Does Paris Terror Attack Show That Al Qaeda Is Still a Dangerous Threat?

Margaret Coker

January 9, 2015

Path of Terror Attack Suspect Points to Resurgent al Qaeda

The revelation that a suspect in the Paris terror attack received weapons training in Yemen deepens fears among intelligence officials that an al Qaeda affiliate with a long and deadly track record still represents a major threat.

The al Qaeda threat seemed dwarfed in recent months by warnings from the intelligence agencies of Western nations that their citizens who have left to fight alongside the extremist group Islamic State would return radicalized and ready to sow terror back in their home countries.

Islamic State also has launched a multipronged ideological and propaganda campaign aimed at dislodging al Qaeda as the dominant jihadist organization.

Despite Islamic State’s brutality in battles to control portions of Syria and Iraq, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, or AQAP, has surpassed it in launching audacious and technologically sophisticated attacks against Americans and their allies in their own homelands.

Long before Islamic State coalesced into a global force, AQAP was known, and feared, by Western intelligence officials for its ability to attract and groom foreign-born Muslims for attacks using slick English manuals, with the help of the late American-born preacher Anwar al-Awlaki.

A fighter is seen standing in front of an image of Osama bin Laden, the late head of al-Qaeda, in the Yemeni town of Rada, southeast of the capital San’a in 2012.Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

The head of the U.K.’s domestic intelligence agency reiterated on Thursday how seriously he and other intelligence agencies view al Qaeda, saying the group’s affiliates continue to pose an immediate threat and are planning large-scale attacks against the West.

In a rare public speech, MI5 chief Andrew Parker said “a core group of al Qaeda terrorists in Syria is planning mass-casualty attacks against the West.”

U.S. officials said they believe Said Kouachi—a suspect in the Paris attack against Charlie Hebdo magazine on Wednesday—trained in Yemen in 2011 under AQAP’s auspices, though they were still assembling information on more precise dates. French intelligence made a similar assessment and shared it with the Americans, a U.S. official said.

A Yemeni official said that his government couldn’t confirm exact dates that Mr. Kouachi was in his country. AQAP hasn’t issued any statement since the Wednesday shooting, and the suspects—Mr. Kouachi and his brother Chérif—are still at large.

In the past, however, AQAP has proved capable of training foot soldiers in military combat and providing them with technical know-how to sink an American naval cruiser, evade Western airport surveillance and almost assassinate the leading Saudi Arabian counterterrorism official. After the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the U.S., al Qaeda’s offshoot in Yemen became the group’s most active offshoot.

Its operations included the failed U.S.-bound airline bomb threat from Christmas 2009 and the Fort Hood terror attack in November 2009 in which a radicalized U.S. Army officer killed 13 people.

Led by Yemeni Nasir al Wahishi, Osama bin Laden ’s former secretary in Afghanistan, the group combined jihadists in Saudi and Yemen, bin Laden’s ancestral homeland, into a terror juggernaut.

Yemeni members became adept at adapting their message for Western audiences and building sophisticated bombs. Its slick online English-language magazine, “Inspire,” offered advice and instruction for would-be bombers and delivered the message that al Qaeda adherents didn’t need to travel to a distant Muslim land for training. They could act unilaterally from home. By the late 2000s, Yemen had become a magnet for would-be foreign jihadists seeking to hone a deadly craft. Western Muslims would often enter the country on student visas, telling authorities that they wanted to study Arabic at some of Yemen’s renowned language schools.

By 2011, however, with stepped-up U.S. surveillance against AQAP and Mr. Awlaki, Yemen tightened its visa standards and it became more difficult for foreigners to achieve residency there. A U.S. drone strike killed Mr. Awlaki in September 2009.

His death didn’t stop AQAP’s recruitment efforts. A recent edition of “Inspire” listed Charlie Hebdo’s top editor, Stéphane Charbonnier among a hit list of targets that the AQAP editors accused of insulting Islam.