The Al Qaeda movement has transformed in recent years: some of the strategic objectives of the original, or core, organization have remained consistent while the views and goals of new affiliates, leaders, and recruits have evolved and become more diverse. Osama Bin Laden's Al Qaeda and the affiliated organizations that ascribe their actions to his violence-based philosophy continue to desire to attack the United States and its global interests. In a June 2010 speech, the Principal Deputy Coordinator for Counterterrorism for the Department of State stated that "while (core) Al Qaeda is now struggling in some areas the threat it poses is becoming more widely distributed, more geographically diverse. The rise of affiliated groups such as Al Qaeda the Arabian Peninsula and Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb is a new and important development and is also a troubling development." In addressing threats to global security interests before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee in September 2010, the U.S. intelligence community assessed that "the range of Al Qaeda's core, affiliated, allied, and inspired U.S. citizens and residents plotting against the homeland during the past year suggests the threat against the West has become more complex and underscores the challenges of identifying and countering a more diverse array of homeland plotting." Due in large part to the actions of the U.S. government, core Al Qaeda, reportedly located in Pakistan, is under tremendous pressure. U.S. and coalition forces' military and intelligence operations appear to have degraded the core's capacity for conducting large catastrophic operations similar to the attacks of September 11, 2001. The core organization's apparent inability to commit large-scale attacks in recent years has led some analysts to question the relevancy, capabilities, and competency of the group. However, during the 2010 Annual Threat Assessment hearing in front of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Dennis C. Blair, Director of National Intelligence (DNI), observed that while "important progress has been made against the threat to the U.S. homeland over the past few years, I cannot reassure you that the danger is gone. We face a persistent terrorist threat from Al Qaeda and potentially others who share its anti-Western ideology. A major terrorist attack may emanate from either outside or inside the United States." In addressing how the U.S. might assess whether the organization remains a viable entity the DNI further stated, "until counterterrorism pressure on Al Qaeda's place of refuge, key lieutenants, and operative cadre outpaces the group's ability to recover, Al Qaeda will retain its capability to mount an attack." While pressure from the international community on core Al Qaeda appears to have limited the group's ability to undertake a catastrophic terrorist attack on U.S. interests, many terrorist groups and cells located throughout the world are affiliating their actions with the organization. Al Qaeda continues to attract potential recruits and possess an ability to influence and support global organizations with similar goals and philosophical objectives. The often-termed jihadi movement has increasingly become an issue of concern for senior members of the U.S. national security community. During the 2010 Annual Threat Assessment hearing DNI Blair noted the following: Al Qaeda will continue its efforts to encourage key regional affiliates and jihadist networks to pursue a global agenda. A few Al Qaeda regional affiliates and jihadist networks have exhibited an intent or capability to attack inside the homeland. Some regional nodes and allies have grown in strength and independence over the last two years and have begun to project operationally outside their regions. Though Al Qaeda affiliated entities have attempted numerous deadly terrorist attacks in recent years, some analysts view these operations as evidence of desperation signifying that the core organization and its affiliates are no longer capable of launching a large-scale catastrophic terrorist attack directed at U.S. interests. These analysts suggest that recent attempted acts are an acknowledgment that the destructive capabilities of corporate Al Qaeda and those individuals with similar philosophical goals are actually on the decline and are indicative of an organization desperate to prove its continued viability. Others, however, suggest that this recent trend may be indicative of an organization becoming more selective and sophisticated in the operations it pursues and adopting a model of encouraging affiliates and sympathizers to undertake smaller-scale acts to divert international attention and resources away from planning and preparations for larger, more catastrophic, attacks. Recognition of a more resilient enemy may have been enunciated in a September 22, 2010, statement by the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs: the level of cooperation among Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups has changed in the past year suggesting that this collaboration and resulting threat to the homeland will increase. By sharing financial resources, training, tactical and operations expertise, and recruits, these groups have been able to withstand significant counterterrorism pressure from the United States, coalition, and local government forces. Similarly, in acknowledging the government's challenge of transitioning from an almost