CAIRO, Sept. 6 (UPI) -- Al-Qaida may struggle to gain a foothold in the Arab world after public demonstrations, not holy war, brought about regional change, analysts say.
Relatively peaceful demonstrations brought down the governments of Tunisia and Egypt earlier this year. Those gave way to the so-called Arab Spring, a surge of political frustration that still threatens the governments of Syria and Yemen.
Ashraf al-Sherif, a political science lecturer at the American University in Cairo, said, however, that al-Qaida won't gain a foothold in the Middle East, Egyptian newspaper Al-Masry Al-Youm reports.
Al-Qaida suffered a major blow in May when U.S. forces killed its leader, Osama bin Laden, in Pakistan. There's been little word from Ayman al-Zawahiri, meanwhile, the Egyptian who took over after bin Laden's death.
Diaa Rashwan, the head of al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies in Egypt, told the newspaper al-Qaida as an organization is crumbling, adding Zawahiri doesn't have any operational control over the various cells emerging in the region.
A group said to be affiliated with al-Qaida claimed responsibility for an Aug. 18 attack on Israeli targets in the border town of Eilat. The attack added to concerns that Egypt after the revolution is having problems with security in the country. Sherif, however, said that's unlikely.
