Experts point to Egyptian Saif Al Adel as Al-Zawahiri’s successor to finish piloting the process that will lead the organization to become a global network
After a decade in absolute secrecy, hidden somewhere in the mountains between Afghanistan and Pakistan, a drone missile killed 71-year-old Ayman al-Zawahiri in a luxurious villa in central Kabul. The leader of Al-Qaida (AQ) lived there with his family and as a guest of the Haqqani network, the Taliban faction in charge of security in Kabul and also the one responsible for the bloodiest attacks during the 20 years of US military presence.
When Barack Obama announced to the world the death of Osama Bin Laden after the operation in the Pakistani town of Abbottabad in 2011, there was no doubt about the person who would pick up the Saudi’s witness. All eyes pointed to a much less charismatic Al-Zawahiri, but with stripes within the organization due to his role as founder and ideologue. The Al-Qaida Central shura (decision-making body) appointed this Egyptian doctor who was then 60 years old and since then his leadership has been unquestioned. His mandate has been marked by the emergence of the Islamic State (IS) jihadist group, which established a caliphate between Syria and Iraq and eclipsed AQ as a global threat for a few years. This irruption, however, has not ended the ideological weight that AQ has.
Al-Zawahiri has also been one of the promoters of the redesign of the organization that Bin Laden set in motion before his death and which consists of going from being a centralized and hierarchical apparatus to a decentralized global network with franchises such as Al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) or Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) or groups that have sworn their allegiance from Somalia, Syria or the Indian subcontinent. A strategy to globalize the brand and escape from the iron marking of unmanned aircraft from the United States.
With Bin Laden and Al-Zawahiri out of action, the organization has lost its two most important figures and “a turning point” is coming, according to Sergio Altuna, a researcher at the Elcano Royal Institute. All the experts point to the Egyptian Saif Al Adel as one of the candidates to occupy a position that is key because “AQ Central continues to be the ideological matrix, the one that gives meaning to the ideology of global jihadism,” recalls Altuna, who considers that “possibly we are facing a generational change that demands part of the militancy.”
Adel, who is between 59 and 62 years old, has been under the protection of the Islamic Republic in Tehran for years, a point that does not play in his favor in the face of the organization’s followers. Charles Lister, an expert on terrorism from the Middle East Institute, reflected on his Twitter channel on the succession crisis and described the possible election of Adel as a “death sentence” for AQ’s aspirations as a global organization since the franchises have not hidden their mistrust of a figure based on the great Shia power in the region, the opposite sect of Islam.
franchise loyalty
The succession at the head of the organization also opens the doors for the chosen person to arrive from one of the regional franchises. Altuna does not think that this is going to be the chosen option since “the fundamental element that forms the backbone of the jihadist movement is its ideology and the main contributions to it after the globalization of the phenomenon come from the matrix and from the ideologues directly or indirectly related to Altuna. -Central Qaida, not with its franchises.
The Taliban broadly condemned the US operation in Kabul, without mentioning Al-Zawahiri. Bin Laden’s successor did not hesitate to swear allegiance to Hibatullah Ajunzada when he took charge of the Taliban movement in 2016 and we will have to see what happens now after the US operation that has revealed what was an open secret, that the Taliban continue giving shelter to important elements of AQ. The first US attack on Kabul since the withdrawal of its troops has killed what was considered the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, but his ideological legacy remains and global jihadism will soon have a new face.
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