Where in the world is al-Qaida’s leader?

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Lawfare Blog:

The emir of al-Qaida, Ayman al-Zawahri, has not made any public statements since September 2014. His now 11-month long absence is unprecedented. Next month will be a key test for Zawahri: the anniversary of 9/11—a milestone he has spoken out on for years.

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Both bin Laden and Zawahri repeatedly pledged their allegiance to Mullah Omar, beginning well before 9/11 and repeated often since. Mullah Omar mourned bin Laden’s death by SEALs in May 2011. Zawahri repeated his pledge of loyalty to Omar as late as last year. Did he know Omar was dead?

Other major jihadi leaders like Hafez Sayed, the head of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), have publicly eulogized Omar as a hero of the global jihad. LeT even held a vicarious funeral to mark his passing. The LeT is very close to Pakistan’s spies. It attacked Mumbai in 2008 in an operation closely connected to the intelligence service known as the ISI.

Three of al-Qaida’s franchises in Syria, Yemen, and the Maghreb issued a joint eulogy. They praised Mullah Omar for refusing to surrender bin Laden to America after 9/11. It was a dramatic illustration that the al-Qaida network is still a united global jihad.

But not a word from Zawahri. A blank slate. No statement for his deputy’s death or his titular leader. His organization is still active in Pakistan. Al-Qaida in the Indian Subcontinent, the group Zawahri lauded last September in the last message he made, is actively plotting attacks. Pakistani security officials recently killed one of its commanders in Baluchistan. Other senior al-Qaida operatives have also been killed in Pakistan recently.

So what accounts for the silence? Why is Zawahri missing in action? Of course, only he and his closest circle know for sure.

Perhaps Zawahri is ill and his health precludes any public role. Like Mullah Omar, he may be incapable of activity or even dead. But there is no hint of that in the jihadi Web sites or chatter.

More likely his silence is deliberate. He is biding his time and focusing on his own security. Al-Qaida has often chosen to out wait its enemies and go underground, biding its time. When confronted with a furious Saudi attack on its infrastructure in the kingdom in 2006, it retreated into Yemen—only to reemerge as al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula in 2009. It adopted a similar tactic in Iraq, reemerging from the surge after the Americans had gone home. Zawahri knows the Americans are leaving Afghanistan next year; perhaps he is just waiting for them to go home.

September 11, 2015 will be an interesting test. Normally since 9/11, al-Qaida delivers a major message to mark what it calls ‘the Manhattan Raid.’ Often Zawahri comments on the state of the global jihad. If he remains silent this anniversary, it will be very unusual.

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