Who will succeed Osama bin Laden as the leader of al-Qaeda? I used to assume that the successor would no doubt be Ayman al-Zawahiri, who held the title of the ‘Number Two Man' in the terrorist group for two decades. However, I have been reading analyses and commentary by ‘experts' on terrorism, including Americans who closely follow al-Qaeda's activities. These experts did not rule out that al-Zawahiri may indeed become al-Qaeda's leader, but they also nominated others for this post. Of course, there is the possibility that al-Qaeda may not choose a successor for bin Laden in the near future, because meeting will be difficult, and because the known leaders are being hunted. After the killing of bin Laden on May 2nd, al-Zawahiri has become the number one wanted man. The other leaders will no doubt become more vigilant, and may disappear from sight for a long time after seeing the Obama administration's determination to pursue them. Maybe bin Laden has gone at the right time. His shelf life had expired, and the revolutions of Arab youths have proven that it is possible to induce change through peaceful means, without violence. While I absolutely condemn violence, and oppose suicide bombings unless they target Israeli soldiers- not civilians-, I nevertheless notice that the reasons cited by bin Laden for declaring war in 1998 were correct, especially the embargo on Iraq which led to the death of hundreds of thousands of children as a result of disease and malnutrition, and also the Israeli occupation which is getting American political, economic and military support. The third reason was American military presence in Saudi Arabia. In truth, bin Laden started out armed with nothing but this position, following his holy war against the Soviets in Afghanistan. However, when al-Zawahiri joined him near the end of the eighties, this gave al-Qaeda an Arab and international extension that goes beyond the Arabian Peninsula. Al-Zawahiri is a doctor and a professional terrorist. His group, the Islamic Jihad, committed various crimes against Egyptians and foreigners in Egypt before he fled to join al-Qaeda. We at Al-Hayat had a run-in with him, when I and the Editor in Chief were prevented from publishing an interview that I had requested with him, after I found out that he was accusing Mrs. Suzanne Mubarak and her son Gamal Mubarak of trading in missiles in Africa (the Mubarak family has been accused of many thing since the regime collapsed but this is not one of them). He also justified, on religious grounds, the killing of foreign tourists, including Greek pensioners, the youngest of whom was in his seventies, and yet al-Zawahiri claimed that they came to Egypt to spread debauchery and AIDS. Al-Zawahiri attacked us for not allowing to run his interview and I responded to him violently. We then received a few dozen mail bombs sent from Alexandria to Al-Hayat's offices in New York, Washington and elsewhere, near the beginning of 1997, but only one exploded in London, injuring two guards. I now read that al-Zawahiri had separated from bin Laden around six years so, i.e. when the leader of al-Qaeda moved to the house he was killed in. However, I believe there was a division of roles, and that it was al-Zawahiri who led the terrorist operations. He is much smarter than bin Laden was, and he deals directly with the terrorist leaders in the Arab countries and the world. Abu Bakr al-Husseini al-Baghdadi, the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, expressed his condolences through a website of the Islamic State of Iraq to the leaders of al-Qaeda, ‘led' by Ayman al-Zawahiri, for the death of bin Laden. He thus appeared as if he was nominating al-Zawahiri for the leadership of al-Qaeda, even when al-Baghdadi himself is a candidate, because of his skills in the field. The ability to plan and execute is also behind the possible nomination of Abu Yahya al-Libi, who escaped from the U.S. Bagram base in Afghanistan in 2005, and is leading operations against the Americans there, and also the name of Saif al-Adl, an Egyptian accused in the bombing of the U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya, where 224 people were killed in 1998. However, al-Libi is in a better position, because in addition to his terrorist activities, he is considered a religious scholar with deep knowledge. There is also Anwar al-Awlaki, who was born in the United States. While he has no field experience, he is notorious for his rhetorical abilities, in both Arabic and English; there is also and also Nasir al-Wuhayshi, who escaped from a prison in Yemen in 2005 to become the leader of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. I do not rule out any of these names, but I do still believe it most likely that Ayman al-Zawahiri will become the leader of al-Qaeda. [email protected]
