In recent months the headlines of the main Italian newspapers have focused their attention on local events: the problem of the Eighteen, the immigration and the collapse of the Morandi bridge in Genoa have rightly absorbed much of the national media attention. Newspapers are churning out at a sustained rate, but they forget about past events that could suddenly return to the spotlight, making a lot of noise.
It is the case of terrorism that for several months no longer occupies the space it deserves: no attempt (thank God), no deaths, ergo, the Islamists are retreating. The Islamic State - phantom proclamations of al-Baghdadi apart - has lost ground everywhere and the Western and Russian military effort has had the desired effect. Analysts, commentators and hunters of crime news seem to be bewildered at the moment were it not that terrorism is far from being defeated. It continues with its thousand branches in well-known corners of the world (Iraq-Afghanistan) where for another years our soldiers have been working on difficult missions of Security Assistance Force.
When the Islamic State, at the apogee of its black "splendor" of death, terrified half the world, everyone took for granted the next departure of al-Qaeda and its affiliates who, by pure opportunism and money, flowed into the al-Baghdadi. In Europe every truck bomb, suicide bomber or mental unbalance capable of pulling a knife in the crowd was labeled as an ISIS militant who - by displaying a remarkable propaganda ability - sponsored all blood businesses by proving their ineptitude to Western democracies. From the 2014 onwards the ISIS turned into a machine of terror, especially for its own modus operandi which he found antagonists even among the al-Qaeda directive, al-Zawahiri (in primis). The opposition of the Egyptian doctor to some analysts, however, concealed a collective difficulty on the part of a leadership that, after the death of bin Laden, needed a generational change. Al-Qaeda had lost its enamel and was no longer the winning brand that had marked all the 2001 post attacks. The Obama administration, staggering in the face of the Syrian problem, did not seem to have the necessary tools to weaken the Caliphate enthusiasts and the Western allies were wavering what to do. The hesitations were broken by the omnipresent Putin who, in search of international affirmation, supported Assad with weapons and special forces. Crushed between two fronts (Iraq and Syria) the Black Flag of the Caliphate began to be lowered by its main strongholds with results that found a violent recourse in the streets of the main European capitals. In all this chaos, al-Qaeda kept quiet, keeping a safe distance from superfluous clamor.
Al-Zawahiri's design had already begun with the explosion of the "Arab Spring" and what Bruce Hoffman called al-Qaeda 2.0, or decentralize to survive. The fragmentation (already started immediately after the defeat of the Taliban) still followed a common strategy that was not to hit the coreligionists, avoid striking attacks, but above all to avoid the attention of international intelligence. The slaughter of ISIS, the videos of children murdered and pilots burned alive, in fact, played in favor of the Egyptian doctor who was waiting for the whole globe to vent his anger against the followers of the Caliphate.
In recent years Al-Qaeda has remained voluntarily on the sidelines, a spectator of the progressive disintegration of what has always been judged as the only rival in the affirmation of the global jihadist vision born of bin-Laden theorists. Bruce Hoffman speaks of "resurrection" of al-Qaeda from what was the ashes of the Islamic State with new and important offshoots that extend into the Horn of Africa, Yemen, Indonesia and are regaining ground in Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq.
The silent strategy of al-Qaeda is hardly contractable because it is changeable, has been able to use the Islamic State and its theatricality by being a shield; with respect to the arrogance of the Caliphate, the organization of bin-Laden has often been defined as "paranoid", but thanks to that attitude it survives, changes skin, escapes by adapting and insinuates itself into society as an incurable cancer.
