"A shadow of its former greatness"

The terror expert after the death of the al-Qaeda leader: "A shadow of its former greatness"

Of: 

 Elmer Rikner Lina Dawood 

 Published: Today 12.43 Updated: Today 13.06 NEWS Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri is dead after a drone attack carried out by the American intelligence service CIA. 

US President Joe Biden says so in a speech. 

- You put together a fairly extensive puzzle over a fairly long period of time, says terror expert Hans Brun about the planning behind it. 

Hans Brun believes that al-Qaeda has declined greatly since the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. The invasion that took place after the attacks on, among other things, the World Trade Center on September 11 of the same year. 

- Yes, it is a fraction of the size they had before the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. At that time, they had thousands of members and operators in service both in Afghanistan, but also in many other countries. Today, the organization is partly a shadow of its former greatness, it is not at all the same personnel ability as it was 20 years ago, says Hans Brun.

- But the organization remains. The big problem, as I see it, is this huge amount of military equipment that the US left behind in Afghanistan. Sometimes quite sophisticated equipment, we are talking about 100s of tons of weapons ammunition, weapon scopes and other sophisticated equipment. Ayman al-Zawahiri. 

Ayman al-Zawahiri. Photo: AP SCANPIX SWEDEN 

No increased risk of revenge attack 

According to Hans Brun, it is unclear whether the terrorist organization will take revenge on Al-Zawahiri's death.

- Since the 90s, al-Qaeda has declared itself to be at war against the United States and the West, so we have to assume - regardless of whether he is dead or not - that al-Qaeda intends to try to damage primarily American interests around the world. 

- That risk remains, it has neither increased nor decreased I would say because of this, but they are out there and we will hear from them again soon, in some form, says Hans Brun. Terror researcher 

Terror researcher Hans Brun. Photo: Aftonbladet