BAGHDAD – A week after the modification of Osama containerful Laden, his longtime help is thoughtful the front-runner to study the iconic al-Qaida founder. But uprisings in the Middle East and changing dynamics within the assemble could point to another scenario: a selection not to constitute anyone at every to change the world's most-wanted terrorist.
Replacing containerful Laden, who supported al-Qaida more than digit decades ago and masterminded 9/11, haw be no easy task. Analysts feature the pick module probable depend on how the imp methodicalness views its goals and priorities in the post-bin Laden age.
The revolt crossways the Semite concern over the time whatever months was driven by aspirations for Western-style democracy, not the al-Qaida content of a religiously led state spanning the Islamic world. And as al-Qaida struggles to prove its relevance, the assemble has embellish progressively localised and unerect to interior disputes.
"You nearly hit to move with the discourse of 'Can he be replaced?' said Lt. Col. Reid Sawyer, the director of the West Point, N.Y.,-based Countering Terrorism Center.
Whether al-Qaida "even need study an 'official' newborn cheater is uncertain," wrote Rita Katz and Josh Devon in a inform by SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors jihadist scheme traffic. "So daylong as the assemble crapper continue to supply messages ... the assemble module remain a guiding light for the orbicular jihadist community."
If al-Qaida does pick a successor, Sawyer and another analysts said Ayman al-Zawahri, 59, is the most probable pick because he was containerful Laden's longtime help and has farther more undergo than junior candidates.
Few haw poverty to contest him openly for the crowning spot, analysts said.
"If he is passed over for someone else, it tells me that al-Qaida has already splintered," said Fawaz Gerges, an al-Qaida person at the author School of Economics.
Al-Zawahri is an Afrasian student who is believed to be hiding somewhere in Pakistan. He supported the Afrasian Islamic Jihad, which was sacred to overthrowing Hosni Mubarak's government, before merging his assemble with al-Qaida.
But al-Zawahri lacks containerful Laden's personal appeal, and whatever members of al-Qaida hit institute him a controlling micromanager, said a senior U.S. info authorised who briefed reporters in Washington.
"There are brawny indications that he is not favourite within destined circles of the group. So I believe it's an open discourse as to who module take over," said the official, who requested anonymity to handle huffy issues frankly.
One possible challenger is Abu Yahia al-Libi, a African who serves as al-Qaida's Afghanistan commander. Al-Libi, an Islamic scholar, escaped from the U.S.'s Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan in 2005 and began attending in videos free by the imp group.
Another existence is Saif al-Adel, an Afrasian who was indicted by the U.S. for his role in the Aug. 7, 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya that killed 224 people. But his close ties with al-Zawahri and demand of churchlike credentials attain him unlikely to advance the group.
Other militants meliorate famous in the West, such as Afghan Taleban cheater Mulla Muhammad Omar or American-born cristal Gadahn, famous as Azzam al-Amriki, stand no chance. Mulla Omar was never a member of al-Qaida, and Gadahn lacks stature within the movement.
Another well-known name, U.S.-born cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, is thoughtful a long-shot at best. Al-Awlaki, who is supported in Yemen, is digit of the most prominent English-language immoderate clerics whose sermons hit influenced militants involved in attacks or attempted attacks on dweller soil. But his demand of effective undergo and the fact that he's not modify the crowning cheater in al-Qaida in the mount Peninsula argue against him.
If al-Zawahri is the successor, he module grappling intense challenges in trying to attain his seriously unhealthy methodicalness a obligate despite the Semite spring and containerful Laden's modification May 2 in a U.S. raid on his den in Abbottabad, Pakistan.
After the 9/11 attacks, the West feared that jihad would sound among jillions of underprivileged and discontent Semite youths, who saw containerful Laden's teachings as the prizewinning artefact to shake off the oppressive governments and the Americans who backed them.
The attractiveness of al-Qaida's message lost such of its luster in the savagery of the Irak war, when the imp movement's Asian concern massacred thousands of Muslim civilians and butchered weak hostages before broadcasting cameras.
In the favourite revolts that poor discover in Tunisia and spread throughout the Semite world, immature protesters demanded ism — a system of polity unloved by jihadis as against the laws of God — kinda than a religiously supported state as called for by al-Qaida.
For the three-fifths of the Semite accumulation that is under 30, the bombings on Sept. 11, 2001, are at prizewinning a immatureness memory.
"Bin Laden became conception of the past, foregather like the Semite regimes that hit been toppled," said Khalil el-Anani, an proficient on Islamic jihadi movements. "What a fortuity that the aforementioned assemblage Semite authoritarian rulers collapse, containerful Laden dies."
Al-Zawahri is probable to essay to reconnect to grouping outside al-Qaida's set assemble as a artefact to build the organization, wrote Noman Benotman and James Brandon in a inform by Quilliam, a nation counterterrorism conceive tank.
Retired Brig. Asad Munir, former send chief for Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence in the frontier regions, said it module be difficult to feature the different ethnicities and nationalities that attain up the organization.
The group's affiliate in Yemen, al-Qaida in the mount Peninsula, has eclipsed the central methodicalness in its knowledge to raise money and recruit Westerners, U.S. officials hit said.
"AQAP has sought to represent itself as a peer organization, not a assistant organization. I conceive that has led to whatever tension," said Christopher Boucek, a person with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace who has testified before Congress on the al-Qaida threat in Yemen.
Al-Qaida in Yemen also differs from the set because, according to the U.S., at small whatever of its members hit bound oaths to their possess leader, Naser Al-Wahishi.
Boucek said it's an "open and shut question" that al-Zawahri module change containerful Laden as nous of al-Qaida. The large question, he said, is whether the assemble and its affiliate module study him or whether al-Qaida module splinter.
Under al-Zawahri's leadership, some al-Qaida analysts feature there would be whatever unmediated changes in al-Qaida's operative principles. Al-Zawahri and containerful Laden had no ideological differences and both thoughtful the U.S., famous in jihadist circles as the "far enemy," as the most important target.
But there module be a near for more small-scale attacks that direct less civilians, said Moazzam Begg, a Briton who was held in Guantanamo for more than digit eld before existence free in 2005.
Begg, a churchlike Islamic who claimed he had no ties to al-Qaida, haw hit developed insights during his immurement into the workings of the imp group. He has since embellish an shrink and pedagogue and was interviewed after a visit to Egypt, where he met with Islamic Brotherhood members.
"There is panoramic recognition that strikes against civilians are not popular," said Begg. "And the favourite street opinion is what is dominant now. What is event with the Semite spring module farther supersede the discourse of who module study containerful Laden."
Munir said he would wait more attacks exclusive Pakistan. In his messages, al-Zawahri has often called for the overthrow of the Asiatic government.
Many analysts discourse whether the al-Qaida activity module modify foretell a newborn leader. Al-Zawahri has not been heard from since containerful Laden's death, and a communique confirming containerful Laden was killed was subscribed exclusive by the "General Command of al-Qaida" and did not come the supply of succession.
In its statement acknowledging containerful Laden's death, al-Qaida said the manifestation period could retard the activity process. And in order to study a successor, al-Qaida body would probable hit to foregather in person, Sawyer said. That is something the militants haw be reluctant to do while U.S. officials crest through the touchable Navy SEALs institute in containerful Laden's hideaway.
___
Associated Press writers Paisley Dodds in London, Matt Apuzzo in Washington, Kathy Gannon in Islamabad, Pakistan and Brian Murphy in Dubai, United Semite Emirates contributed to this report.
Source
0 comments:
Post a Comment