By dpa correspondents
Authors: Nadeem Sarwar reported from Islamabad, Subel Bhandari from Kabul and Nehal El-Sherif from Cairo
Bangkok (dpa) - A decade of attacks on al-Qaeda, the death of Osama bin Laden and a transition to parliamentary politics by some former allies have decimated the organization, but its relations with diverse new groups keep the extremist movement going.
The core leadership in Pakistan's tribal region is mostly in a struggle for survival as it suffers losses from US drone strikes.
Its operational activities in Europe have been given to the Central Asian organization Islamic Jihad Union, according to Pakistani intelligence officials.
That group's main task is to recruit and train European Muslim youth for terrorist attacks in Europe, including the March killings by a 23-year-old Muslim of Algerian descent at a Jewish school in France.
"Mohammad Merah came to the region last year. He had strong references from friends, so the Taliban enrolled him for brief training near Mir Ali (in North Waziristan)," said an official who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Different ethnic communities of Central Asian militants are bonded by a strict Salafi Islam and a desire to establish a single Islamic state in Central Asia.
"There is only one main group of Central Asian terrorists and that is the Uzbek Islamic Jihad Union, and all other groups work under this group whether they are from Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, or Chechnya," the officer said.
With deep penetration across Europe and especially among the Turkish community in Germany, the IJU became a darling for al-Qaeda, which had been losing its reach in Europe.
The IJU operates independently but has an al-Qaeda coordinator and maintains links to the leadership that moves across the Pakistani tribal belt, and to Pakistani Taliban, officials said.
The coordinator is Libyan Abu Yahya al-Libi, 30, who escaped from a high-security US prison in Bagram, Afghanistan in 2005.
"Under al-Libi's guidance, IJU is feared to turn into a deadly power" the intelligence officer said. "It might be the revival of al-Qaeda in Europe, where it has suffered so many setbacks in previous years."
In Afghanistan, analysts and officials say there has been a significant decrease in Arab militants linked to al-Qaeda since bin Laden's death and the popular uprisings in Arab countries.
US officials put the number of al-Qaeda fighters in Afghanistan at fewer than 100.
Many of the foreign fighters now are Tajiks, Uzbeks and Chechens from groups that have some link with al-Qaeda, said Sikh Sadruddin, a district governor in the province of Kunduz bordering Tajikistan.
"There used to be around four al-Qaeda volunteers for every 10 Taliban insurgents in this province," Sadruddin says. "But now there are probably one for 10."
Mullah Noorullah, who commands a small group of Taliban fighters north of Kabul, said he does not have any foreign fighters.
"After the martyrdom of Sheikh Osama bin Laden, all Arab volunteers left our region," he says.
Al-Qaeda may be reducing its presence in Afghanistan, but it is not growing any less virulent in its ideology, experts say.
"The successor of bin Laden (Ayman al Zawahiri) is more extremist than him because he is Egyptian," said Waheed Muzhda, a former Taliban official turned political analyst.
Pro-democracy uprisings sweeping the Arab world since last year took the spotlight from al-Qaeda-affiliated groups in several countries. Some analysts argue that al-Qaeda’s regional threat has been undermined, except in Yemen.
After Hosny Mubarak’s fall from power in Egypt, the al-Jihad organization once led by al-Zawahiri and the al-Jamaa al-Islamiyya formed political parties. They renounced violence years ago, and now focus on parliamentary politics.
In neighbouring Libya, former al-Qaeda ally the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, became part of the country's nascent political life, after it joined the conflict against former leader Moamer Gaddafi last year. Its leader Abdul-Hakim Belhaj is now Tripoli’s Military Council chief.
Some observers argued that the Arab uprisings were a heavy blow to extremists in some countries, but others warn that such groups could return with even more strength.
“Al-Qaeda has lost most of its spark in several countries in the region. However, if the changes people aspire to are not achieved, depression would lead our youth towards al-Qaeda, which always takes advantage of poverty and frustration,” said Ahmad al-Zarqa, a Yemeni political analyst.
“There is no doubting al-Qaeda core’s ability to establish operational connections with the aim of transferring tactical skills to local groups, while ‘buying’ them into the broader international jihadi cause,” wrote Valentina Soria, a research analyst at the British Royal United Services Institute.
"The aim is now for the central leadership to try to forge strategic relationships with like-minded groups in Africa."
Originally published on 04/26