Efraim Halevy, head of Mosad (Israel’s foreign espionage) during 9/11, woke up on Tuesday with the satisfaction of seeing the body of his archenemy Ayman al-Zawahiri pass by, killed in a CIA coup in Kabul. “It was the final setback against Osama Bin Laden’s strategy,” he told the newspaper. Haaretz after the confirmation by the White House of the death of the leader who succeeded the founder of Al Qaeda at the head of the terrorist network that marked the beginning of the 21st century with blood and fire. Al Zawahiri, sick and hidden aimlessly in recent years, leaves behind a web of jihadist organizations that stretches from West Africa and the Sahel to the Middle East and Central Asia.

The unitary network that Bin Laden and Al Zawahiri established in 1988 was decentralized after 9/11, as professor and researcher Fernando Reinares recalled in EL PAÍS on the 20th anniversary of the greatest attack committed on US soil. Liquidated the first of the founders in a United States operation in Pakistan in 2011, the second has insisted until his death that the regional groups endowed with autonomy remain interconnected. Also in not making mistakes in the treatment of local communities in their areas of influence.

The emergence of the Islamic State (ISIS, for its acronym in English) in 2013 after displacing the Al Nusra Front, a local affiliate of Al Qaeda, in the Syrian war, threatened to take away from Al Qaeda the position of global dominance over jihadism, reached through the massive terror of 11-M in Madrid (2004) and 7-J in London (2005), and deprive it of influence over the most radical currents of Islam.

Bin Laden’s network had already shown its determination to attack the West in the 1998 bombings of the US embassies in Tanzania and Kenya. The presence of Al Qaeda is still evident in Africa. The Sahel is the main center of operations for its related organizations, such as the so-called Support Group for Islam and Muslims (JNIM, for its acronym in Arabic) in the semi-desert steppe that links Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger. It is also deployed in Nigeria through its links with Boko Haram, a group that has carried out mass kidnappings of minors. And it has been entrenched for more than two decades in Somalia through the powerful Al Shabab militias.

But it is in the Middle East where Al Qaeda still has one of the largest territorial representations. The province of Idlib (northwest Syria), the last bastion of the rebellion against the Damascus regime, is controlled for the most part by the jihadist forces of Hayat Tahrir al Sham, heirs of the Al Nusra Front, under the tutelage of Turkey.

From the caliphate established between 2014 and 2019 straddling the borders of Syria and Iraq, the greatest challenge against Al Qaeda arose. The Islamic State tried to take over the leadership of global jihadism when affiliates of Al Qaeda in several countries followed in the footsteps of the Syrian-Iraqi branch to pay homage to ISIS. Caliphate fighters were crushed in Syria three years ago under US aerial bombardment and the on-the-ground advance of Washington-allied Kurdish forces. His sleeper cells woke up last January in an unexpected offensive to try to free hundreds of prisoners. But Kurds and Americans blocked their way again.

When the Taliban seized power in Kabul almost a year ago, forcing the disbandment of the United States and its allies, the UN had just confirmed the presence of Al Qaeda units in 15 of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces. On the border with Pakistan they continue to find support under the protection of the Haqqani family network, a radical branch of the Taliban.

Former Mossad director Halevy, who collaborated for more than three decades with the United States intelligence services, now recalls that both Bin Laden and Al Zawahiri undertook jihadist activities in Afghanistan 40 years ago with the sponsorship of Washington, which sought to put an end to the occupation of the former USSR over the Central Asian country. “They received support from the United States and then they bit the hand that had led them to victory,” he assured. Haaretz.

change in command

After the death at the age of 71 of the last leader of Al Qaeda, the foreseeable successor is Seif al Adi, also Egyptian, 60, a former military man who controlled the jihadist training camps and was the internal head of the organization after the operation in the one that bin Laden lost his life. Washington offers a $10 million reward for his capture. His closeness to the Shia regime in Tehran may render him incapable of taking the helm of the network of radical Sunni groups.

His son-in-law, Moroccan Abderramán al Maghreb, 52 years old and head of the organization’s propaganda apparatus, is also cited by Al Qaeda experts as a possible replacement for Al Zawahiri. He has woven a close network of contacts in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Like the Algerian Yezid Mebarek, better known as Abu Ubaydah Yusuf al Anabi, 53 years old. He was appointed emir of Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) following the death of Abdelmalek Drukdel in an attack by French forces in 2020.

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