Members of the al Qaeda affiliated group al Shabab in Somalia in 2013.

The face of terrorism is morphing. Here are excerpts from an interesting (yet not surprising) report by John Grady in USNI News:

Creating franchises among groups claiming affiliation with al Qaeda or the so-called Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) is among the biggest change in international terrorism, two leading experts told the Atlantic Council on Thursday.

Bruce Hoffman, director of security programs at Georgetown University, said the United States missed that shift of terrorist groups willing to “hitch their fortunes to al Qaeda’s star” after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on New York and the Pentagon. “We made exactly the same mistake” with groups like Boko Haram in Nigeria, al Shabab in Somalia and others in Egypt and Libya now claiming affiliation with ISIS.

With so many groups — possibly 17 — operating out of geographically diverse strongholds, Bruce Riedel, director of intelligence programs at the Bookings Institution, asked the Washington audience where does the United States place “its finite number of analysts, its finite number of drones” to keep tab on them.

For al Qaeda — who plan large dramatic attacks for its long-term benefit — and ISIS — who act for immediate gain and shock — terrorism appears to pay off as it did with the bombings of the American embassy and Marine barracks in Lebanon in 1983. Those operations cost little, but succeeded in having the Marines leave Beirut a few months later. Similarly, the 2001 attacks cost about $500,000 and the United States spent $5 trillion in response, including fighting long wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, both said.

Hoffman said that while al Qaeda’s leader Ayman al Zawahiri has been quiet for months the group is clearly working to attract support in South Asia — from the Indian subcontinent to Burma to Indonesia.

He cited a recently spoiled al Qaeda plot to infiltrate the crew and officer cadre of a Pakistani guided missile frigate, seize it, steam into areas where coalition navies are conducting anti-piracy patrols and then fire on an America warship “preferably an aircraft carrier” an attack that “that would have provoked a naval war” between the two countries.

[…]

Among the questions facing a new American government [sic] when it takes office in 20 months will be whether ISIS will go underground in Iraq as al Qaeda did and what will conditions be like in Afghanistan and Pakistan when coalition forces leave.

[Complete story at USNI News.]

Minor critique of an otherwise interesting read – I hope that we don’t have “a new American government when it takes office in 20 months.” Instead I hope we elect leadership that recognizes and deals with real threats, and does so with action, rather than fighting global and domestic terrorism with inane rhetoric.