Aaron Y. Zelin is the Gloria and Ken Levy Senior Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy where his research focuses on Sunni Arab jihadi groups in North Africa and Syria as well as the trend of foreign fighting and online jihadism.
Articles & Testimony
Al-Qaida and its affiliates have been well-positioned to take advantage of the recent regional upheaval, some of which the group predicted years ago.
Since the Arab uprisings erupted two and a half years ago, the global jihadi movement has metastasized to a variety of new locales across the Arab world, most recently in Syria, Libya, Sinai and Tunisia. While these upheavals surprised many in the region, al-Qaida had predicted such events unfolding in a 20-year strategic plan (2000-2020) that came to light in 2005. That blueprint has gone according to plan so far, albeit more because of outside and structural forces than the efforts of jihadis themselves. As a result, the movement was well-positioned to take advantage of the new developments.
In his book "Al-Zarqawi: Al-Qaida's Second Generation," Fouad Hussein details al-Qaida's 20-year plan, which has seven phases, with 2013 representing the beginning of the fifth. Here is how al-Qaida, which leaked the plan to Hussein, envisioned each of them playing out...
