Western and other intelligence agencies last week told the United Nations that Al-Qaeda now has 25,000 members globally. Much of the ensuing press coverage has seized on the contrast: on 11 September 2001, the organisation was thought to have numbered just 500. The not-so-subtle implication here — that the Global War on Terror was worse than useless — must be resisted.

Once Al-Qaeda created its “affiliates” structure after 2004, with its first branch in Iraq — what became the Islamic State (Isis) — and subsequent branches in West Africa, Yemen, and Somalia, things became murkier still. Perhaps Al-Qaeda is larger now than in 2001, but nobody can honestly claim to know that, and certainly not with any degree of statistical accuracy.

This is not to say Al-Qaeda does not pose a threat. The strategic reassessment forced on Al-Qaeda by the War on Terror shifted the group away from anti-Western terrorism and toward insurgent activity in the Muslim world. That reorientation does not rule out sporadic, opportunistic attacks — such as the 2019 assault on a US military base in Pensacola, Florida. Nor does it preclude the possibility that Al-Qaeda could yet overwhelm several governments in West Africa. That could easily become a problem for the West, both because of the refugee flows it would generate and because the consolidation of Al-Qaeda bases in Africa, close to Europe, could alter the group’s calculus on external attacks.

This prospective danger, however, is distinct from that posed by Isis, which represents a far more immediate challenge. Unlike groups focused primarily on local insurgency, Isis has, for example, openly articulated its intention to use its growing presence in Africa as a launchpad for attacks on Europe. This is not idle signalling. The organisation recognises, as its leadership constantly emphasises, no borders and no distinction between jihad near and far. External operations are central to its mission, and violence abroad has the benefit of reinforcing Isis’s claims of continued relevance and momentum.

Although its territorial caliphate in Syria and Iraq was dismantled nearly a decade ago, Isis violence in Western countries never fully abated. In recent years it has intensified, following the group’s formal recommitment to overseas attacks and its rebuilding of operational networks. The Hanukkah massacre in Australia last December is only the latest illustration. For the foreseeable future, the evidence points clearly in one direction: Isis remains the more acute internal security danger facing Western states.