Zawahri takes over as al-Qaida leader

VETERAN militant Ayman al-Zawahri has taken command of al-Qaida after the killing of Osama bin Laden, an Islamist website said, a move widely expected following his long years as second-in-command.

Bin Laden’s lieutenant and the brains behind much of al-Qaida’s strategy, Zawahri vowed this month to press ahead with al-Qaida’s campaign against the United States and its allies.

“The general leadership of al-Qaida group, after the completion of consultation, announces that Sheikh Dr Ayman Zawahri, may God give him success, has assumed responsibility for command of the group,” the Islamist website Ansar al-Mujahideen (Followers of the Holy Warriors) said in a statement.

The bespectacled Zawahri had been seen as bin Laden’s most likely successor after the man held responsible for the September 11, 2001 attacks in New York and Washington was shot dead by US commandos in Pakistan.

His whereabouts are unknown, although he has long been thought to be hiding along the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan. The United States is offering a $25 million reward for any information leading to his capture or conviction.

Former US intelligence officer Robert Ayers said Zawahri was “a man lacking in charisma, a pale shadow of bin Laden.”

“He’s a grey bureaucrat, not a leader who can energise and rally the troops. The only thing his promotion will accomplish is to elevate his priority as a target for the US.”

Sajjan Gohel of Asia-Pacific Foundation security consultants said Zawahri had been in practical charge of al-Qaida for many years, but lacked bin Laden’s presence and his “ability to unite the different Arab factions within the group.”

Fawaz Gerges, a Middle East expert at the London School of Economics, said al-Qaida’s militants in south Asia were “on the run,” its leaders were deep in hiding, and a new leader would do little to help it reverse their fortunes.

As for its branches in other parts of the world, they were “pitted in a fierce local struggle for survival...and are unable to coordinate their actions with the parent organisation.”

Henry Wilkinson of Janusian consultants said “Al-Qaida’s main achievement has been to have survived,” he said.

Others see in Zawahri a more accomplished figure.

Journalist Abdel-Bari Atwan, who interviewed bin Laden in 1996, said Zawahri was the “operational brains” behind al-Qaida and was respected because he had been bin Laden’s chosen deputy.

Reuters