But al-Qaeda and the jihadist movement defied these predictions. Nothing has benefited either the organization or the movement more over the past fifteen years than the instability wrought by the region’s revolutions. Yet even after early hopes about the Arab revolutions were proven wrong, al-Qaeda declinism endured. In 2014, the vast majority of analysts concluded that al-Qaeda had lost its dominance over the jihadist movement when a former affiliate, the Islamic State (IS), launched an enormously successful offensive into northern Iraq in June 2014, then began vying for the loyalty of various al-Qaeda branches.3 The most extreme version of this argument contended that “al-Qaeda is most certainly a distant number two in jihadi circles,” and suggested that it was a real possibility the group could disband before 2016.4 Press coverage and analysis in the Arab world tended to mirror the al-Qaeda declinist position espoused by Western analysts and officials. One Algerian security expert provided a representative conclusion when he suggested that “al-Qaeda could disappear to make way for the more extremist” Islamic State.5 IS’s legions of online fans further pushed these perceptions of a declining al-Qaeda by publicizing, repeating, and often exaggerating each sign of disunity or pro-IS factions within the broader al-Qaeda network.

But rather than withering away, al-Qaeda has turned IS’s emergence into a strategic opportunity, pivoting off of IS’s brutality and doubling down on a more low-profile and sustainable approach to growth. Al-Qaeda has quietly, and yet relatively rapidly, gained ground in conflict zones across the Middle East and North Africa, including Syria and Yemen, where the group has seized territory and embedded itself within local communities.

Al-Qaeda’s decision to become more covert and discrete in response to IS’s ostentatious successes may seem counterintuitive at first. Indeed, it is the opposite of what most analysts expected. But it worked. Al-Qaeda weathered the IS storm. This article tells the story of how al-Qaeda survived and thrived despite the IS challenge. It focuses on al-Qaeda’s response to three key developments over the past decade: al-Qaeda in Iraq’s defeat in 2007-09, the 2011 Arab uprisings, and IS’s rise. The group’s approaches to all three developments are inherently interlinked. The course al-Qaeda charted as these challenges and opportunities arose explains why al-Qaeda is stronger now than it was in 2014, and why it is far better positioned than IS to succeed in the long term.