May 6, 2014 | Quote

Al-Qaeda’s Getting Weaker — But Terrorism is Getting Worse

Terrorism is getting more dangerous. According to new data, first released in an official State Department report on Wednesday, almost 7,000 more people were killed in terrorist attacks worldwide in 2013 than in 2012 — almost all of them by al-Qaeda or other jihadi terrorist groups. Terrorists also wounded and killed more people than they did in the prior year.

There are two big reasons for this surge. One is familiar: chaos in places like Syria and Iraq. The other is new: al-Qaeda is morphing, with local groups taking on more and more responsibility. And the US government isn't quite sure what to do about it.

So what do we do now? Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, a senior fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, suggests focusing on the “sustainability of counterterrorism efforts.” This means, among other things, developing an intelligence structure that focuses on terrorist threats from groups that don't use al-Qaeda in their title.

Read the full article here.

Issues:

Al Qaeda Syria