Two decades ago, the world was shaken by the 9/11 attacks and introduced to a “new” threat: Al-Qaeda. Today, this same world remains puzzled by an enduring “global war on terrorism” with no clear end in sight, and witnesses the proliferation of jihadi actors.
Throughout these twenty years of fighting against the jihadi threat, Osama Bin Laden’s organisation has shown systematic resilience and warzones involving Islamist armed factions have multiplied. While the United States’ response to Al-Qaeda’s attacks initially took the shape of a double military campaign in Afghanistan (2001) and Iraq (2003), associated counter-terrorism efforts have ever since been involved in battlefields stretching from the Sahel region all the way to South-East Asia. Across the past decade, the Islamic State (IS) – Al-Qaeda’s former Iraqi component – even took the global jihad to another level when it revived the “caliphate” in the Middle East, launched terrorist attacks on numerous Western capitals and spread an ever-harsher ideology.
The Afghan Taliban’s return to power in Kabul raises more questions than ever: what are the main patterns in the trajectory of Al-Qaeda since Abdallah Azzam in the 1980s? How can we assess the legacy of the increasingly criticised military campaign that took place after 9/11? How will the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan affect global security in the long term? How long can IS-like phenomena be contained across Iraq and Syria? What does all this predict for the foreseeable future?
In order to reflect on these tormenting issues, we will be pleased to welcome Prof. Dr Gilles DORRONSORO (Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne), Prof. Dr Antonio GIUSTOZZI (King’s College and Royal United Services Institute), Prof. William BRANIFF (National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism) and Dr Thomas HEGGHAMMER (Norwegian Defence Research Establishment).
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Research lines: Eurasia ; Middle East and North Africa ; Sahel and Sub-Saharan Africa
Source Photo : U.S. Air Force / Tech Sgt. Ryan Crane
Online colloquium
Al-Qaeda and Global Jihad:
A State of Play Twenty Years after 9/11
Prof. Dr Gilles DORRONSORO
Prof. Dr Antonio GIUSTOZZI
Prof. William BRANIFF
Dr Thomas HEGGHAMMER
Moderators: Nicolas GOSSET & Didier LEROY
Language: English
21 October 2021, 15:00 – 18:40
> From 14:00 – Registration –
connection to online conference
> 15:00 – Colloquium