By Jana al-Masry | 2025-01-20

CAIRO -- Al-Qaeda's increasing irrelevance is reflected in the digital sphere, where it has virtually disappeared from extremist media outlets, according to regional experts monitoring extremist groups.

This reflects a broader transformation, as former allies distance themselves from the group's hardline ideology and assume more moderate positions.

Ibn Al-Waleed Center for Studies and Field Research New Media Department director Mazen Zaki said he has observed al-Qaeda's digital decline through the center's monitoring of websites and social media accounts.

"It is clearly noticeable that there is almost no news or support for al-Qaeda, except for what the group itself still posts occasionally," he told Al-Fassel.

"These platforms are completely devoid of any reference to al-Qaeda, as if it never existed."

The shift is most evident with Tahrir al-Sham, an alliance dominated by al-Qaeda's former Syrian affiliate that has "disavowed it and publicly renounced extremist ideology," military expert Yahya Mohammed Ali told Al-Fassel.

"These groups were able to survive and reach power," he said. "Fully and completely distancing themselves from al-Qaeda was necessary and critical to their survival."

This rejection of al-Qaeda also reveals how extremist movements throughout the region have fundamentally transformed.

It is an "unexpected outcome" of the war on terror, Syrian-born author and journalist Hassan Hassan wrote for the New York Times December 5.

Extremist entities have "reinvented themselves as nationalist and locally focused movements, not just to survive but to thrive in the new geopolitical landscape."

Like Tahrir al-Sham, some now focus on local governance.

Fundamental shift

These movements increasingly embrace moderate interpretations of Islamic law and scripture, Zaki noted.

They are reassessing their past extremist positions, recognizing that moderation is the path forward, he said.

This evolution stands in stark contrast to al-Qaeda's unchanged positions on governance and its propensity to accuse Muslims who do not subscribe to its hardline ideology of apostasy – factors that contribute to its isolation.

"Al-Qaeda finds itself in a precarious situation because it continues to cling to extremist ideas," Zaki said.

The group's playbook and extremist narratives have become relics of a bygone era, he added, failing to inspire the mass following it used to command.

Al-Qaeda's attempts to regain relevance through indirect messaging to former allies also have fallen flat, with the group's digital and ideological isolation pointing to more than just its decline.

Extremist groups see that "distancing themselves from al-Qaeda's discourse may prolong their survival and shield them from international ostracism," said former Saudi Islamic Affairs deputy minister Tawfiq bin Abdul Aziz al-Sudairy.

This calculation leaves al-Qaeda alone with its extremist ideology, abandoned by the very movements it once inspired.