Indian Defence Review

Six weeks after the death of Osama bin Laden on May 2, 2011, Al Qaeda’s General Command has announced the appointment of Ayman al-Zawahiri, of Egypt, who was OBL’s No.2, as the new head of Al Qaeda. A statement announcing his appointment was posted on a website associated with Al Qaeda. It was attributed to the General Command. It said: “Sheikh Dr Ayman al-Zawahiri, may God guide him, assumed responsibility as the group’s Amir [leader]“. It vowed that under Zawahiri, Al Qaeda would pursue jihad against the US and Israel “until all invading armies leave the land of Islam”.

Al Qaeda and its International Islamic Front have been using the Afghanistan-Pakistan region as a rear base for their Jihadi Intifada against the US and the UK.

Earlier, on May 18, 2011, quoting Pakistani security sources, Al Jazeera had reported that Al Qaeda had appointed Saif al-Adel, formerly of the Egyptian Army, as its interim leader and Mohammed Mustafa al-Yemeni as its operations chief .Al Jazeera had said: “According to the sources, the decision (on the appointments) was made at a meeting on May 10 on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.”

According to Al Jazeera, Adnan al-Khairi al-Masri was named as Al Qaeda’s general command head, Mohammed Nasser al-Wahshi as its Africa chief, Mohammed Adam Khan, an Afghan, as in charge in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and Fahd al-Iraqi as in charge of the Afghan-Pakistani border region.

Since the earlier report had emanated from Pakistani sources there was some doubt about its reliability. The latest statement regarding the appointment of Zawahiri as the head was posted in one of the web sites used by Al Qaeda for such announcements and hence appears to be more authentic.

Zawahiri has been advocating since February 12, 2007, a global jihadi Intifada, which would cover all lands in the world, which rightfully belong to Islam.

Saif al-Adel was said to have been a critic of OBL’s arbitrary ways of taking important operational decisions and had reportedly questioned the wisdom of the 9/11 terrorist strikes in the US Homeland since those strikes, according to him, enabled the US to mobilise the international community against Al Qaeda.

The latest statement of Al Qaeda regarding the appointment of Zawahiri is silent on the earlier appointments as announced by Al Jazeera on the basis of information provided by Pakistani sources.

Zawahiri has been advocating since February 12, 2007, a global jihadi Intifada, which would cover all lands in the world, which rightfully belong to Islam.

However, he specifies certain areas, which he thinks should receive special attention first. Of these, he gives the topmost priority to Afghanistan and Iraq. He says the future of Islam and of the global Intifada itself will be decided in those countries. If they can defeat the Americans there, the jihadis’ victory in the rest of the lands will be assured. After mentioning these two countries, he mentions certain other areas specifically. He believes that the victory of the jihadis in these areas would also be crucial for the ultimate victory of Islam. These areas are Palestine, including Gaza, the Lebanon, Somalia, Algeria and Chechnya in Russia. He describes Somalia as the Southern garrison of Islam and Algeria as its Western garrison.

In his past statements, he downplayed the importance of a central command and control in keeping the Intifada going. The motivation of individual Muslims was more important than any centralised command and control.

His past statements had included Jammu and Kashmir as among historic Muslim lands under occupation by non-Muslims and hence to be “liberated”. He had drawn the attention of the Pakistani people to the danger of Gen.Pervez Musharraf colluding with the Hindus if he was not removed from power.However, he had not spoken of the Muslims living in other parts of India outside J&K.

By Jihadi Intifada, he means a kind of struggle in which the role of motivated individual Muslims will become more important than that of organisations so that the weakening or collapse of an organisation does not result in a collapse of the Intifada. He wants the Intifada to acquire a momentum of its own as a result of the sacrifices of individual Muslims.

He said in his message of January 22, 2007: “Every Muslim today is directly responsible for defending Islam, Islam’s homeland and the Islamic Ummah and he is responsible for the efforts to liberate the Muslim captives foremost of whom is Sheikh Omar Abdl al-Rahman from the prisons of the crusaders and their helpers and we reaffirm to the families of the Guantanamo captives who are demonstrating these days in Cuba, that we –with God’s permission– have not and will not forget our captives and that their liberation is a debt on our necks and that the Americans must expect to pay the price for everything they have done to them.”

In his past statements, he downplayed the importance of a central command and control in keeping the Intifada going. The motivation of individual Muslims was more important than any centralised command and control.

His past statements had included Jammu and Kashmir as among historic Muslim lands under occupation by non-Muslims and hence to be “liberated”.

He also projects the Intifada as a mix of military and non-military struggles. He says in his message of December 20, 2006: “We must bear arms. And if we are unable to bear them, then we must support those who carry them. This support comes in many forms and guises, so we must exploit all Da’wah, student and union activities to back the Jihadi resistance……. The Muslim Ummah must exploit all methods of popular protest, like demonstrations, sit-ins, strikes, refusing to pay taxes, preventing cooperation with the security forces, refusing to provide the Crusaders with fuel, hitting traders who supply the Crusader forces, boycotting Crusader and Jewish products, and other ways of popular protest.”