Asia | Ayman cornered

The death of al-Qaeda’s leader may not halt a jihadist resurgence

The group and its affiliates will march on, even without Ayman al-Zawahiri

1998, Kandahar, Afghanistan: Osama Bin Laden's deputy Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri On May 1, 2011, President Barack is scheduled to announce that Ossama Bin Laden was killed in Pakistan.. Credit: Hamid Mir / Polaris / eyevineFor further information please contact eyevinetel: +44 (0) 20 8709 8709e-mail: info@eyevine.comwww.eyevine.com
|DUBAI AND WASHINGTON, DC

AYMAN AL-ZAWAHIRI died many times in the decades that he tormented America as chief organiser and ideologue of al-Qaeda, the group that hijacked four airliners and flew them into buildings in New York and Washington on September 11th 2001. Every time he was reported dead—killed by an air strike or disease—he reappeared in a video or audio recording. On August 1st President Joe Biden announced that America’s long hunt for Mr Zawahiri had succeeded. In the early hours of July 31st in central Kabul, a CIA drone fired two Hellfire missiles, killing him as he stood on the balcony of a safe house.

“This terrorist leader is no more. People around the world no longer need to fear the vicious and determined killer,” declared Mr Biden in a televised address from the White House, where he was isolating after a relapse of covid-19. He added: “We make it clear again tonight that no matter how long it takes, no matter where you hide—if you are a threat to our people, the United States will find you and take you out.”

Fond of white headgear and a Kalashnikov, his forehead marked by a zabiba (a callus of ultra-devout prayerful Muslims), Mr Zawahiri was one of the most recognisable figures in the global jihadist movement—second only to Osama bin Laden, al-Qaeda’s co-founder and figurehead, who was killed by an American SEAL team in Pakistan in 2011.

The operation to kill Mr Zawahiri was nothing like as daring as the raid to kill bin Laden in Pakistan. But the fact that it took place in Afghanistan, almost exactly a year after America’s chaotic military withdrawal from the country, helps to assuage some of Mr Biden’s humiliation. More important, it suggests that he can live up to his promise to keep conducting “over-the-horizon” counter-terrorist operations, even without a military presence on the ground. Afghanistan, the president said, “can’t be a launching pad against the United States. We’re going to see to it that won’t happen.”

America has carried out similar operations in Syria against Islamic State (IS), an offshoot of al-Qaeda, in recent months. In February it raided the home of Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi, the group’s leader, in the country’s north-west. He detonated a bomb and killed himself. Five months later an American drone strike killed Maher al-Agal, who worked on the group’s overseas operations, in the same region.

A senior American official said Mr Zawahiri had moved to Afghanistan this year and found refuge in a safe house provided by the Haqqani network, a militant group with links to both al-Qaeda and Pakistan’s powerful ISI spy agency. Its leader, Sirajuddin Haqqani, is the Taliban’s acting interior minister.

Mr Zawahiri’s presence in Kabul had been detected months ago by “multiple streams of intelligence”, the official said. Models of the safe house were created and information about its construction obtained. Mr Biden was briefed repeatedly on the quality of the intelligence, the risk of killing civilians and the repercussions for relations with the Taliban—not least the prospects of bringing out more Afghan relatives of Americans and the safety of an American civil engineer, Mark Frerichs, who was abducted in 2020. Mr Biden gave his final approval on July 25th, the official said, and the CIA took the shot when the opportunity presented itself. The White House expressed “high confidence” that only Mr Zawahiri was killed; family members inside were unharmed.

The Taliban issued a statement condemning the strike, saying “repeating such actions will damage the available opportunities”. That suggests that the government is ready to keep talking to America, which has not recognised it and has impounded Afghan government reserves.

Many experts have debated the importance of al-Qaeda in an ever-changing jihadist network, and the role of Mr Zawahiri himself. But for Mr Biden he remained “the most wanted terrorist in the world”. According to the senior official, “Zawahiri was the Emir of al-Qaeda…He provided strategic direction, continually urging attacks on the United States and reinforcing the prioritisation of the United States as al-Qaeda’s primary enemy.”

