Al-Qaeda coming to India?

I often wonder why world’s renowned intelligence agencies are over focusing on Al-Qaeda?  Is it because they are considering them as most powerful and influential terrorist organization or simply because they carried out 9/11 attacks? I think more than their capacity, 9/11 made them star.

You may be wondering why I am telling so. Let me explain, any terror group having a wonderful plan and an execution engine will be able to carry out an attack on an unsuspecting city; but it is altogether different matter to continuously fight against state machinery (however weak it may be), overthrow it and run a country for years. That is what Taliban did. 

In terms of capacity, training and support base LeT, TTP, JeM already proved their strength in Pakistan. Al-Queda may be able to destabilize some of the areas, but they are yet to prove their capacity in running a functional state or waging continuous war against well oiled state machinery. Moreover, Al-Qaeda is losing to IS and other terror groups in Iraq and Syria. AQAP is continuously under attack. 

Designs for India

In recent videos Al-Zawahiri was talking about bringing India to their radar. Do we need to worry about that? I think not much, more than a direct threat to India, that message is more like a booster for people in their own ranks. I think after the success of IS (Islamic State) in Iraq and Syria, they already replaced Al-Qaeda as the number one terror company for future terrorists to join.

We need to focus more on organizations like LeT, HUJI, JeM, IM etc and their potential links with Indian terrorist organizations. This doesn’t mean we should ignore the threat posed by Al-Qaeda. We should keep an eye on them, but we shouldn't over focus on them and leave others.

Now it is necessary for Al-Qaeda to prove their strength for its own survival, hence they may orchestrate something. Hence Indian agencies need to be on alert, but we should get our priorities right - focus more on LeT, HUJI, Jaish-e-Mohammad and the possibility of potential flow of fighters from Af-Pak border to Indo-Pak border.

Sajeev