AMU Intelligence Terrorism

Al-Zawahiri Finally Confirmed as Al-Qaeda Head

By William Tucker

According to As-Sahab, al-Qaeda’s media wing, Ayman al-Zawahiri has been given command of the terror group by the Shura Majlis. The confirmation of al-Zawahiri as emir took time because the U.S. drone war has put such a high strain on members of the Shura council that they could easily meet. Now that al-Zawahiri is in command he is faced with a different landscape from which to operate and must make changes to al-Qaeda if the group is to remain relevant. In this vein conventional wisdom holds that al-Qaeda must launch some sort of attack against the west if al-Zawahiri is to firmly establish his credibility as emir. This is not necessarily the case.

Al-Qaeda’s most publicized operations have always been its spectacular terrorist attacks such as the 9/11 attacks, the African Embassy bombings and the 2002 Bali bombing. By referring to al-Qaeda as simply a terrorist group we tend to forget that the organizations real strength is its ability to wage insurgent warfare. In the Afghanistan/Pakistan Theater al-Qaeda has managed to keep the U.S. and Pakistani militaries busy for nearly ten years. Other insurgencies in Iraq, Northern Africa, Somalia, Yemen, and Indonesia, just to name a few, are still ongoing wars. After the Islamic State of Iraq came under terrific strain many trained fighters fled to Africa. If anything needs al-Zawahiri’s attention in the short term it will be getting the right people in the right places to better support existing insurgencies. This includes these veterans of the Iraq insurgency.

However, from the perspective of the U.S. and its allies in the war on terror al-Zawahiri has earned another title in addition to Emir – High Value Target One.

CNN: Al-Qaeda Names New Leader

Comments are closed.