These days in Peshawar, where al Qaeda was founded 20 years ago, the only glimpse of Osama bin Laden comes on little green packets of safety matches strewn around town by American officials. They bear the portrait of the world’s most wanted man, along with the promise that America will pay up to $5 million for information leading to his capture... Nearly seven years into America’s “global war on terror”, the result remains inconclusive. Al Qaeda lost a safe haven in Afghanistan, but is rebuilding another one in Pakistan; Mr bin Laden is at large, but Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who masterminded September 11th, has gone on trial in Guantánamo Bay; many leaders have been captured or killed, but others have taken their place; al Qaeda faces an ideological backlash, but young Muslims still volunteer to blow themselves up.

True, America has not been struck since 2001, but European capitals have been bombed. A number of plots have been averted on both sides of the Atlantic. Al Qaeda and its nebula of like-minded groups still pose the most direct threat to the security of Western countries, and of many others besides.

[Al Qaeda] has built on decades of Middle Eastern terrorism... [One] of the objectives of the September 11th attacks was to provoke the Americans into invading Muslim lands. But if al Qaeda intended to trap America in Afghanistan, its plan went badly awry, at least initially. The Taliban fell quickly in 2001 and al Qaeda’s followers were forced into hiding.

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