Agence France Presse April 04, 2007
Al-Qaeda spawns new leaders
By Jerome Bernard
Washington - New al-Qaeda leaders appear to be emerging in Pakistan near the Afghan border, casting doubt on the idea of a sustained weakening of the global terrorist network, US experts say.
"There is a sense that al-Qaeda is reconstituting sort of high-level operational leadership in Pakistan, particularly in the area near Afghanistan, certainly one of the best places for them because there is little (Pakistani) government there," said John Lumpkin, senior fellow at Globalsecurity.org.
According to an article this week in The New York Times, citing US intelligence and counter-terrorism authorities who spoke on condition of anonymity, the new al-Qaeda leaders have grown more important after the death or capture of the members of the network who had formed al-Qaeda before the September 11, 2001 attacks on the US.
"There are a number of new players who have advanced through the ranks as a result of the death or capture of key al-Qaeda senior-level managers," such as September 11 mastermind Khaled Sheikh Mohammed and the Indonesian suspect Hambali, Bruce Hoffman, a professor at Georgetown University, recently told the US house of representatives armed services subcommittee on terrorism.
US 'surprised'
Both Mohammed and Hambali are among the "war on terror" suspects being held at the US naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
The New York Times said the emergence of these new al-Qaeda leaders had surprised the US intelligence authorities, who became aware of them through communications intercepted in Pakistani tribal areas and interrogations of suspects accused of trying to blow up commercial aircraft between London and the United States last year.
The US intelligence community also concluded that an Egyptian paramilitary commander, Abu Ayyub al-Masri, a veteran of wars in Afghanistan, had orchestrated that attack.
According to the Times, other names are also surfacing, such as Khalid Habib, a Moroccan, and Abdul Hadi al-Iraqi, a Kurd who served in Saddam Hussein's army.
This new crop of leaders is believed to be mainly in their 30s, with years of combat experience in Afghanistan and Chechnya. Pakistanis and North Africans figure strongly among them, compared with the previous leadership which was mostly Egyptian.
© Copyright 2007, Agence France Presse
