The future of Al Qaeda

Al Qaeda is said to have been weakened globally by the death of its leader Osama bin Laden last year, but analysts say it is not clear if it makes it less deadly or more.

"It has become desperate," says Air Vice Marshall (r) Shahid Khan, a defence analyst. "Its organizational structure has weakened, and it feels vulnerable."

Because of this desperation, especially after the Arab Spring that is being seen as an ideological defeat for Al Qaeda in the Muslim world, the world's top terror network may reorient its operations and ideology and continue to carry out major terrorist attacks, according to former US counterterrorism official Carl Adams.

Al Qaeda is in a new phase, with a new leadership and a new strategy. The consequences of that strategy are yet to be seen.

The leadership

Dr Ayman al-Zawahiri

After Osama bin Laden's death on May 2 last year, Dr Ayman al-Zawahiri became the leader of the organization on June 16, 2011. He had been the ideological head of what is now known as the Egyptian Group within the Al Qaeda network. He has a Master's degree in surgery from Cairo University and was a leader of the Islamic Jihad group in Afghanistan in the 1980s. He became Osama's deputy after he merged Islamic Jihad with Al Qaeda in 1998.

Zawahiri has admitted in his book to have orchestrated the first suicide bombing in Pakistan in 1995. The target was the Egyptian embassy in Islamabad.

Zwahiri was last seen, according to US intelligence reports, in Pakistan's Mohmand Agency. The Americans believe he resides in North Waziristan and operates with the Haqqanis. He has shown strong-arm tactics forging alliances with Pakistan's sectarian and jihadi organizations to attack targets in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Abu Yahya al-Libi

A Libyan citizen who speaks fluent Pashtu, Urdu and English, Abu Yahya al-Libi is the second most senior leader of Al Qaeda. He is the ideological and spiritual leader of Al Qaeda members fighting around the world, and heads the network's Sharia and Political Committee.

Jarret Brachman, a former analyst for the CIA, says the following about Libi: "He's a warrior. He's a poet. He's a scholar. He's a pundit. He's a military commander. And he's a very charismatic, young, brash rising star within Al Qaeda, and I think he has become the heir apparent to Osama bin Laden in terms of taking over the entire global jihadist movement."

Saif al-Adl

Saif al-Adl is a former Egyptian Army Special Forces Officer who came to Afghanistan and has trained most of the key fighters of Al Qaeda and Afghan groups in weapons and military strategy.

He is the head of Al Qaeda's military committee and wrote one of the most read jihadist manuals, The Base of the Vanguard. He still trains most of the fighters of Al Qaeda and its affiliate groups in military combat.

According to Pakistan's ISI, Adl has trained the terrorists who attacked the PNS Mehran navy base in Karachi in 2011. Intelligence reports say he moves between North Waziristan and South Waziristan.

Adam Gadahn

An American convert from Pennsylvania who was falsely reported to have been arrested in Karachi, Gadahn is the global face of Al Qaeda influencing English speaking people around the world as Al Qaeda's chief spokesman and the head of its Information Committee. In his sermons, he urges Americans to stand up against their government.

In 2010, he released a video in which he offered Al Qaeda's 'peace plan'. Al Qaeda offered a truce in that video, if the US withdrew its troops from Muslim countries and stopped supporting Israel.

Other members of Al Qaeda's core council include: Khalib al-Habib (Egyptian), Adnan al Shukrijumah (Saudi), Atiyah Abd al-Rahman (Libyan), Hamza al-Jawfi (Saudi/Egyptian), Matiur Rehman (Pakistani), Nasser Abdul Karim al-Wahaysi (Saudi), Abu Mossab Abdelwadoud (Algerian), Fahd Mohammad Ahmed al-Quso (Yemeni) and Midhat Mursi (Egyptian).

A new strategy

After the death of Osama bin Laden last year and the killing of a large number of key operatives in US drone attacks in Pakistan, Al Qaeda has shifted its attention from South and Central Asia to Somalia and Yemen.

It has "outsourced most of its operations to various militant groups in Pakistan and Afghanistan", according to Art Keller, a former CIA official who had worked with the ISI to find Al Qaeda operatives in FATA.

In Somalia, Al Qaeda operates through Al Shabab, while in Yemen, militant organization Ansar al-Sharia works with Al Qaeda to fight a war to overthrow the Yemeni government.

In Pakistan, Al Qaeda has also found reliable partners in the Haqqani Network. Badruddin Haqqani, Nasiruddin Haqqani and Khalil al Rahman Haqqani serve as deputies of Sirajuddin and Jalaluddin Haqqani and organize attacks on major targets in Afghanistan.

Ties between Al Qaeda and TTP have worsened over the last few years. "In fact, Al Qaeda in Pakistan has found new friends in the Punjabi Taliban, through the Pakistani Al Qaeda leader Matiur Rehman," an American intelligence official said.

Documents seized from bin Laden's compound and recently declassified by the US government show the Al Qaeda leadership was not happy with Hakeemullah Mehsud's leadership style and had asked him to focus his energies on Afghanistan rather than Pakistan.

"We have several important comments that cover the concept, approach, and behavior of the TTP in Pakistan, which we believe are passive behavior and clear legal and religious mistakes which might result in a negative deviation from the set path of the Jihadi Movement in Pakistan, which also are contrary to the objectives of Jihad and to the efforts exerted by us," Osama bin Laden said in a letter. He said the killing of Muslims and using people as human shields were part of these "mistakes".

Eventually, in late 2011, four major Taliban groups in Pakistan formed the Shura-e-Murakeba - after a deal was negotiated by Abu Yahya al-Libi, Sirajuddin Haqqani, Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Mansour, an Al Qaeda's Abdur Rehman Al Saudi - and decided to fight the US and other forces in Afghanistan.

The future of Al Qaeda:

"Where Al Qaeda goes from here is hard to determine," says Carl Adams. "Although they are not as powerful as they used to be, Al Qaeda is neither resting nor going away anytime soon. It is desperate for a big breakthrough, and that makes it an unguided missile: formidable, disorderly, and injurious - even if sometimes crashing short of the intended targets."

http://www.thefridaytimes.com/beta3/...0120511&page=6