"Al Qaeda Is Unpopular."
Not as much as you might think. In May 2011, shortly after bin Laden's death, the Pew Global Attitudes Project released an opinion survey with the pithy headline: "Osama bin Laden Largely Discredited Among Muslim Publics in Recent Years." Its findings have been widely trumpeted by those seeking to highlight the organization's decreasing popularity in Muslim countries. And indeed, the poll found that support for al Qaeda, and for bin Laden himself, has been steadily declining among Muslims in Jordan, Lebanon, Pakistan, Turkey, and a handful of other countries.
Yet a closer look at the data reveals that al Qaeda's support has not fallen as far as the headlines would have you believe. According to the same Pew poll, roughly one-quarter of the Muslim population in the Palestinian territories, Indonesia, and Egypt still supports al Qaeda -- some 73 million people. Even if that estimate is high, this seems a significant foothold for the organization, because al Qaeda doesn't appear to require significant levels of public support to accomplish its bloody work. Indicators of al Qaeda's support elsewhere are even more disturbing. Its popularity among Nigerian Muslims was just under 50 percent -- a striking finding for a country that has witnessed the growth of Boko Haram.
Before we write al Qaeda's epitaph, it would be wise to understand what the available facts tell us -- and what they don't. After all, al Qaeda's popularity is frequently less important than that of insurgent groups to which it is attached. That is exactly al Qaeda's objective: to establish a symbiotic relationship with local groups that have more support and legitimacy. In Afghanistan, for example, a Taliban overthrow of President Hamid Karzai's government would be an enormous victory for al Qaeda, which would almost certainly re-establish a sanctuary in the country.
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