IRAQ - Al-Qaeda Weakened.

On Oct. 23 in Iraq's Anbar Province, where al-Qaeda once enjoyed sanctuary, Sunni tribesmen turned out en masse to commemorate Shaikh Abdul-Sattar Abu Risha, a leader killed for helping the US rout the Neo-Salafis from that region. He was hailed as a "martyr". US-backed Sunni tribal forces in Diyala and other provinces are pushing al-Qaeda and other Neo-Salafi groups out of their areas. In Lebanon in September, the efforts of al-Qaeda-inspired guerrillas to take over a Palestinian refugee camp were crushed.

Across the Arab world, where al-Qaeda had sought to build influence and bases of operation on the back of widespread anger against the US over its war in Iraq and the broader war on terrorism, the Neo-Salafi movement is now showing signs that it is stalled, if not in retreat. Experts say al-Qaeda's failures have largely come down to its brutal methods, which have turned off large numbers of Arabs. They say Muslims from Iraq to Egypt may want their countries to adhere to Islamic law, but not at the price of suicide bombings.

This is not to say al-Qaeda is vanishing or unable to carry out attacks. But even the US, which not long ago was warning that a withdrawal from Iraq could leave al-Qaeda in control of the Sunni-dominated Anbar from which to threaten American and regional interests, is now declaring the local movement a spent force.

US Ambassador to Baghdad Ryan Crocker on Oct. 25 told reporters: "In Falluja, Ramadi, and other parts of Anbar...al-Qaeda simply is gone". In Baghdad, he said, al-Qaeda was on the ropes "but still present...Sunni militias are increasingly going out of the militia business and coming over to say we want to hook up with the coalition and indeed with the government of Iraq".

The Brookings Institution's Iraq index, which monitors security indicators in the country, appears to back up Crocker's assessment. In its latest report, the index found that the flow of foreign Neo-Salafi fighters to Iraq had dropped from about 85 to about 50 over several recent months. US officials say the number of suicide bombings in Iraq has fallen from more than 60 in January to about 30 a month since July.

Marc Lynch, a political scientist at George Washington University who focuses on Arab countries, says: "I think the generic radical [Neo-Salafi] ideas are still chugging along, but the organisation is having a hard time finding safe harbour anywhere. They pop up with these little groups here and there, they cause trouble, there's a showdown, and then they lose".

A threat of serious attacks still exists, however. Evan Kohlmann, an author and consultant on jihadi movements who closely tracks al-Qaeda and aligned propaganda on the Internet, says: "Iraq was al-Qaeda's greatest achievement and its greatest failure. At one time they were riding high from what was happening in Iraq, people were talking about [similar] movements popping up in Jordan, Egypt, Syria, and that time has come and gone. Al-Qaeda has gone, in the minds of many Muslims, from being this kind of chivalrous organisation run by Muslim knights seeking to defend the purity of the Muslim world and, instead, they've been revealed for what they are. They've done it to themselves".

According to a recent US National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), however, al-Qaeda and its allies appear as strong as ever in parts of Afghanistan and Pakistan, the two countries which have served as the movement's core training and planning sites from virtually the day it was founded. Major plots could emanate from the area where the 9/11 attacks were mapped out.

In Iraq, despite the group's weakened profile, suicide bombers will continue to strike. The Christian Science Monitor on Oct. 26 said of al-Qaeda: "No analyst, academic, or intelligence officer goes so far as to predict that the organization won't carry out mass casualty attacks again in Europe, the US, or the Arab countries whose regimes it has long sought to topple. Given the relatively cheap financial cost of a terrorist attack and the small number of operatives required, a successful strike - someday, somewhere - is a certainty".

Bruce Reidel, a former CIA analyst now at the Brookings Institution in Washington, points out in a recent article in Foreign Affairs that al-Qaeda has successfully reversed its early losses from the invasion of Afghanistan and now has a strong base of operations in Pakistan. He argues that, with those advances, a strong propaganda operation, and continuing support in what he calls a "global jihadi subculture", al-Qaeda is well placed to "threaten global security in the near future". But he also says the group has suffered major reverses in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Jordan.

Any concern they could overthrow an Arab regime is misplaced, Reidel writes, adding: "Al-Qaeda is still too weak to overthrow established governments equipped with effective security services; it needs failed states to thrive".

