In an article titled “Prepared for life after Osama bin Laden,” the Australian cites both Bruce Hoffman’s and Alex Gallo’s CTC Sentinel articles. According to the Australian article, “Bruce Hoffman, director of the Centre for Peace and Security Studies at Georgetown University and a senior fellow at the US Military Academy’s Combating Terrorism Centre, compares bin Laden’s death with the 2004 assassinations by Israel of Hamas leader Ahmed Yassin and his successor Abdel Aziz Rantisi. The killings were ‘a seemingly devastating one-two punch against Hamas,’ Hoffman writes in a special issue of the CTC Sentinel devoted to bin Laden’s death. ‘Yet Hamas is today stronger than it was seven years ago as a new generation of militants continues to prosecute its struggle against Israel.'”
It also states, “Al-Qa’ida’s longevity is further ensured by the organisational structure it has assumed since 2001. CTC analyst Alex Gallo says al-Qa’ida has adapted to the military and financial losses inflicted on it during the past decade by adapting its business model and repositioning itself as a provider of professional services to the wider jihadist community. Gallo writes in the CTC Sentinel: ‘Al-Qa’ida’s leadership appears to have made a calculated decision to move along the value chain towards almost exclusively engaging in professional consulting or advisory entrepreneurial activity.’ He notes that al-Qa’ida central has abandoned the highly costly business of carrying out terrorist operations itself, instead using its clout and brand name to leverage other militant organisations to do the work for it. Meanwhile, it acts as financial adviser and facilitator, providing services such as media, marketing, outreach, advice and ideological coherence for the jihadist cause. This notion of al-Qa’ida central as a brand is supported by one of the movement’s leading strategists Abu Musab al-Suri, who has previously said, ‘Al-Qa’ida is not an organisation, it is not a group, nor do we want it to be. It is a call, a reference, a methodology.'”
