AL - Qaeda ’ s Trajectory In 2003

Despite being the most hunted movement in history, Al Qaeda and its associate organisations will pose a significant threat in 2003. Al Qaeda per se will fragment, decentralise, regroup in five zones of the world, work with like?minded groups, select a wider range of targets, focus on economic targets and population centres, and conduct most attacks in the global south. Although the group will be constrained from conducting coordinated simultaneous attacks against high profile symbolic or strategic targets in the West, Al Qaeda with its regional counterparts will conduct attacks aimed at Western targets in Asia, Africa, Middle East, and even Latin America. Despite heavy losses, including the likely capture or death of its core and penultimate leaders, Al Qaeda’s anti?Western universal jihad ideology inculcated among the politicised and radicalised Muslims, will sustain support for Islamism, Islamist political parties and Islamist terrorist groups. With the detection, disruption, and degradation of its human and material infrastructure, Al Qaeda may evolve and survive as a state?of?mind among Islamist territorial and migrant pockets. With a skewed US Middle Eastern policy, Islamist support for political violence will grow, prompting terrorist groups to conduct mass casualty attacks, especially suicide bombings of economic targets and population centres.