Any way you measure it, 2013 was a good year for al Qaeda. It wasn’t supposed to be. Shortly after the United States killed the group’s charismatic leader, Osama bin Laden, a couple of years ago, Obama administration officials openly proclaimed that his death, coupled with targeted strikes that eliminated other senior jihadist leaders, had just about put al Qaeda out of business. Leon Panetta, then the defense secretary, stated in July 2011 that the United States was “within reach” of “strategically defeating” al Qaeda if it killed or captured 10 to 20 of its remaining leaders.
But as this year ends, the jihadist group’s regional affiliates have dramatically reasserted themselves in multiple countries, carrying out spectacular attacks and inflicting increasing levels of carnage. Though it’s hard to come by reliable estimates of the deaths they caused, the number is certainly in the thousands, and more than half a dozen countries now view these affiliates, or foreigners who have joined their ranks, as their top national security concern. The affiliates’ regeneration became so apparent over the course of this year that President Barack Obama was forced to clarify that his administration’s various claims of al Qaeda’s decimation were limited to the core leadership in Pakistan alone.
Daveed Gartenstein-Ross is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, an adjunct assistant professor in Georgetown University’s security studies program, and the author of Bin Laden’s Legacy (Wiley, 2011).
Image: Christmas Stock Images and F3rn4ndo
Bloch's_anon 
John Schrader 
I really wish people would stop conflating “al Qaeda” this way. It shows either a very poor understanding of the threat environment or an intentional effort to capitalize on some of the most destructive semantic infiltration our country has ever fallen for. By way of similar comparison lets try the same argument a different way.
By all accounts, Chinese food has made significant leaps in its effort to destroy America. This year, with all of the popular efforts to institutionalize our eating habits, Chinese food, by all accounts, should have failed in this effort. After all, a number of significant Chinese people have died or have been killed this year. Does this signal the rise of a new Chinese food leader or does it point to a critical failure in our national strategy to defeat Chinese food.
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While some out there might not see the distinction it is important. If you’re one of them let me help you out. Al Qaeda is Chinese food. They are, for almost all intents and purposes, just as organized and just as capable. The only way they deviate is that occasionally Al Qaeda (the handful of actual al Qaeda members) will facilitate regional funding streams for the most successful of the million and one groups that claim the title. Just like any damn business can call themselves Chinese food, any group of idiots can (and often do) claim to be al Qaeda. Much in the same way that New Yorkers claim that the potato chips they serve with tomato sauce and cheese are pizzas, not all (or for that manner ANY of the groups that have claimed some success this year) al qaedas are the same. Only a rare few can make reasonable pizza.
Igreat analogy, although I’m not sure if I’m concerned about the wrongful assignation of capability to Al Qaeda or if I’m just hungry.