Bin Laden aide viewed as new al-Qaida leader

UNITED NATIONS — U.N. experts report the predominant view among member nations is that the leadership of al-Qaida has passed to Sayf al-Adl, who was responsible for Osama bin Laden’s security and trained some of the hijackers involved in the 9/11 attack on the U.S.

No announcement has been made of Sayf al-Adl replacing Ayman al-Zawahri, who was killed by a U.S. drone strike in Kabul in August, the panel of experts said in a report to the U.N. Security Council circulated Monday.

“But in discussions in November and December many U.N. member states took the view that Sayf al-Adl is already operating as the de facto and uncontested leader of the group,” the report states.

Assessments vary as to why al-Adl’s leadership hasn’t been declared, it said.

Some countries feel that al-Zawahri’s presence in Kabul embarrassed the country’s Taliban rulers who are seeking legitimacy “and that al-Qaida chose not to exacerbate this by acknowledging the death,” the experts said.

“However, most judged a key factor to be the continued presence of Sayf al-Adl in the Islamic Republic of Iran [which] raised difficult theological and operational questions for al-Qaida,” they said.

While noting that one country rejected claims that any al-Qaida affiliate is in Iran, the panel said the location of Sayf al-Adl “raises questions that have a bearing on al-Qaida’s ambitions to assert leadership of a global movement in the face of challenges” from the Islamic State extremist group.

Sayf al-Adl has been listed on the U.N. sanctions blacklist as Egyptian-born Mohammed Salahaldin Abd El Halim Zidan since January 2001, the panel said. He is described in the U.N. listing as taking over as military commander of al-Qaida following the death of Mohammed Atef — one of bin Laden’s top aides — in a U.S. attack in November 2001.

In addition to being bin Laden’s security chief, the U.N. says, Sayf al-Adl taught militants to use explosives and trained some of the hijackers involved in the Sept. 11, 2001, attack in the United States. It says he also trained Somali fighters who killed 18 U.S. servicemen in 1993 in Mogadishu, Somalia.

Sayf al-Adl is wanted by U.S. authorities in connection with the August 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and Nairobi, Kenya.

According to the report, the threat from al-Qaida, the Islamic State extremist group and their affiliates “remains high in conflict zones and neighboring countries,” with Africa emerging in recent years “as the continent where the harm done by terrorism is developing most rapidly and extensively.”

The panel said the Islamic State’s leadership has also become a question following the group’s Nov. 30 announcement that Abu al-Hassan al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi had died in a battle the previous month, the group’s second leader to be killed in 2022. “The new leader was announced as Abu al-Husain al-Husaini al-Qurashi, and his true identity is not yet known,” the experts said.

Member states noted numerous pledges of allegiance to Abu al-Husain by Islamic Stater “affiliates far and wide without specific knowledge of his identity or qualities as a leader,” they said.