Short Brief on Death of Osama Bin Laden: Effect on Al-Qaeda (Essay Sample)

Death of Osama Bin Laden: Effect on Al-Qaeda
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Osama bin Laden was the founder and leader of Al-Qaeda by the time of his assassination in 2011. He had successfully planned and overseen successful terrorist attacks such as the 9/11 catastrophe and issued many video and audio files in trying to inspire Al-Qaeda terrorists. His demise resulted to crippling of the terrorist group and a decline in its attacks especially on American soil. This paper discusses how the death of Osama may have weakened the global terrorist group.
First, Osama’s death robbed the group of its most articulate and inspiring leader and left a gap that his successor could hardly fill. Al- Zawari, his successor, lacked the wit, enthusiasm and charisma that Osama possessed. In addition, he adopted a different approach of decentralizing the operations of the group and increased dependence on other terror organizations such as the Taliban in Pakistan. However, these alliances favored more the other extremist group than it did to Al-Qaeda. Under Osama’s leadership the group operated independently and hardly ever shared its resources with other groups. Thus, the approach adopted by Al-Zawari weakened the group. In a nutshell, Osama was an exceptional leader who left shoes that hardly any leader could ever fill (Jenkins, 2012).
Secondly, the War on Terror operation also made the surviving leader to go deeper into hiding which affected communication within the organization adversely. This reduced the effectiveness and frequency of communication which not only influenced adversely the planning and execution of terror activities but also unmotivated the terrorists. ("The Impact of Osama bin Laden's Death on al-Qaida", 2016). Previously, bin Laden and Al-Zawari used to issue numerous Audio-visual messages that justified their Jihad, boosted the morale of its members and also inspired new recruits. In fact, after the death of Osama Al Zawari has issued less than half of the videos he had issued during the last five years when Osama was alive. The decrease in communication and morale of the terrorists has significantly reduced the frequency and magnitude of the attacks. In fact, in 2012 terrorism related activities had dropped the lowest since 2005 which may directly be attributed to the death of Osama and subsequent demise of other top leaders (Snow, 2015).
Finally, the death of Osama led to seizure of key intelligence information about the operations of Al-Qaeda in his hiding place Abbottabad, Pakistan. This allowed the U.S. Government in collaboration with other countries to launch successful drone attacks that eliminated most of the top Al-Qaeda leadership. A case in point was Atiyah Abd Al-Rahman, who was the number two in leadership and a top operational planner. As a result, the extremist group lost its top planners and coordinators which led to a decrease in the frequency and magnitude of its attacks (Quinn, n.d.). Consequently, this information provided the counter-terrorism groups with invaluable information on the strategies and procedures employed by Al-Qaeda which helped them in preventing similar attacks. As a result, the success rate of these terrorist attacks diminished significantly ("U.S. Counterterrorism Operation Targeting al Qaeda Leader Osama bin Laden Successful", 2011).
In conclusion, the demise of Osama bin Laden indisputably ...