Posted by Davidbfpo

I wonder whether the impact of increasing urbanisation across the world will have an impact here. To date much of the counter-AQ and counter-AQ partners has been in relatively isolated / remote / extreme climates / rural locations.

The scale of FID could well increase. Imagine if Nigeria or Egypt was the setting.

The French experience in Algeria for example, where the French at one point had security forces of 500k IIRC and this included a not insignificant local element. At that time Algeria was split evenly between rural and urban IIRC; today it is very urbanised.
I think increasing urbanization already has had an impact on military operations, and I'm not sure why you appear to be dismissing the rather large urban CT operations in Baghdad, Tikrit, Falujah, Mogadishu, Kandahar, etc.

On the other hand I think your point is still interesting, it does seem AQ affiliates/partners generally establish strong holds in rural areas (where in theory they should be easier to target). I suspect part of the reason their activity is limited in the larger urban areas is due to security concerns. A lot of citizens watching and reporting, so unless they could establish control in an urban area this will likely remain the norm (of course there will also be exceptions that we may to respond to). I don't think too many people in the world, even the Muslim world view AQ as liberators, so I suspect AQ will generally be at greater risk in larger urban areas and forced to work in a traditional underground cellular in these areas for security.

FID encompasses a broad range of activities and actors, and if the scale of the AQ presence and activity in an urban areas is, the appropriate response is generally small scale security assistance composed mainly of personnel from intelligence, special operations, and contractors with speciality skills. This is often enough to enable the affected state to defeat/suppress this threat.