Pakistan’s The News reported yesterday that al–Qaeda has named Saif al-Adel interim Emir until the Shura Majlis can meet to officially name the successor to Osama bin Laden. Bin Laden was killed in early May and the Shura council has been unable to meet in one location to discuss the future of the group. It has been widely expected that Ayman al–Zawahiri would take bin Laden’s place, but he is not well liked by many in the organization. Saif al-Adel, while being very close to al–Zawahiri, has plenty of operational experience and has run operations from Iran. Adel returned to Pakistan some time last year so it is likely that he has had time to reintegrate into the operations in Afghanistan and Pakistan.