The Rise Of Al Qaeda In The Middle East -- Analysis And Commentaries

New York Times

Power Vacuum in Middle East Lifts Militants -- Ben Hubbard/Robert F. Worth/Michael R. Gordon, New York Times

BEIRUT, Lebanon — The images of recent days have an eerie familiarity, as if the horrors of the past decade were being played back: masked gunmen recapturing the Iraqi cities of Falluja and Ramadi, where so many American soldiers died fighting them. Car bombs exploding amid the elegance of downtown Beirut. The charnel house of Syria’s worsening civil war.

But for all its echoes, the bloodshed that has engulfed Iraq, Lebanon and Syria in the past two weeks exposes something new and destabilizing: the emergence of a post-American Middle East in which no broker has the power, or the will, to contain the region’s sectarian hatreds.

Amid this vacuum, fanatical Islamists have flourished in both Iraq and Syria under the banner of Al Qaeda, as the two countries’ conflicts amplify each other and foster ever-deeper radicalism. Behind much of it is the bitter rivalry of two great oil powers, Iran and Saudi Arabia, whose rulers — claiming to represent Shiite and Sunni Islam, respectively — cynically deploy a sectarian agenda that makes almost any sort of accommodation a heresy.

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Analysis And Commentaries On The Rise of Al Qaeda

Insight: Fuelled By Syria War, al Qaeda Bursts Back To Life In Iraq -- Suadad al-Salhy, Reuters
Al Qaeda in Iraq reasserts itself as war in Syria drives regional conflict -- Phil Sands, The National
Analysis: Anbar violence goes beyond sectarian conflict in Iraq -- Marina Ottaway, BBC
Thanks to Obama, Islamist militants will be the ultimate victors in Iraq and Afghanistan -- Con Coughlin, The Telegraph
Al-Qaeda rise puts heat on Obama -- Raf Sanchez, New Zealand Herald
Don’t Create a New Al Qaeda -- Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon, New York Times
al-Qaeda rise sees US ponder Iran role in talks -- Khaled Yacoub Oweis, Sydney Morning Herald
Still out there and growing -- al Qaeda on the rebound, experts say -- Ashley Fantz, CNN
Bombs, bloodshed and Osama bin Laden's ghost: The rise of the new al-Qaeda -- Daniel Piotrowski, News.com.au
The continuing evolution of al-Qaeda 3.0 -- Bruce Riedel, Al Monitor
The Costs of U.S. Retreat -- Wall Street Journal