Osama's death: What next for al-Qaeda?

There have been cheers and jubilation in the US and elsewhere in the West, but capital cities around the world are already bracing for the repercussions of Bin Laden's killing.
Hundreds of dedicated and would-be jihadis will be mourning and swearing to give their lives in revenge for his death at the hands of a joint US-Pakistani special forces team in the city of Abbotabad.
There is little doubt that the death of Bin Laden is a huge blow to al-Qaeda.
But at the same time the network has moved over the years from a highly centralised hierarchy - with recruiting, training and orders all scrutinised by its top leaders - to something much more loose and amorphous.
Franchise Today al-Qaeda's philosophy is one man, one bomb. It does not need another 9/11 to make its mark.
One bomb in Times Square in New York placed by a dedicated suicide bomber or a bomb in a New York subway - both attacks were attempted in in recent years - are big enough indicators that al-Qaeda is alive and kicking.
Al-Qaeda has been a franchise for many years.

Anyone can join it by planting a bomb somewhere. Almost anyone can come to Pakistan or Afghanistan and be offered training with key al-Qaeda allies such as the Pakistani Taliban or the Afghan group headed by Jalaluddin Haqqani.

The facilitator in Pakistan's cities has been Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) - a banned militant group which previously fought in Kashmir but now attacks many different targets and helps al-Qaeda.
After 9/11 it helped hide many senior al-Qaeda figures and it may well have played a major role in hiding Bin Laden.
Pakistan has refused to go up against al-Qaeda allies like Haqqani because they were operating in Afghanistan not Pakistan.
Likewise, allies like LeT are close to Pakistan's intelligence services because their main target is Kashmir and India.
Thus the threat is there.
Before 9/11 there were no known al-Qaeda cells in Europe except for the one in Hamburg which launched those attacks.
Sleeper cells However, today every single European country has an al-Qaeda cell. Hundreds of Muslims with European passports have travelled to Pakistan's tribal areas for training and returned to Europe.
After the arrest of three Moroccans in Germany last week for planning to plant bombs in public places, German authorities admit that over 200 German citizens have had training in the tribal areas and many of them have returned to Germany.
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