Politics

How al-Qaeda adapted and survived after 9/11

The organisation that brought such terror to America 25 years ago has since changed in myriad ways. Here, Al Majalla assesses what it once was and what it is now

Al Majalla/Reuters

Maher Farghaly

last update on 08 Sep 2026

A quarter of a century after the attacks against America on 11 September 2001, one cannot definitively say that al-Qaeda has been defeated. Instead, it has transformed from a centralised command to increasingly autonomous branches. From direct attacks and single devastating strikes to a network that feeds on crises, its evolution is evident across the world over the intervening 25 years: the organisation has now moved from consolidation to dispersion, and from globalised terrorism to jihad rooted in local arenas.

Al-Qaeda today presents a striking paradox. Its centre is receding without collapsing, while its branches continue to expand without severing their ties to the top. Between the contraction of the core and the growth of the periphery, a new organisational map has emerged. Its strength depends less on the authority of the centre than on the ability of regional branches to exploit local conditions and entrench themselves within them.

Assessments by the US Office of the Director of National Intelligence, analyses published by West Point’s CTC Sentinel, and a report by the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) on global terrorism suggest that al-Qaeda’s central structure has endured despite repeated blows. Its capabilities have diminished, but its regional branches, particularly in Africa, have expanded.

Likewise, recruitment into the core has declined. The Global Terrorism Index and some research centres estimate that al-Qaeda’s central organisation may now have fewer than 200 members. Sustained military pressure has further constrained its operational reach, but al-Qaeda maintains its global funding networks and media outlets such as al-Sahab and Inspire, which relaunched in 2023 with instructions on bomb-making and attacks against civil aviation.

Speaking to Al Majalla, Sarah Adams, a former CIA officer and counter-terrorism specialist, points out that no official leader has been publicly declared since Ayman al-Zawahiri was killed in 2022. According to some US assessments, the group is now led from Iran by Saif al-Adel (real name: Mohammed Salah al-Din Zaidan), with Abd al-Rahman al-Maghrebi as his deputy. Some al-Qaeda branches are dismissive of al-Adel, who lives under effective house arrest in Tehran, and whose leadership qualities and suitability have long been debated. But does he really lead al-Qaeda? Some analysts doubt it. Another key figure is thought to exercise de facto command: Abu Abd al-Karim al-Masri or Abu Mohsen al-Masri.

Sanaullah SEIAM / AFP — A Taliban security personnel stands guard as he burns drugs in Daman district, in Afghanistan's Kandahar province on 20 July 2026.

Shift to the periphery

Others believe al-Qaeda has evolved into a network of relatively autonomous branches that retain links with one another, while the group concentrates on rebuilding its infrastructure in Afghanistan (where it was previously headquartered) under Taliban protection.

Twenty-five years after 9/11, al-Qaeda retains a senior central leadership but gives its regional branches considerable latitude in execution. It has therefore evolved from a rigid hierarchy into a network of affiliates with substantial autonomy, while remaining committed to the overarching objectives of global jihad.

Munir Adib, a researcher specialising in extremism and terrorism, told Al Majalla that al-Qaeda is no longer the centralised organisation capable of mounting operations like 9/11 and that more dynamic organisations, such as Islamic State (IS), are now more prominent. Yet he said al-Qaeda has succeeded in moving from a centralised model to a decentralised network that increasingly relies on local organisations. The future of global jihad, he said, will depend on the ability of jihadist ideology to survive in fragile environments and regions.

Sheikh Nabil Naim, a founder of Egyptian Islamic Jihad and former associate of al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, told Al Majalla that al-Qaeda’s central leadership continues to rely on a Shura Council of 20-30 members to deliberate on strategic decisions, alongside several specialised committees focused on military operations and planning, business and finance, sharia (Islamic law) conformity, media, and a fatwa committee that issues religious rulings.

