WASHINGTON (AFP0- Saif al-Adel, an Iran-based Egyptian, has become the head of Al-Qaeda following the July 2022 death of Ayman al-Zawahiri, the US State Department said Wednesday.
“Our assessment aligns with that of the UN – that al-Qaeda’s new de facto leader Saif al-Adel is based in Iran,” a state department spokesperson said.
The United Nations report released Tuesday said that the predominant view of member states is that Adel is now the group’s leader, “representing continuity for now.”
But the group has not formally declared him “emir” because of sensitivity to the concerns of the Taliban authorities in Afghanistan, who haven’t wanted to acknowledge that Zawahiri was killed by a US rocket in a home in Kabul last year, according to the UN report.
In addition, the UN report said, the Sunni Islamist Al-Qaeda is sensitive to the issue of Adel residing in largely Shiite Iran.
“His location raises questions that have a bearing on Al-Qaeda’s ambitions to assert leadership of a global movement in the face of challenges from ISIL,” the UN report said, referring to another name for the rival Islamic State group. Adele, 62, is a former lieutenant colonel in the Egyptian Special Forces and a former Al Qaeda Guardsman.
According to the US Counter Extremism Project, he helped build the group’s operational capabilities and trained some of the hijackers involved in the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.
He has been in Iran since his 2002 or his 2003, initially under house arrest but later free to travel to Pakistan, said the former FBI counterterrorism agent. says Ali Soufan.
“Saifu is one of the most experienced professional soldiers in the global jihad movement, and his body bears the scars of battle,” Sufan said in a 2021 edition of the CTC Journal at the West Point Center for Combat Terrorism. I wrote it in the article.
“When he acts, he acts relentlessly and efficiently,” he said. (AFP)