exclusive focus on core Al Qaeda to also attempting to assess the capabilities of numerous smaller groups that are more opaque, the Secretary of Homeland Security stated "the terrorist threat changes quickly and we have observed important changes in the threat even since this Committee convened a similar hearing last year. The threat is evolving in several ways that make it more difficult for law enforcement or the intelligence community to detect and disrupt plots." Notwithstanding the challenges associated with continuing to limit core Al Qaeda's planning and destructive capabilities while also attempting to thwart potential attacks by lesser-known affiliated entities, some in the counterterrorism community suggest that the organization and the philosophical following it has spawned are significantly degraded. A December 2010 report issued by West Point's Combating Terrorism Center noted the following: More than twenty years after its creation, Al Qaeda shows clear signs of decline. The group has lost many of its key operational leaders to arrest or assassination; a number of Al Qaeda franchises—including in Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Algeria—have been substantially weakened or defeated; and a host of ideological challenges, including recantations from prominent jihadis themselves, have compelled Al Qaeda to spend valuable time defending its reputation and actions. These setbacks and others suggest that Al Qaeda is not any closer to achieving its long-term goals than it was on 10 September 2001. Likewise, others in the national security community have offered observations that help explain why Al Qaeda may be an organization on the decline and possibly in jeopardy of losing its appeal to potential followers. According to the non-governmental Bipartisan Policy Center four key strategic issues are contributing to the demise of Al Qaeda: indiscriminate killing of Muslims, the lack of a political movement to represent the organization's interests, an ever-growing list of enemies, and the lack of a desirable vision that sustains interest in the group and its ideology (see " Al Qaeda's Global Strategy and Implications for U.S. Policy " below). Given recent discussions regarding the potential demise of Al Qaeda, some counterterrorism observers suggest that such assessments may be premature. In an article published in the December 2010 edition of Studies in Conflict and Terrorism , the authors argue that the organization's infrastructure and ideology are resilient and have the ability to endure external pressures from the international security community. The authors find that "although in recent years Al Qaeda has adopted more ideological and inspirational characteristics, it still exists as a group, and possesses, first and foremost, operational characteristics of guerilla and terrorist organization." The primary founder of Al Qaeda, Osama Bin Laden, was born in July 1957, the 17 th of 20 sons of a Saudi construction magnate of Yemeni origin. Most Saudis are conservative Sunni Muslims, and Bin Laden, conservative from a young age, appears to have adopted militant Islamist views while studying at King Abdul Aziz University in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. There he attended lectures by Muhammad Qutb, brother of Sayyid Qutb, the key ideologue of a major Sunni Islamist movement, the Muslim Brotherhood. Another of Bin Laden's inspirations was Abdullah al Azzam, a major figure in the Jordanian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood. Azzam is identified by some experts as the intellectual architect of the jihad against the 1979-1989 Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, and ultimately of Al Qaeda itself; he cast the Soviet invasion as an attempted conquest by a non-Muslim power of sacred Muslim territory and people. Bin Laden made his first visit to Afghanistan a few years after the December 1979 Soviet invasion, and then relocated to areas of Pakistan near the border with Afghanistan by 1986. He reportedly used some of his personal funds to establish himself as a donor to the Afghan mujahedin and a recruiter of Arab and other Islamic volunteers for the war. In 1984, Azzam and bin Laden structured this assistance by establishing a network of recruiting and fund-raising offices in the Arab world, Europe, and the United States. That network was called the Maktab al Khidamat (Services Office), also known as Al Khifah ; many experts consider the Maktab to be the organizational forerunner of Al Qaeda. Another major figure who utilized the Maktab network to recruit for the anti-Soviet jihad was Umar Abd al Rahman (also known as "the blind shaykh"), the spiritual leader of radical Egyptian Islamist group Al Jihad. Bin Laden apparently also made occasional forays across the border into Afghanistan during the anti-Soviet war; he reportedly participated in a 1986 battle in Jalalabad and an April 1987 frontal assault by foreign volunteers against Afghan forces equipped with Soviet armor. According to some experts, Bin Laden has said he was exposed to a Soviet chemical attack and slightly injured in the latter battle. During this period, most U.S. officials perceived the volunteers as positive contributors to the effort to expel Soviet forces from Afghanistan, and U.S. officials made no apparent effort to stop the recruitment of the non-Afghan volunteers for the war. U.S. officials have repeatedly denied that the United States directly supported the non-Afghan volunteers.