org or Ryan Sickles at (202) 775-3141 and rsickles@csis.org.

Please find a link to the full report below:

http://csis.org/publication/confronting-uncertain-threat

Please find an executive summary of the report below:

Al Qaeda and associated movements (AQAM) have become an increasingly diffuse security threat. Although the Afghanistan-Pakistan borderlands may have represented the epicenter of global terrorism in the past decade, al Qaeda’s various regional affiliates are growing in prominence. The past several years also have seen a rise in al Qaeda–inspired plots by small cells or unaffiliated individuals based in the West.

This flattening and expansion of al Qaeda’s global scope, both physically and virtually, has complicated U.S. and international efforts to combat global terrorism. Counterterrorism professionals work tirelessly to confront existing threats. But the need to focus on today’s exigencies—combined with officials’ limited resources for alternative and long-range planning—means that governments tend to pursue reactive, rather than anticipatory, policies and strategies vis-à-vis terrorism.

Containing—if not defeating—AQAM will require that policymakers and practitioners shape a global environment that is inhospitable to terrorism. Doing this, in turn, necessitates a better understanding of where and how future AQAM threats are likely to emerge. This report seeks to help fill this need for anticipatory knowledge and assist in the development of improved counterterrorism policies and strategy.
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The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) is a private, tax-exempt institution focusing on international public policy issues. Its research is nonpartisan and nonproprietary. CSIS does not take specific policy positions; accordingly, all views, positions, and conclusions expressed in these publications should be understood to be solely those of the authors.

H. Andrew Schwartz
CSIS
www.csis.org