How al-Qaeda and Islamic State are digging into Africa

have passed since al-Qaeda’s last big plot against America, a botched effort to blow up New York’s subway in 2009. The war in Afghanistan is over. Americans and Europeans are preoccupied with other crises, from Ukraine to Taiwan. But the two Hellfire missiles that killed Ayman al-Zawahiri, al-Qaeda’s leader and Osama bin Laden’s successor, on a balcony in Kabul on July 31st were a reminder of his group’s staying power.Mr Zawahiri would not have dreamed of watching the sunrise from the luxury of Kabul’s diplomatic enclave, had the Taliban not conquered Afghanistan last summer. His safe house was owned by the Haqqani network, a group with ties to Pakistani intelligence. Siraj Haqqani, its leader, is both deputy head of the Taliban and interior minister of Afghanistan. No wonder that Mr Zawahiri, whose communications were once so patchy that many thought him dead, felt secure enough there to release a stream of videos on topics from Syria’s civil war to pro-hijab protests in India.