What looked a few years ago to be a fertile moment for al-Qaeda, moving from the initial defeat in Afghanistan to success in the Iraq insurgency and savvy use of the Internet and satellite TV stations to create a base of operations in the heart of the Arab and Islamic world, has dried up. Iraq's Sunni Arab community has largely rejected al-Qaeda's vision of creating an Islamic state in its image.

While there is still a vast Sunni Arab insurgency in Iraq, this is largely focused on using violence to improve its domestic political position. But, analysts say, what were the heady days of 2004-05 for bin Laden, when Abu Mus'ab al-Zarqawi was carrying out attacks in Iraq at will, may be long past.

In an article published on Oct. 26, Fawaz A. Gerges, professor of international affairs and Arab and Muslim politics at Sarah Lawrence College, wrote: "Besieged both internally and externally, al-Qaeda in Iraq struggles to survive and absorb... catastrophic military setbacks. Coming to the rescue of his followers in Iraq, Mr. bin Laden (in his latest audiotape) lays his personal authority and credibility on the line. In a rare moment of self-criticism, he advises 'himself, Muslims in general, and brothers in al-Qaeda everywhere to avoid extremism' and put the interests of the ummah (universal Muslim community) above those of tribe, party, and nation.

"True to form, bin Laden stops short of saying exactly who speaks for the ummah and how the interests of this imagined ummah can override those of separate nation states and special groups. Never before had bin Laden, ambitious and media-savvy, gone so far in airing al-Qaeda's dirty linen in public. In the past, he and his second-in-command, Ayman al-Zawahiri, had privately advised chiefs of al-Qaeda's wing in Iraq against fueling sectarian war between Sunni and Shi'ite Muslims and imposing their extremist ways on Iraqis. But their pleas didn't fly.

"In his latest 'message to the people of Iraq', bin Laden's misgivings reflect the gravity of al-Qaeda's crisis in Iraq and a belated effort to win over Sunni Arabs opposed to the militant organization. Stressing unity over the current division and disarray, he urged Sunni tribes to uphold their 'tradition of resisting' foreign occupation like that of British colonialists in the last century.

"Bin Laden even invoked the prophet Muhammad to drive home his message of unity and forgiveness: 'The prophet peace be upon him said once: no one is perfect. We all make mistakes and we should seek forgiveness of these mistakes. Human beings commit wrongs, and wrongs always lead to conflict and dispute. Having acknowledged that we have made mistakes...[w]e can now seek to rectify these mistakes'.

"...Ironically, this self-anointed leader of all mujahideen who wage wars against both their own pro-Western Muslim governments and the United States will probably not see his followers in Iraq, or Sunni tribes and fighters, heeding his call for cooperation. Having expelled many al-Qaeda members from their quarters at great costs, Sunni communities will not let these members back. And while welcoming bin Laden's public apology, Iraqi Sunni leaders have already dismissed his message as too little, too late. But bin Laden's troubles transcend Iraq.

"Prominent [Muslim] clerics and former militants call into question the very legitimacy of bin Laden's authority as a spokesman for Islam and Muslims. And last month, one of bin Laden's most prominent Saudi mentors, the [Wahhabi] preacher and scholar Salman al-Odah, wrote an open letter reproaching him for 'fostering a culture of suicide bombings that has caused bloodshed and suffering and brought ruin to entire Muslim communities and families'.

"Bin Laden's al-Qaeda was dealt another shattering blow from within when one of its top theorists, Abdul-Aziz el-Sherif, renounced its extremes, including the killing of civilians and the choosing of targets based on religion and nationality. In the past few months, Mr. El-Sherif - a longtime associate of Zawahiri, who crafted what became known as al- Qaeda's guide to jihad - called on militants to desist from terrorism and authored a dissenting rebuttal against his former cohorts.

"In early October, Abdulaziz aal-Ashaikh, the [Wahhabi] grand mufti of Saudi Arabia, issued a fatwa prohibiting Saudis from engaging in jihad abroad and accused both bin Laden and Arab regimes of 'transforming our youth into walking bombs to accomplish their own political and military aims'.

"Today, al-Qaeda in Iraq possesses limited options, and is trying to buy time. But while entrapped and weakened, al-Qaeda is far from dead. Bin Laden's brief moment of self-criticism shows that, although he listens, it's difficult to keep a ship from sinking after being thrown overboard".