Within a fortnight of the death of Osama bin Laden, news came of the appointment of a senior al Qaeda leader, Saif Al-'Adl, as the interim chief, indicating clearly an internal tussle for the leadership of the global terrorist group, raising, in the process, questions about the clout Laden's second-in-command, Dr Ayman al-Zawahari, has on the group.
A former Egyptian Special Forces soldier, Saif, aged about 50, is wanted in connection with the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in the capitals of Kenya and Tanzania. He joined the ranks of al Qaeda sometime in the early 90s after he left Egypt in 1981 and joined the ranks of mujahideen in Afghanistan. He quickly rose up the ladder and became one of the top commanders of al Qaeda and a confidant of Osama bin Laden. He was in Afghanistan when the WTC attack took place and escaped to Iran when the US began bombing the al Qaeda and Taliban hideouts. He returned to Pakistan in October 2010 and was spotted in North Waziristan. According to a Pakistani newspaper, The News, Saif was released by the Iranian authorities in exchange for an Iranian diplomat, Heshmatollah Attarzadeh, kidnapped by the Pakistani Taliban from Peshawar in 2008. Ayman al-Zawahari asked Saif to take over as the military commander and base himself in North Waziristan. Saif works with another al Qaeda commander, Illyas Kashmiri, a former Pakistan Special Forces soldier who had freelanced with terrorists groups like Harkat-ul Jihad al-Islami (HuJI) and Lashkar-e-Tayyeba (LeT).
Saif has been actively involved in several al Qaeda operations and activities but has kept a low profile till now. His orientation and agenda could only be known through two series of articles he published on Mafa Al-Siasi, a website run by his father-in-law, Mustafa Hamid, also known as Abu Al-Walid Al-Masri. In these articles, he admitted mistakes committed by al Qaeda but believed that jihad was the only way to establish Islamic superiority over the world. He propagated an all-out war with the US and referred al Qaeda as a `vanguard of Islam` which, he claimed, had been successful in bringing the West to its knees. He credited al Qaeda with exposing the true nature of Arab and other Muslim leaders who were now faced with a strong public anger.
Saif's name came up in the newspapers for the first time in 2002 in the assassination of American journalist Daniel Pearl in Karachi. Saif had asked another senior al Qaeda commander, Khalid Mohammad Sheikh, living in Karachi, to handle the Pearl case. Sheikh told his interrogators that it was Saif who plotted the `shoe bombing` conspiracy—Richard Reid had strapped explosives in his shoes to blow up a trans-Atlantic airliner in December 2001. Pearl wanted to investigate Reid's journey through Pakistan and investigate the transnational terrorist networks and the support it had from the state agencies. Saif was not in favour of killing Pearl but Khalid Sheikh chose to do so on the advice of another al Qaeda leader, Sharif al-Masri.
According to The News, Saif has constituted a three-member special operations council to carry out specific terror attacks to re-inforce al Qaeda's presence and capability. Besides Saif, the other two Council members are Illyas Kashmiri and Adnan Gulshair el Shukrijumah. Shukrijumah is a Saudi who grew up in the US and today lives in the tribal areas of Pakistan. The decision was taken at a meeting of the council on May 10. Other decisions include the appointment of. Mohammed Adam Khan Al-Afghani as the operational chief of al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and Waziristan and Abdul Shakoor Turkistani, the chief of the Turkistan Islamic Party, as the chief of the group's operations in Pakistan.
The views expressed above belong to the author(s). ORF research and analyses now available on Telegram! Click here to access our curated content — blogs, longforms and interviews.
PREV
