the egyptian Ayman al Zawahiri, a boss without charisma at the head of Al Qaeda compared to its predecessor Osama Bin Ladentheorized about the ramification of the jihadist cells, without getting to control them until his death this weekend in a US attack.
Although he was one of the architects of the September 11, 2001 attacks, “Zawahiri’s greatest success is keeping Al Qaeda“, according to Barak Mendelsohn, professor at the Haverford University in Pennsylvania.
But he had to multiply the “franchises”, from the Arabian Peninsula to the Maghrebsince Somalia until Afghanistan, Syria e Irak. And accept that they were emancipating little by little.
The theoretician with the bushy beard and large glasses, easily recognizable by a bulge on his forehead, joined the Muslim Brotherhood at the age of 15 and survived more than 40 years of jihad, something unusual, before dying at the age of 71 in a drone attack.
He was presumed dead or dying on several occasions, but recently showed signs of life.
“The apparent greater fluidity and communication capacity of Al Zawahiri coincided with the taking of Afghanistan by the Taliban,” according to a report by the ONOT published in mid-July.
– Early –
Despite his role in the 2001 attacks, which bear the signature of Al Qaeda, never acquired the macabre aura of Osama Bin Laden.
Paradoxically, USA He offered $25 million for his capture, a record, and at the same time seemed almost uninterested in him.
Until this Monday the president himself Joe Biden announced his death during an “anti-terrorist operation” this weekend.
Al Zawahiri was born on June 19, 1951 in Materialnear Cairoin a bourgeois family (his father was a doctor and his grandfather a great theologian of the mosque Al Azhar in the Egyptian capital), and was a surgeon.
His ideology was precocious. He is a member of the Muslim Brotherhood when he was only 15 years old.
He was jailed for three years for his involvement in the 1981 assassination of the Egyptian president. Anuar al Sadat. Then he traveled to Saudi Arabia, USA and, finally, Pakistan in the mid-1980s, where he treated jihadists fighting the Soviets as a doctor. There he met Bin Laden.
He spent a long time at the head of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad (JIE) and joined Al Qaeda in the late 90s.
– Who will succeed him? –
Washington included him in his “black list” for having supported the attacks against the embassies of USA in Kenya and Tanzania in August 1998. He was also sentenced to death in absentia in his country for numerous attacks, including one in Luxor in 1997 in which 62 people were killed, including 58 foreign tourists.
In 2002 and 2007, he was presumed dead but resurfaced. He became the right hand of Bin Laden and also your doctor.
He “is not interested in fighting in the mountains. He thinks more internationally,” said Hamid Mir, a biographer of Bin Ladenquoted by the analysis center Counter-Extremism Project (CEP).
With him, in fact, “Al Qaeda it has been increasingly decentralized, and authority rested mainly with the heads of its subsidiaries,” adds the CEP, which nevertheless attributes a prominent role to it in the reorganization of many jihadist groups.
Since 2011 he lived hidden among Pakistan y Afghanistan, limiting his appearances to videos of monotonous sermons. Upon his death, he left an organization at the opposite end of the international jihadist war against USA with which Bin Laden dreamed.
Who will take the reins? The name of Saif al Adel, former lieutenant colonel of the Special Forces Egyptian and member of the old guard of Al Qaedaas its possible successor. Unless a younger generation arises.
In any case, the nebula will have to prevail against its great rival, the group Islamic Statewith which it collides, ideologically and militarily.
According to the latest evaluation of the HIMthe international context is “favorable for Al Qaedawhich wants to be recognized again as the spearhead of global jihad (…) and could ultimately pose a greater threat.”
(AFP)