One year after the death of bin Laden, where is Al Qaeda

In May 2011, Osama bin Laden was killed in Pakistan. If the organization he founded survived his death, it no longer has much to do with what it was several years ago. May 2, 2011, Osama bin Laden was killed in a commando raid of a U.S. Special Forces against his house. The world discovered, stunned, as the leader most wanted terrorist in the world was not hiding in a cave for several years but lived in the middle of urban areas, in the garrison town of Abbottabad , near the Pakistan Military Academy . A year later, Thursday, April 26, 2012, the three widows of the leader of al-Qaeda-two Saudi and one Yemeni, and his children were expelled from Pakistan to Saudi Arabia. What remains of the organization he founded in 1988 by bin Laden ? In Arabic, al-Qaeda means " the base ". Westerners have discovered after the attacks of September 11, 2001. Al Qaeda is perceived as a powerful hidden organization, capable of sending groups carry out attacks around the world. Since then, things have changed , but the power to harm those who profess allegiance to al-Qaeda has not gone away. Since the death of bin Laden, power passed into the hands of Ayman al-Zawahiri . TheEgyptian 60 years has committed to continue the jihad " against apostates who attack the Islamic lands, and headed cross America and his sidekick Israel ". Al-Zawahiri was already the ideologue of al-Qaeda or the eminence grise of bin Laden for several years, but it is far less charismatic than his predecessor. When it broadcasts a video message, it causes much less media coverage. Al-Zawahiri alsoless authority over the structure -very decentralized-that bin Laden had. More broadly, recent years have witnessed the emergence of "affiliates" of al-Qaeda operating in a given geographical area, as al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula(AQAP) and al-Qaeda in Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) .The shebabs Islamist insurgents in Somalia and the Boko Haram sect in Nigeria also cultivate links with al-Qaeda. " The shebabs, Boko Haram and AQIM exchangeprobably weapons , but there is no unified command, single strategy , "said Francois-Bernard Huyghe. The "franchise" of al-Qaeda are " hybrid organizations "mixing" a bit of classical terrorism (when Boko Haram poses a bomb in a church, for example), some traffic and crime, some guerrilla " , he adds. Through them, the local issues resume weight within al-Qaeda, while the organization was originally a project of global Islamist revolution. Although they often include a few hundred people , these groups have a great power to harm, through bombings and kidnappings. In recent years, the Sahel has become a crucial area for al-Qaeda, while his influence declined in other regions. In Afghanistan , the Taliban are Pashtun rather than "Arab" al-Qaeda could take advantage of the withdrawal of NATO troops. In the countries of the " Arab revolution ", the revolts against the powers that were conducted without any reference is made ​​to al-Qaeda. By removing dictators, revolutions have pulled the rug from under the feet of the organization denounced corrupt authoritarian regimes, supported by the West. Thus, the global strategy of the terrorist organization has the lead in the wing, but al-Qaeda may boast of having succeeded in recent years to create a genuine arc of instability in Africa , from Nigeria to Somalia.