Al-Qaeda's credit crunch

MICHAEL JACOBSON and MATTHEW LEVITT of the Stein Program on Counterterrorism and Intelligence at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy investigate how operational setbacks have affected Al-Qaeda’s long-term funding efforts in the wake of declining popularity of the group. In a Jane’s Strategic Advisory Services article, "Staying solvent - Assessing al-Qaeda’s fnancial portfolio", they argue that if the trends of financial stresses in Al-Qaeda continued, it could further degenerate the core of Al-Qaeda and devolve the internationalised insurgency embodied by Al-Qaeda into a more localised, and less lethal terrorist threat.