After Osama Bin Laden’s death

The killing by US special forces in Pakistan of Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, the unrepentant mastermind of the 9/11 atrocities and numerous other global terrorist attacks, is a huge blow for al-Qaeda and makes the world a safer and better place.

Bin Laden was a mass murderer and his Al-Qaeda network was responsible for the deaths of thousands of innocent people in attacks in New York, London, Istanbul, Madrid, Bali, Nairobi, Dar es Salaam, Casablanca, Marrakech, Mumbai, Somalia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt and Yemen. It is not surprising, therefore, that his death has been largely welcomed all over the world.

Bin Laden’s killing sends out a very clear message, namely that terrorists who kill innocent civilians will be pursued and will face justice, no matter how long this process takes. This successful operation highlights America’s unique military and intelligence capabilities, and President Barack Obama deserves to be congratulated for never having wavered in the war on terror.

Bin Laden’s killing does not mean the war against terror has been won and there are bound to be revenge attacks by Al-Qaeda to prove it is still a force to be reckoned with. Just hours after Bin Laden’s death was announced, for example, CIA director Leon Panetta wrote a memo to CIA staff where he declared: “Bin Laden is dead. Al-Qaeda is not.”

Furthermore, Al-Qaeda is no longer the centralised hierarchy it once was and consists of a number of sleeper cells in Europe and affiliates in parts of the Muslim world such as the Sahara region, Somalia, Yemen, Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia, all of which are capable of acting independently of their ‘leadership’. So eliminating Al-Qaeda will certainly not be easy, but a major step has been taken through the killing of Bin Laden.

However, there is no doubt at all that the death of Bin Laden is a massive psychological blow to Al-Qaeda, and it also presents an excellent opportunity for the US to reshape its Arab policy, review its strategy in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and continue to hunt down Al-Qaeda’s leaders.

It also remains to be seen whether Bin Laden’s death will lead to a fracturing of the organisation, and whether his presumed successor, the Egyptian Ayman al-Zawahri, will have any of his charisma and appeal. Of course, the fact that the Al-Qaeda leader was found in a villa in Abbottabad, Pakistan, about 100 kilometres from Islamabad and a few hundred metres from the elite Pakistan Military Academy, rather than in a cave on the Pakistani-Afghan border has led to many legitimate questions about Pakistan’s role in harbouring Bin Laden.

Nuclear-armed Pakistan has a crucial role in the war against terror and receives $1.3 billion in US aid every year. It has suffered tremendously as a result of Al-Qaeda and Pakistani Taliban terrorist attacks but sadly there can be little doubt that Bin Laden enjoyed the protection of certain elements within the Pakistani military and intelligence establishments.

The time has come for the Pakistani government to clamp down firmly on all ties between its military and the jihadis, before the situation gets out of hand. Pakistan’s excessive obsession with India and it tolerance of certain Muslim extremist groups which carry out terrorist attacks against its neighbour must also stop.

Bin Laden’s death comes at a historic moment in the Arab world where people across the region are fighting for democracy and have rejected Al-Qaeda’s violent ideology which has no value for human life or dignity.

The fact that Bin Laden was also responsible for the deaths of thousands of innocent Muslims needs to be emphasised and this is partly why his appeal across the Islamic world has faded over the years.

“Bin Laden died in Egypt before he was killed in Pakistan,” Abdulkhaleq Abdullah, aprofessor of political science at Emirates University, said recently. “The young people who successfully challenged the status quo with peaceful means proved change the Bin Laden way – the violent way, the jihad way – did not come,” he said.

It is crucial, therefore, that the support shown by the Western world for democratic reforms in the Arab world continues, especially now that Bin Laden is dead.

The Arab masses have already shown that they believe in a democratic alternative to corrupt, autocratic regimes, and this trend against jihadism must be encouraged and supported.

It is equally important, however, that the Palestinian question – one of the root causes of radical Islam – is addressed. The US and its partners in the Quartet must redouble their efforts at trying to get the Middle East peace process moving again and making the vision of a Palestinian state a reality. More pressure will have to be exerted on Israel to stop expanding its illegal settlements.

Bin Laden’s death also offers President Obama and his Nato partners an opportunity to start planning an exit strategy from Afghanistan, especially if the Taliban decide to break all links with Al-Qaeda now that Bin Laden is dead. Should these ties be severed, efforts to bring the Taliban into Afghanistan’s political process should be increased, subject to certain conditions, of course.

Bin Laden was a real threat to the world, and documents found at his Pakistan home suggest he was planning attacks on the US, including one on the 10th anniversary of September 11, aimed at a US rail route.

The world is certainly better off without him. His killing does not mean the end of Al-Qaeda, but one hopes that with the right strategy in the aftermath of his death, it could mark the beginning of the end.