Twenty-five years after the September 11, 2001 attacks, and after following much of what has been published about the terrorism dilemma, one cannot say that the world has failed to learn a great deal about counterterrorism. On the contrary, the world has learned a great deal.
Intelligence services have evolved, travel procedures and financial channels have been significantly tightened through digital tracking, and surveillance, monitoring, and precision-strike technologies have advanced considerably. Yet the more pressing question remains: Have approaches to terrorism and strategies for countering extremism evolved with the same pace and effectiveness?
I believe there is a problem affecting a broad segment of Western research sectors and policymaking circles regarding terrorism. They continue to view it through stereotypes inspired by the events of September 11: Terrorists arriving from abroad, mostly belonging to organizations classified along sectarian lines and trained in remote camps.
On the basis of this stereotype, the "War on Terror" was constructed, producing watchlists, overseas military campaigns, targeted killings of leaders and symbolic figures, airstrikes reaching even small communities in crumbling states such as Yemen, plans aimed at changing political regimes as seen in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the repositioning of international relations.
In other words, after 2001 terrorism was transformed from an ideological and security issue into a major strategic war. Yet this approach gradually receded and ultimately faded, culminating in a pivotal moment with the US withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021 and the return of the Taliban after decades of war against it.
The War on Terror achieved significant successes. The organizational structures of major extremist groups were dismantled, and most of their first-tier leaders and figures were eliminated. As a result, it has become difficult to imagine an operation on the scale and magnitude of 9/11 being carried out today.
However, this is less a consequence of confronting extremist ideology or eliminating al-Qaeda than it is of the profound transformation in the security environment before and after September 11. That monumental event continues to inspire research papers and analytical books even a quarter-century later.
In my view, operational success conceals deeper problems, especially the vacuum that emerges after a mission is declared complete with the elimination of a key leader. The legacy and ideology of these organizations are often left behind to regenerate themselves, drawing on narratives of victimhood. As such, jihadism has not ended.
Neither al-Qaeda and its affiliates nor ISIS have disappeared. The former recently reintroduced Hamza bin Laden through a special recording marking the anniversary of September 11, while the latter continues to operate a multilingual media machine that regularly produces content seeking to exploit chaos for recruitment and mobilization.
Both organizations have also shifted geographically away from traditional conflict zones, with their center of gravity moving to Africa, particularly the Sahel, Somalia, and West Africa, where weak states, local conflicts, and porous borders provide fertile ground for repositioning and expansion.
The caliphate model collapsed on the ground, only to migrate into the minds and imagination of jihadists, where it continues to reproduce itself through apocalyptic and epic narratives centered on end-of-times visions.
Even more dangerous today is the rise of another model of organized violence, exemplified by entities associated with Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps. This model adopts the form of the state itself, supported by a network of proxies that imitate state functions and behavior.
Hundreds of politicized, ideological, sectarian militias operating outside the law have been supplied with funding, weapons, training, missile capabilities, and drones. This model thrives in chaos by exploiting the blurred lines between politics, extremism, and terrorism.
Here lies one of the greatest weaknesses of the previous international approach. In the past, it was relatively easy to identify a terrorist in a cave, a training camp, or through membership in a known organization. Today's militias, however, exist as entities embedded within the state itself. They participate in parliaments while retaining weapons outside the framework of the law.
At the same time, technological advances have empowered them. Encrypted communications, cryptocurrencies, commercial drones, 3D printing, and artificial intelligence have made capabilities once reserved for states or major organizations accessible to individuals and small networks.
Today's terrorists do not need passports. They can emerge from within states that are capable of monitoring their borders but incapable of building walls around the digital content that targets the minds of their citizens.
Technological progress has equipped modern terrorism with highly dangerous tools, including encrypted communications, cryptocurrencies, commercial drones, and 3D printing, all of which were once the preserve of governments. These capabilities are now available to militias and clandestine organizations operating from hidden sanctuaries. And now comes artificial intelligence, the most dangerous development of all.
What remains of the lessons of September 11? I believe that the failure of imagination that, at the time, could not conceive of a civilian airliner being turned into a human-guided suicide bomb still persists today. It is reflected in the continued search for the stereotypical terrorist at airports and in the surveillance of organizations in remote training camps, while today's camps are digital ones, penetrating states through the power of algorithms and fabricated content.
The threat has not disappeared; it has merely changed its form. Yet parts of the world remain trapped in the image through which they first came to understand it a quarter of a century ago.
