Al-Qaida faces recruitment crisis

Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida is under heavy pressure in its strongholds in Pakistan's remote tribal areas and is finding it difficult to attract recruits or carry out spectacular operations in western countries, according to government and independent experts monitoring the organisation.

Speaking to the Guardian in advance of tomorrow's eighth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, western counter-terrorism officials and specialists in the Muslim world said the organisation faced a crisis that was severely affecting its ability to find, inspire and train willing fighters.

Its activity is increasingly dispersed to "affiliates" or "franchises" in Yemen and North Africa, but the links of local or regional jihadi groups to the centre are tenuous; they enjoy little popular support and successes have been limited.

Lethal strikes by CIA drones – including two this week alone – have combined with the monitoring and disruption of electronic communications, suspicion and low morale to take their toll on al-Qaida's Pakistani "core", in the jargon of western intelligence agencies.

Interrogation documents seen by the Guardian show that European Muslim volunteers faced a chaotic reception, a low level of training, poor conditions and eventual disillusionment after arriving in Waziristan last year.

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The Pakistani Taliban: Falling out

At odds with each other as well as civilisation

IT TOOK 20 days for Pakistan’s Taliban movement even to admit the death of its leader, Baitullah Mehsud, who, through force of personality and ideological conviction had turned his outfit into what American officials repeatedly called an “existential” threat to Pakistan. A power struggle gripped the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) after Mehsud was killed in his native South Waziristan by a missile fired by an American drone on August 5th. Competing factions emerged in what seemed to become a bloody succession battle, even as the group suffered from a wave of arrests, defections and surrenders.

The group, an umbrella for 13 constituent Taliban factions that came together under Mehsud in December 2007, was already under pressure. The Pakistan army, urged on by America, had launched an offensive in late April against the TTP’s Swat chapter. Then in June the army moved on to the TTP’s heartland in South Waziristan. It has since pounded them from the air, with help from American drones.

Three different senior Taliban militants have claimed to be the outfit’s new boss, exposing the disarray the new leadership inherits. Then this week the leadership was formally won by Hakimullah Mehsud. Both he and his main rival, Waliur Rehman, come from Baitullah’s Mehsud tribe of South Waziristan, which dominates the ttp. The picture is muddied by Pakistani intelligence officials, who claim that Hakimullah Mehsud, too, is dead, after a shoot-out with Mr Rehman, and is being impersonated by a relation.

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