Some terrorist experts estimate that the upper echelon of al-Qaeda’s original leadership in the Pakistani badlands now numbers only a few dozen. The organisation, whose name means the base, doesn’t have one any more, and has lost its launch pad for global jihad. Volunteers from overseas who have sought training have received poor service and often been quickly picked up by police on their return to Europe.

Bin Laden’s hopes for a dirty bomb – the most chilling prospect in his portfolio – came to nothing as the materials proved hard to obtain and US pressure never let up. His successor, Ayman al-Zawahiri, is meanwhile regarded as “a bit of a loser”, according to a source close to the US administration; as a pedant with little charisma who will struggle to galvanise the troops.

Obama officials are trying hard not to gloat, and would be wrong to do so in public. There will be no let-up in monitoring or pursuing anyone affiliated with the brand created by bin Laden. But in private, some say they have never been in a stronger position against al-Qaeda. No attack on Europe has come to fruition since the London transport bombings in 2005. There has been no successful attack on the United States since 9/11. There have been close calls in both places – including the foiled liquid bomb plot and a plan to hit the New York subway – but no coordinated schemes for several years.

“Basically, we are winning dramatically,” says Marc Sageman, a terrorism specialist and researcher. “You have an organisation which is a shadow of its former self. We have got to the point where the real danger is from lone wolves who decide by themselves to turn violent.”…

No one is urging the legions of analysts, researchers and spies to take their foot off the pedal. The chatter in jihadi circles about attacks and plots is endless. But it may be time to see al-Qaeda not as an existential threat – that would be the sort of flattery it craves – but as Sageman puts it, as “a small number of loosely connected misfits and thugs”.