“The al‑Qaeda concept has taken root,” he said, and has given the group’s leadership—sometimes called “al‑Qaeda core”—the luxury of deciding when to begin killing Americans again. (As an extremist-Sunni group, al‑Qaeda is not a natural ally of extremist-Shiite Iran.) The various affiliates call themselves al-Qaeda, but they appear to take no meaningful guidance from anyone in al‑Qaeda core. Daniel Byman, a veteran al-Qaeda watcher at Georgetown University, reminded me that al-Qaeda has not even officially announced that Saif al-Adel is in charge. This article appears in the September 2026 print edition with the headline “Did al-Qaeda Succeed?”