Al Qaeda: Quietly and Patiently Rebuilding

By Bruce Hoffman

Bruce Hoffman is a professor at Georgetown University and co-author of Gods, Guns, and Sedition: Far Right Terrorism in America. He served on the Independent Commission to Review the FBI’s Post-9/11 Response to Terrorism and Radicalization, and is a Scholar-in-Residence for Counterterrorism at the CIA.  He serves as a senior fellow for Counterterrorism & Homeland Security at the Council on Foreign Relations and is President & CEO of The Hoffman Group.

As ISIS incurs the firepower of the international community, al Qaeda has quietly rebuilt its resources, rebranded itself, and “rehabilitated its image” explains terrorism expert Bruce Hoffman. In an October interview with The Cipher Brief, Hoffman said al Qaeda has been “maneuvering to affect some kind of a forced merger or a takeover or even a voluntary amalgamation with ISIS” and the merger of both groups “would be very dangerous, especially if al Qaeda got their hands on ISIS’ external operations network in Europe.”

The Cipher Brief: What is your overall assessment of the current state of core al Qaeda and its affiliates? Is the group’s strength in its core or in its affiliates around the globe?

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