AL QAEDA remains a significant threat to western targets as it “continues to diversify” into increasingly self-radicalised extremist groups, despite significant damage to its “core” leadership, according to an authoritative new United Nations report.

The report, to be released later on Wednesday, describes the threat posed by Al Qaeda as made up of “loosely linked affiliates”, with self-radicalised terrorists influenced by an “infectious” ideology flourish.

The analysis comes amid an increasingly acrimonious and politicised debate about the relative success or failure of strategies pursued by the US and allied nations to counter the organisation in recent years.

White House spokesman Jay Carney on Tuesday called Al Qaeda “severely diminished” and “decimated.” President Barack Obama, who ordered the May 2011 raid that killed Osama bin Laden, has described Al Qaeda’s headquarters as “a shadow of its former self”.

However, this week critics have pointed out that the US administration has been forced to close 19 diplomatic outposts stretching across the Middle East, Africa and Asia, and evacuate nonessential personnel from the US embassy in Yemen. The UK has also evacuated staff from Yemen.

The new report, the 14th issued by analysts working for the Security Council Committee which deals with sanctions on Al Qaeda “and associated individuals and entities”, is seen as non-partisan and rigorous. It draws on intelligence inputs from all member nations of the UN and academic work. “While the threat posed by Al Qaeda as a global terrorist organisation has declined, the threat posed by its affiliates and its infectious ideas persists,” it says.

One key question for analysts has been the influence of the remnant of Al Qaeda’s senior leadership based in Pakistan’s restive western zones. Here the report is unequivocal.

“Al Qaeda’s core has seen no revival of its fortunes over the past six months. A degraded senior leadership based in the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region continues to issue statements, but demonstrates little ability to direct operations through centralised command and control,” it says.The current leader of Al Qaeda, the Egyptian-born Ayman al-Zawahiri, “has demonstrated little capability to unify or lead Al Qaeda affiliates,” which have become “more diverse and differentiated than before, united only by a loose ideology and a commitment to terrorist violence.” Some of these affiliates are stronger than others, according to the report.

“Some affiliates have been pushed back by military operations in Mali and Somalia, while others continue to pursue support by exploiting regional conflicts and grievances,” it says.

Yet, the report points out, “the reality of Al Qaeda’s diminished capabilities and limited appeal does not mean that the threat of Al Qaeda attacks has passed” as “individuals and cells associated with Al Qaeda and its affiliates continue to innovate with regard to targets, tactics and technology.”

The threat is changing however as terrorist propaganda on the Internet continues to grow in sophistication and reach, contributing to the problem of self-radicalisation. Recent attacks, such as that in Boston in April perpetrated by two Chechen brothers living in the US with no known link to Al Qaeda, “point to the persistent challenge of acts of expressive terrorist violence committed by individuals or small groups.”

These, the reports says, are “troubling” as they “may draw on autonomous attack plans rather than the specific leadership

tasking of either Al Qaeda or affiliates.” Finally, the continuing civil war in the Syrian Arab Republic has seen the emergence of a strong Al Qaeda presence drawing from Al Qaeda in Iraq attracting hundreds of recruits from outside the Syrian Arab Republic.

A new communiqué from al-Zawahiri, who as early as December 2001 announced plans to decentralise the network and scatter its affiliates across the globe as a way of ensuring its survival. “Even while the core Al Qaeda group may be in decline, Al Qaedaism, the movement’s ideology, continues to resonate and attract new adherents,” Bruce Hoffman, director of the Security Studies Programme at Georgetown University, wrote in a research paper earlier this year.

Bin Laden’s death, Hoffman wrote, “left behind a resilient movement that, although seriously weakened, has been expanding and consolidating its control in new and far-flung locales.”

Al-Zawahiri, who security officials in Pakistan believe is likely to be based in the south Asian state, issues messages to followers every few months that are posted and circulated on jihadi websites. His latest, posted July 30, attacked Obama for the continued US detention of terror suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and for launching deadly drone attacks in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen and other Muslim countries.

“You fought us for 13 years. ... Did we soften or toughen up? Did we back out or advance? Did we withdraw or spread out?” al-Zawahiri asked Obama in his 30 July message, according to a transcript of his letter that was translated from Arabic by SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors jihadist websites.

“I call on every Muslim in every spot on Earth to seek with all that he can to stop the crimes of America and its allies against the Muslims in Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen and Mali, and everywhere,” al-Zawahiri, who is seen as an effective strategist and organiser but lacking in charisma, said.

Such calls are frequently made and there is no evidence that it was linked directly to the subsequent decision by the State Department to temporarily close US embassies and diplomatic outposts across the Mideast, Africa and Asia - although not in Iraq, Afghanistan, Israel or Mali. Officials this week told the Associated Press the closures were prompted by an unspecified threat to US and western interests in a message from al-Zawahiri to senior operatives in Yemen, where Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) is based.

AQAP is one of the most effective and active Al Qaeda affiliates and one of the few with a history of operations directed at western, rather than local interests.

By arrangement with the Guardian