With failure to choose Zawahiri successor, Washington closes in on al-Qaeda

Al-Qaeda has been facing a continuous stumbling block in choosing a successor to its former leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, who was killed in an American strike in the Afghan capital in August 2022, in light of its leaders being placed on international terrorism lists.

The US State Department announced the inclusion of leaders from al-Qaeda in South Asia and the Pakistani Taliban on its list of terrorists in light of the increasing warnings about Afghanistan.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken confirmed that this step falls within the framework of unremitting efforts to ensure that terrorists do not use Afghanistan as a platform for international terrorism, noting that Washington will continue to use all relevant tools to fulfill obligations and ensure that terrorists are not able to operate with impunity in Afghanistan.

Both the US State and Treasury Departments stated that these leaders are classified as global terrorists, which makes it a crime to conduct transactions with them, in addition to banning any assets they have in the United States, in an attempt by Washington to tighten the screws more on the organization at a time when it has stumbled in choosing a replacement for Zawahiri since his death.

Al-Qaeda has been without a leader since a US drone attack killed Zawahiri in a building in Kabul in August. Despite many names being repeated as candidates to succeed Zawahiri, the choice has not been decided yet.

The Egyptian Mohamed Salah Zaydan, who bears the nom de guerre Saif al-Adl, is considered the most prominent candidate to succeed Zawahiri. It is likely that he is around 60 years old, and thanks to his combat experience, he is considered a veteran of the international organization.

The US Federal Bureau of Investigation named him one of the world's most wanted terrorists, with a $10 million reward. A picture of Saif al-Adl had been circulated earlier suggesting that he might lead al-Qaeda.

Since Saif al-Adl settled in Iran in 2001, he has not left it, but the organization continued to claim that he was a prisoner inside Iran, until recently, when Saif al-Adl admitted in a letter he wrote that his presence in Iran was based on an alliance of interests, adding that leaving it would be tantamount to “jumping from the ship to the grave.”

In 2014, a document appeared that identified the figures nominated to succeed Zawahiri, including Abu al-Khayr al-Masri, Abu Muhammad al-Masri, Saif al-Adl, and Abu Basir al-Wuhayshi. However, the change that occurred in this document is that none of these names survived except for Saif al-Adl.

During the last period, names of candidates for the leadership of al-Qaeda were circulated, such as Muhammad Abbatay, nicknamed Abu Abd al-Rahman al-Maghribi, who was the closest figure to Zawahiri. He was responsible for securing Zawahiri’s communications and supervising the sending of encrypted messages to organizational bases around the world, and he was also responsible for the organization's media organization, As-Sahab.

The name of Khalid Batarfi also appeared, who has led the al-Qaeda branch in the Arabian Peninsula since the killing of Qasim al-Raymi in an American strike in February 2020. Another name is Abou Obeida Youssef al-Annabi, also known as Yazid Mubarak, who is the leader of al-Qaeda in the Maghreb, in addition to Ahmed Omar Diriye, also known as Abu Ubaidah, who is the leader of the Somali Al-Shabaab movement, and Abu Humam al-Shami, the leader of the Guardians of Religion organization (al-Qaeda's branch in Syria), as well as Abu Abd al-Karim al-Masri.

Observers assert that the organization lacks the organizational charisma and legitimacy that existed with the founder of the organization, Osama bin Laden, and after him, to a varying degree, with Zawahiri, noting that the organization has recently been suffering from a leadership crisis and that the names that have been reported since the killing of Zawahiri appear to have no organizational consensus, especially since some of these candidates are located in certain countries, which raises suspicions that these countries may be in control of the organization.