Al Qaeda Fractures: Visualized













If you haven't been following the smart series on smarter counterterrorism by Clint Watts over at FPRI , you might have missed the chart some of us developed to illustrate the current state of play in Al Qaeda and its affiliates. For technical reasons, the chart was originally published in a smaller and more difficult to read version. It is presented here in several different levels of detail that should be more helpful to those who want to use it in presentations and classrooms.The map has been edited to reflect several new developments, as well as various kinds of feedback received from our peers. There are several additions that I would like to make, but this is threatening to turn into one of those DOD parody PPT spaghetti charts, so I am going to take a few days and rethink the layout for maximum clarity.You can click on the image below for a larger version, and those wishing to print a poster-sized version of the chart. A PDF is available here and should resize to your heart's content.This is a living document, meaning we will be adding more data over time and likely updating as we get more feedback from the CT community. We already have a second round of edits in mind, but we will wait until they reach critical mass to make the changes (since as some of you know, I am working with an ergonomic injury).------------------------------------------------------------The previous version as a PDF is available here and you can click the image below to see the previous version full-sized in your browser.