With the return of the Taliban to power in Afghanistan, where they once sheltered al-Qaeda, Western military and counter-terrorism officials have debated how fast global jihadist groups would regroup in the country, and pose a threat internationally. General Mark Milley, chairman of America’s joint chiefs of staff, reckoned it could take between six and 36 months. Bill Burns, the head of the CIA, told lawmakers last April that America’s ability to gather intelligence and to strike targets would inevitably diminish. Mr Zawahiri’s presence in Kabul suggests they have good reason to worry, and to be sceptical of Taliban promises not to give haven to global terrorists.

Base instinct

Mr Zawahiri, born to a prominent Egyptian family in Giza in 1951, followed a well-worn path for mid-century Egyptian youth. He studied medicine and did his mandatory service in the army. But he also joined the Muslim Brotherhood, a group that drew many of its supporters from the educated, urban middle class that has produced both democrats and jihadists. From there he drifted to the nascent Islamic Jihad, which aimed to overthrow the Egyptian government. Two of its leaders and hundreds of its supporters were jailed in connection with the assassination of Anwar Sadat, the Egyptian president, in 1981.

Then it was off to Pakistan—or so he thought. En route to the airport in late 1981, Mr Zawahiri was arrested and later convicted for arms possession. His three-year prison stint was a typical one for Egypt, a long stay in a small cell punctuated by bouts of torture. His fellow Islamists say the experience radicalised him further.

He left Egypt on his release in 1985, first for Saudi Arabia and then Pakistan. That brought him into contact with bin Laden, the scion of a rich family who was busy helping the mujahideen fighters against Soviet forces in Afghanistan. Mr Zawahiri would run Islamic Jihad from afar until 2001, when he formally merged the group with al-Qaeda.

If bin Laden was the charismatic face of al-Qaeda, Mr Zawahiri was the brain. Many experts believe he was the real mastermind behind the September 11th attacks. Though he lacked formal religious training, he helped promote the notion of takfir, by which Muslims could be declared apostates and thus valid targets for extremists. If he was an adept number-two, though, he made a poor leader. Under his tutelage, and with the group under relentless pressure from drone strikes, it became something closer to a prattling podcast than a feared terrorist organisation.

As al-Qaeda’s star waned, that of IS waxed, especially in 2014 when it conquered large swathes of territory across Iraq and Syria. In establishing a physical “caliphate” in the Muslim heartland, IS appeared to have succeeded where al-Qaeda—focused on the “far enemy” of America and its Western allies—had failed. Yet in recent years, with IS’s caliphate dismantled by an American-led military coalition, al-Qaeda bounced back.

The return to power of its Taliban allies a year ago gave it breathing room—to communicate with followers, raise funds and organise. A UN report published last month said that al-Qaeda’s leadership was reportedly playing an “advisory role” with the Taliban and that its fighters were present across the country. At the same time, al-Qaeda’s regional affiliates have also grown stronger. These include al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS) in Afghanistan and Pakistan, al-Shabab in Somalia and al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). “The international context is favourable to al-Qaeda, which intends to be recognised again as the leader of global jihad,” noted the UN.

Mr Zawahiri’s death is unlikely to reverse the trend. A septuagenarian doctor with little of bin Laden’s charisma was always an unlikely vanguard for the global jihadist movement. His successor is likely to be Sayf al-Adl, the nom de guerre of an enigmatic Egyptian former commando who was briefly al-Qaeda’s interim leader before Mr Zawahiri took the job.

Mr Adl, who served as bin Laden’s envoy to friendly states and potential partners, has a $10m American bounty on his head for his role in attacks on American embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam in 1998. “In an organisation infamous for its pitiless wholesale destruction of human lives, [he] stands out for his lack of remorse,” notes a profile by Ali Soufan, a former FBI official.

Notably, Mr Adl has been based in Iran for around 20 years, often under de facto house arrest—Iran’s Shia regime has an uneasy, if pragmatic, relationship with the Sunni jihadists of al-Qaeda. Counter-terrorism officials have previously said that it is not clear whether Iran would allow him to leave. After Mr Biden’s demonstration of America’s enduring counter-terrorism prowess, Mr Adl might feel safer staying put.

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