{"id":1629,"date":"2011-06-18T07:19:23","date_gmt":"2011-06-18T07:19:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/wp3\/?p=1629"},"modified":"2011-06-18T07:19:23","modified_gmt":"2011-06-18T07:19:23","slug":"zawahiri-named-new-al-qaeda-leader","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sunnionline.us\/english\/2011\/06\/18\/1629\/","title":{"rendered":"Zawahiri Named New Al-Qaeda Leader"},"content":{"rendered":"

Al-Qaeda\u2019s number two Ayman Al-Zawahiri has been named a new leader of the militant group, succeeding Osama Bin Laden, who was killed in a US raid.
“The general leadership of Al-Qaeda group\u2026announces that Sheikh Dr. Ayman Zawahri, may God give him success, has assumed responsibility for command of the group,” Al-Qaeda said in a statement posted on the website Ansar al-Mujahideen (Followers of the Holy Warriors) and cited by Reuters on Thursday, June 16. Zawahiri will succeed Bin Laden, who was killed by US troops in the Pakistani city of Abbottabad, 100km (62 miles) north-east of Islamabad on May 2.
Zawahri, Bin Laden’s lieutenant and the brains behind much of Al-Qaeda’s strategy, vowed earlier this month to press ahead with Al-Qaeda’s campaign against the United States and its allies.
The statement said Zawahiri\u2019s leadership would help Al-Qaeda to pursue its ‘jihad’ against the United States and Israel.
“We seek with the aid of God to call for the religion of truth and incite our nation to fight … by carrying out jihad against the apostate invaders … with their head being crusader America and its servant Israel, and whoever supports them.”
The militant group also reiterated that it would not “recognize any legitimacy of the so-called State of Israel.”
“We will not accept or adhere to any agreement or accord that recognizes it (Israel) or that robs a mile from Palestine, whether it is the United Nations controlled by top criminals or any other organization.”
The group also stressed “support (to) the uprisings of our oppressed Muslim people against the corrupt and tyrant leaders who have made our nation suffer in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya Yemen, Syria and Morocco.”
Zawahri had been seen as Bin Laden’s most likely successor.
His whereabouts are unknown, although he has long been thought to be hiding along the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The United States is offering a $25 million reward for any information leading to his capture or conviction.
Believed to be in his late 50s, Zawahri met Bin Laden in the mid-1980s when both were in Pakistan to support fighters against the Soviets in Afghanistan.
Born to an upper-class Cairo family, Zawahri trained as a doctor and surgeon.<\/p>\n

Pale Shadow<\/strong><\/p>\n

Analysts believe that Zawahiri would have a hard time shoring up the militant group after Bin Laden\u2019s death.
Zawahri is “a man lacking in charisma, a pale shadow of bin Laden,” former US intelligence officer Robert Ayers told Reuters.
“He’s a grey bureaucrat, not a leader who can energize and rally the troops. The only thing his promotion will accomplish is to elevate his priority as a target for the US.”
Sajjan Gohel of Asia-Pacific Foundation security consultants shares a similar view.
He said Zawahri had been in practical charge of Al-Qaeda for many years, but lacked Bin Laden’s presence and his “ability to unite the different Arab factions within the group”.
Other analysts, however, have a different view.
“He managed to transform Al-Qaeda from being a small organization focused on expelling US interests from Saudi Arabia into a global organization,\u201d said London-based journalist Abdel-Bari Atwan, who interviewed Bin Laden in 1996
\u201cThe men he brought to Al-Qaeda from his own Egyptian Islamic Jihad group proved to be the instruments that drove Al-Qaeda’s international push.”
But former CIA Officer Phil Mudd disagrees, telling CNN that Zawahiri was not as respected as Bin Laden.
“Very poorly respected,” Mudd said.
“He is seen as a difficult man to work with. He has no sense among the work force in Al-Qaeda, the kind of prestige that bin Laden had.”
But in Egypt where Zawahiri was born and raised, there was disdain at the news.
“He’s been the loyal no. 2 forever. Zawahri seems even more of a mad man than Osama was, and he’ll want to prove himself by going on the attack soon,\u201d Karim Sabet, 34, a director of an oil and gas startup firm, told Reuters.
\u201cAnother devil killing in the name of Islam. Disgusting.”

Source: OnIslam & News Agencies<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Al-Qaeda\u2019s number two Ayman Al-Zawahiri has been named a new leader of the militant group, succeeding Osama Bin Laden, who was killed in a US raid.“The general leadership of Al-Qaeda group\u2026announces that Sheikh Dr. Ayman Zawahri, may God give him success, has assumed responsibility for command of the group,” Al-Qaeda said in a statement posted […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1629","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-c59-islamic-world"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nZawahiri Named New Al-Qaeda Leader - SunniOnline<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/sunnionline.us\/english\/2011\/06\/18\/1629\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Zawahiri Named New Al-Qaeda Leader - 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