Naim pointed to the considerable role played by the leaders of al-Qaeda’s major branches. Saad bin Atef al-Awlaki has led the organisation’s branch in Yemen since 2024, with Abu Ayman al-Masri and Ibrahim al-Banna serving as his deputies. They are thought to command up to 3,000 fighters and arm and train the Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen. Likewise, Ahmed Diriye leads al-Shabaab in Somalia, which has up to 18,000 members. Seen as al-Qaeda’s most powerful affiliate, it draws on local grievances while retaining its commitment to global jihad.

In the African Sahel, Iyad Ag Ghaly and Amadou Koufa lead al-Qaeda forces in Mali, Niger, Chad, and beyond. Their combined strength is estimated at around 9,000 fighters. They exert control over extensive territories and have proved adept at exploiting ethnic tensions and economic grievances. In North Africa, Abu Ubaidah Yusuf al-Annabi sits on al-Qaeda’s central Shura Council. His fighters operate in Algeria, Mali, Mauritania, and Niger.

REUTERS/Stringer — A child sits holding a sponge at a car wash, amid ongoing fuel shortages caused by a blockade imposed by al Qaeda-linked insurgents in early September, in Bamako, Mali, on 31 October 2025.

Survival strategies

From 2022-26, al-Qaeda withstood persistent threats and setbacks. Some think it rebuilt elements of its combat capacity, broadened its alliances, moved from nikaya (a strategy centred on attrition and inflicting damage on the enemy) towards tamkin (the pursuit of territorial entrenchment and control), brought its branches and affiliated groups into closer alignment, and reinforced ideological shifts towards increasingly hard-line positions.

However, Munir Adib offers a somewhat different reading. He told Al Majalla that the central organisation had receded in favour of its branches without collapsing. In recent years, he said, al-Qaeda had moved away from a model centred on tamkin towards a decentralised network that relies increasingly on regional branches and local organisations. These groups have repeatedly re-established themselves in areas marked by conflict and disorder, often in new forms with new names.

In recent years, al-Qaeda had moved towards a decentralised network that relies increasingly on regional branches and local organisations

A detailed study by the Strategics Centre points to efforts to rebuild combat capabilities and encourage affiliated terrorist groups to make greater use of their own resources, local alliances, and relationships with local fighters. The organisation has sought to preserve safe havens in parts of Somalia, West Africa, and Yemen, while developing new sources of financing. Much of this funding is said to come from ransom payments from kidnappings as well as gold mining in northern Ghana, Togo, Mali, and Niger.

Al-Qaeda's geographical reach and network of alliances have expanded. From northern Mali, affiliated groups pushed south into Burkina Faso with Jama'at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin, before extending into Niger, from where they recruited. Sarah Adams says al-Qaeda has also taken serious steps in recent years to build a combat structure in Afghanistan, independent of the Taliban.

Its former commander in South Asia, Asim Umar (who was later killed in a joint Afghan military operation), forged alliances with groups including Lashkar-e-Jhangvi al-Alami, Jundallah, Lashkar-e-Islam, the Saad bin Abi Waqqas Front, Tawhid wal-Jihad, and the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan. Al-Qaeda also maintained close ties with the Haqqani Network. In neighbouring Pakistan, it established links with the Gul Bahadur group, which is allied with the Haqqani Network, as well as with the Mehsud tribe. It continued recruitment and training operations, particularly in the tribal areas of Waziristan. Al-Qaeda also sought to foster new local militant groups in countries including Benin, Côte d'Ivoire, and Burkina Faso, while moving closer to gold-mining areas in Senegal.

REUTERS/Feisal Omar — Somalia's al-Qaeda-linked al Shabaab fighters drive past during a passing out parade for new recruits at a military training base in Afgoye, west of the capital Mogadishu, on 17 February 2011.

