With recent developments in West and East Africa, there are reasons to suspect that the al-Qaida vision, so widely believed to be in retreat, may actually be undergoing a transition to a different entity as part of a larger-scale renaissance. If this is the case, the implications could be considerable....as a potent idea it may be undergoing a transition to a different entity.
Link:http://www.oxfordresearchgroup.org.u...3_potency_idea

The author is Professor Paul Rogers.