Commentary: Al-Qaeda largely faded from relevance in Arab world as focus shifts to Palestine

Commentary by Karim El-Gawhary

Published: September 11, 2026 | 1:31 PM

9/11 and Al-Qaeda: The West was not their only enemy | Photo: ap/picture alliance

Twenty-five years after September 11, the terrorist network Al-Qaeda hardly plays a role anymore in the Arab world. Today, the region is primarily preoccupied with the Palestine question.

A quarter of a century after 19 attackers boarded planes to carry out their deadly mission on behalf of Al-Qaeda, the Middle East has changed. Al-Qaeda and its competitors and successors from ISIS, the so-called Islamic State, have long passed their peak. Their idea of wanting to change the region through militancy and an Islamic stone-age ideology has failed.

One must not forget: Before Al-Qaeda turned against the West, it fought against the Arab regimes in the region, which it branded as un-Islamic, and their societies. In Western navel-gazing, it is often forgotten that by far the most victims of militant Islamism were Muslims in the region themselves.

Twenty-five years after 9/11, it is clear that a large majority of people in the region reject Islamist militancy — with one exception: when it is directed against an occupation power perceived as illegitimate, whether against the US occupation of Iraq or the Israeli occupation in the West Bank, Gaza, or southern Lebanon.

How to Win Hearts and Minds

All other attempts to change the region through violence have also failed. Even the USA, despite having the strongest army in the world, did not manage to permanently shift the balance of power in Iraq in its favor. And even in the war with Iran, it is becoming apparent that the USA and Israel, as the strongest military powers in the region, are once again hitting their limits. Forcing change through violence has proven unsustainable. This way, you certainly do not win hearts and minds.

The Arab Spring in 2011, which swept the region almost ten years after September 11, 2001, was the antithesis to Al-Qaeda. The peaceful "Arabellion" was a mass movement for democracy and human rights. On Tahrir Square and elsewhere, people took to the barricades largely peacefully because they saw that the ossified autocratic systems of the region solved none of their problems and only enriched themselves. The heart of a large part of the Arab world beat then on Tahrir Square in Cairo.

The uprising also failed because the various social currents — from secular, left-wing, liberal to conservative and Islamist — did not succeed in finding compromises. In Egypt, the military seized power again through repression and violence. It was supported in this by the wealthy Gulf states, for whom any Arab-democratic experiment is a thorn in the side because it also threatens their own autocratic rule.

A Changing Saudi Arabia

There is another reason for the slow decline of Al-Qaeda. Saudi Arabia — the country from which 15 of the 19 attackers of September 11 originated — has changed significantly socially over the last 25 years. It remains an autocratic state where Crown Prince Muhammad Bin Salman, known as MBS, sets the course. But in the course of his mission to modernize his country, he has ended the decades-long alliance between the Saudi royal house and the ultra-conservative Wahhabis.

The Wahhabis long determined the religious and social life of Saudi Arabia and provided the ideological superstructure. MBS has since strongly reduced their influence. As a result, militant Sunni Islamism also lost an important ideological reference point.

In return, the conflict between Shia militias and the West has intensified again due to the Israeli-American attack on Iran. This is remarkable, because despite the anti-American rhetoric and ideology of the Iranian regime, there were recently indeed nuances. Thus, many Shia in Iraq initially celebrated the overthrow...