Territorial control

Ahmed Sultan, a researcher specialising in regional security and terrorism, told Al Majalla that despite the weakness of al-Qaeda's centre, it had moved from nikaya towards tamkin and territorial control. The shift is visible in parts of Mali and Somalia, where its branches and affiliates concentrate on local activity, with less emphasis on cross-border operations. Al-Qaeda has also brought affiliated and aligned groups under common leadership and into a more unified organisational structure. This represents a departure from the old pattern, which depended more heavily on ideological affinity.

In East Africa, al-Shabaab has expanded into Ethiopia, Uganda, and Kenya. It controls extensive territory in south-eastern Somalia and maintains a substantial coastal presence that facilitates smuggling, with links to the Houthis in Yemen. In the Sahel and Sahara, Jama'at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin is the main al-Qaeda-aligned formation. In West Africa, it is represented by Ansaru, whose leaders have included Abu Bakr Adam Kambar and Khalid Barnawi (also known as Abu Usama al-Ansari, whose real name is Mohammed Awwal Ibrahim Gombe). In North Africa, it is led by Abu Ubaidah Yusuf al-Annabi.

In the Indian subcontinent, al-Qaeda's structures include the Umar al-Farouq Brigade under Abu Ikhlas al-Masri, alongside the Libyan Abd al-Azim bin Ali and Hakim al-Masri, who is responsible for training camps. Al-Qaeda also retains a symbolic presence in Iraq and Syria despite the dissolution of Hurras al-Din. Finally, there is al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), which terrorism expert Mohammed bin Faisal regards as the organisation's most important branch.

Speaking to Al Majalla, he said the absence of sustained operations against AQAP had given it room to rebuild, reorganise, and develop. Further breathing room came from its suspension of armed confrontation with local actors, although bin Faisal said this should not be seen as evidence of weakness. Since the deaths of Khalid Batarfi and Khalid, the son of Saif al-Adel, and the accession of Saad bin Atef al-Awlaki to the leadership, AQAP has yet to translate al-Adel's vision of closer alignment with Iran into a clearly defined course. Relations with the Houthis also seem stagnant, but contacts have not been cut.

Ahmed Sultan said al-Qaeda's branches in Yemen, Somalia, and the African Sahel have increasingly embraced a strategy of territorial control and the establishment of regional emirates. This runs contrary to directives issued by al-Qaeda's central leadership and to messages from Ayman al-Zawahiri, Osama bin Laden, and Abu Musab Abd al-Wadud, the former leader of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, who was killed in 2020.

Handout/AFP — This undated photo, obtained in October 2001 from the office of the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, shows Osama Bin Laden (C) and Ayman Al-Zawahiri (L).

Autonomous vision

Al-Qaeda's branches increasingly pursue strategic visions of their own, with limited regard for the older project of global or transnational jihad, said Sultan. Jihadist movements more broadly are undergoing a significant transformation, driven by several factors. One is the success of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham in Syria, which attained power and gradually reintegrated into the international community after severing its al-Qaeda ties.

Some African branches may follow the precedent set by HTS in Syria, given that their ties to the central al-Qaeda leadership are already weak. In part, this is because many of those who once acted as links between branch and centre have been killed, while others have adapted to new circumstances and moved away from the global jihadist approach in response to changing realities within their own countries and internationally.

A quarter of a century after its attacks on the Twin Towers and Pentagon, al-Qaeda now combines global and local forms of warfare, while seeking to establish emirates of its own as part of a broader strategy of survival. It has never operated around a single centre, nor has its leadership ever been confined to one geographical place. Instead, it has resembled a network that can change shape when it needs to.

Years of military and security operations against its leaders and structures have steadily reduced its reach and influence, leaving a framework capable of enduring and reproducing even in complex conditions. While the centre has lost much of its ability to dictate the course of global jihad, the regional branches are now more able to act.

State fragility, local conflicts, security vacuums, and social upheaval have given them opportunities to grow. Some branches now wield greater influence than the parent organisation itself. Al-Qaeda's evolution can therefore be understood as moving from direct attack towards strategies of survival, from globalised warfare towards locally rooted conflict, and from nikaya to tamkin.

+ / -