Bin Laden enjoyed support from groups like Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) Al-Qaeda and its affiliates around the Arab world may try to make good on their promises of revenge attacks in reprisal for the killing of their charismatic founder and symbol, Osama Bin Laden.
In Iraq and elsewhere, security forces are bracing for a possible wave of violence aimed at showing that Qaeda-related groups are still in business despite the demise of their icon. Bin Laden enjoyed the loose allegiance of al-Qaeda affiliates scattered around the region, including Iraq (al-Qaeda in Iraq), Saudi Arabia and Yemen (al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula), and North Africa (al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb).
But these groups operated with a large degree of devolution and independence.
Operationally, Bin Laden's second-in-command, Egyptian-born Ayman al-Zawahiri, may have had more organisational influence in a movement that has been compared to a series of franchises rather than a tightly-controlled, centralised outfit.
Fears have already been expressed that the death of Bin Laden could complicate moves to free three French hostages and one Italian held by the Maghreb al-Qaeda group.
'Out of tune' Whatever the short-term outcome, the death of Bin Laden came at a moment when the militant ideology he propagated was on the wane in the Middle East, eclipsed both by failure on the ground in places like Iraq, and by the arrival of the Arab Spring, whose democratic values have fired the masses in a way that al-Qaeda was never able to do.
Bin Laden's philosophy was seen at its most validated and heroic at the height of his Mujahideen's struggle to end Soviet occupation in Afghanistan, and even in the early years of attacks on US forces in Iraq.
Ayman al-Zawahiri may have had more organisational influence than Bin Laden As democracy, however flawed, began to become more of a reality in Iraq, the influence of Qaeda-related groups fell sharply as people lived the consequences of sectarian carnage provoked by indiscriminate bomb attacks mainly directed at Shia civilians.
The Sunni community, in which al-Qaeda and other insurgent groups had their base, largely turned against the militant jihadis. They still have a residual capability in Iraq, but it is a fraction of what it once was.
The radical, violent philosophy spearheaded by Bin Laden had already been tried, tested and failed in Egypt.
In the mid-1990s, like-minded groups such as the Gamaa Islamiya and the Islamic Jihad carried out numerous attacks on foreign tourists, Egyptian Copts and other targets.Continued
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