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Shortly before leaving the Capitol following President Obama's inauguration Monday, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta was asked about an al-Qaida affiliate's recent attack on an Algerian gas plant in which three Americans workers were among the 37 dead.

"I'm glad we were able to get some rescued," Panetta said. "That just tells us al-Qaida is committed to creating terror wherever they are, and we've got to fight back."

As U.S. forces have largely left Iraq and plan a withdrawal from Afghanistan, intelligence experts see a global threat emerging on a continent that has frustrated foreign forces for much of the past century and provided the world's bad actors a refuge from international justice.

Indeed, less than two years after the death of Osama bin Laden, recent...