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Article 4.
NYT
Al Qaeda Stirs Again
Juan C. Zarate

April 17, 2011 -- MANY in the West had taken comfort in Al
Qaeda’s silence in the wake of the uprisings in the Muslim world this
year, as secular, nonviolent protests, led by educated youth focused
on redressing longstanding local grievances, showcased democracy’s
promise and seemed to leave Al Qaeda behind.
Indeed, the pristine spirit of the Arab Spring does represent an
existential threat to Al Qaeda’s extremist ideology. But Al Qaeda’s
leaders also know that this is a strategic moment. They are banking
on the disillusionment that inevitably follows revolutions to reassert
their prominence in the region. And now Al Qaeda is silent no more —
and is taking the rhetorical offensive.
In recent statements, Ayman al-Zawahri, Osama bin Laden’s second-
in-command, and Qaeda surrogates have aligned themselves with the
protesters in Libya, Egypt and elsewhere, while painting the West as
an enemy of the Arab people.
In North Africa, Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb claimed that while
protesters flooded the streets of Tunis and Cairo, it had been fighting
in the mountains against the same enemies. Anwar al-Awlaki, a
Yemeni-American cleric affiliated with Al Qaeda in the Arabian
Peninsula, declared that in the wake of the revolutions, “our
mujahedeen brothers ... will get a chance to breathe again after three
decades of suffocation” and that “the great doors of opportunity
would open up for the mujahedeen all over the world.”
Mr. Zawahri has denounced democracy, arguing that toppling
dictators is insufficient and that “justice, freedom, and independence”

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