Terror threat

Al Qaeda at 30 shows signs of resurgence after ISIS routed

Thirty years after its founding on Aug. 11, 1988, Al Qaeda is showing signs of a resurgence following ISIS’s near-defeat in Iraq and Syria, experts warn.

Al Qaeda shares the same long term goals as ISIS, but is pursuing them more slowly and carefully, Jennifer Cafarella, intelligence planner with the Institute for the Study of War, told FoxNews.com.

“ISIS's shock-and-awe tactics enabled it to mobilize tens of thousands of foreign fighters quickly, but did not enable it to sustain its battlefield successes or the scale of its recruitment,” Cafarella said. “Al Qaeda has been investing in the long game, and may now resurge as the leader of the global jihadist movement.”

It was on Aug. 11, 1988, in Peshawar, Pakistan, that Usama bin Laden conducted a meeting to discuss "the establishment of a new military group" called Al Qaeda, or the base. Handwritten notes of the meeting's minutes were seized in Bosnia after 9/11.