Ayman al-Zawahiri is challenged by the Syrian jihadist ideologue Abu Musab al-Suri, who preaches the "multi-pede" concept which would end centralized control of the al Qaeda terrorism organiztion and distribute authority for independent decision-making among its franchises. Zawahiri is fighting back.

Egyptian Sinai is being turned into a lawless wasteland and jihadi recruiting center by the influx of al Qaeda fighters from across the Muslim world. Al Qaeda in Sinai is preparing to open a new front for terror in the western Middle East.

A year after the death of its iconic leader Osama bin Laden at the hands of US special forces, Al Qaeda is making an operational comeback, notably in North Africa and Syria. The suicide bombings hitting Damascus and Idlib in the last 24 hours were the work of Al Qaeda in Iraq – AQI, whose operatives have been pouring into Syria in the last two weeks, debkafile reports. Without US intervention, al Qaeda will be able to use Syria for attacking its neighbors too, Turkey, Lebanon, Israel and Jordan.

More al Qaeda appointees were named Wednesday, May 18 after its Shura council at its meeting on May 10 made Egyptian Saif al Adal interim operations chief. The appointment of Osama bin Laden's top terror whiz underlined the council's focus on revenge, say debkafile's sources. His team mates are Mohammad Ilyas Kashmiri and Adnan G. El Shukrijumah. Other new appointees are Adnan al-Khairi al-Masry as Head of General Command and Muhammed Adam Khan al-Afghani as Head of the Afghanistan/Pakistan arena.

Osama bin Laden's shoes are likely to stay empty for some time. Al Qaeda is not structured for a large-scale terror attack as an organization to avenge his death. Some ten top-notch operatives listed here have the will or ability - or both - for a lone wolf operation.

The al Qaeda leader never wavered from his basic conception that only a mega-attack on an American city devastating enough to rock the US economy would make Washington withdraw its forces from the Middle East. This is confirmed in the files taken from the Abbottabad villa after he was killed on May 2. Otherwise the materials examined so far contribute no hard intelligence to the war on al Qaeda or the prevention of another mega-attack in the US.

The US administration planned Osama bin Laden's death as a lever for al Qaeda's destruction. DEBKA-Net-Weekly's latest issue out  Friday tabs the ten master-terrorists still at large, including one who holds the key to a dirty bomb attack, and capable of masterminding revenge attacks.
This issue also assessed the prospects of Syrian President Assad's victory against his opposition.

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Israel celebrates the 63rd anniversary of its independence in good cheer. Neither by word nor hint have its leaders referred to the next challenge facing the country:  Barack Obama, president of Israel's best friend and ally, has picked the Muslim Brotherhood as his chosen partner for promoting American interests in the Arab world. His courtship of this organization, which he regards as moderate, was the rationale, say debkafile's sources, behind his bold decision to get rid of Osama bin Laden.

The US is sustaining the momentum of the war on terror by sending more Special Forces and drones into Pakistan after Osama bin Laden's top lieutenant, Ayman al Zawahiri, Taliban leader Mullah Omer and al Qaeda's chief operations officer, Seif al Adal. debkafile: Washington suspects their whereabouts are known to Pakistan's Inter-Services-Intelligence agency (ISI) and has given Islamabad an ultimatum: Cooperate in their capture or US troops will take up the pursuit in your country.

The Obama administration is presenting the successful Osama bin Laden hit as an epic American solo operation, unparalleled in military and intelligence annals, while leaning hard on Islamabad to sack certain officers of the powerful military intelligence army ISI including its head Lt. Gen. Ahmad Shuja Pasha, accusing them of keeping the dead al Qaeda leader hidden for eight years. Islamabad is fighting both US tactics. debkafile: The feud could boomerang against Washington as a Taliban revenge attack.

The Osama bin Laden operation was part of a US-Pakistani-Afghan package for getting US troops out of Afghanistan by removing the root-cause of the war and bringing the Taliban to the negotiating table through Pakistan's good services.

Osama bin Laden would have been easier prey in 2007. However, his elimination was placed on the backburners of the second Bush and the Clinton White House agendas. During those years, he lived quite comfortably under Pakistani protection and commuted between walled villas.

For President Barack Obama, removing the al Qaeda leader was part of his master plan for replacing the long-ruling Arab autocrats by new regimes with a place for the Muslim Brotherhood in government as counterweights to Muslim extremists. That is the incumbent's top goal compared with Bush who targeted Zarqawi in Iraq ...

The White House is fighting a losing battle for credibility: Its first statements on the special forces' raid which killed the al Qaeda leader in Abbottabad, Pakistan on May 2 are proving incorrect: Washington has been forced to admit that bin Laden was not armed when he was killed and his wife was not used as a human shield. This further fuels Arab-Muslim skepticism about the affair, especially with Pakistan actively challenging the US version with the help of the survivors in its custody.

And what's next for al Qaeda?  The latest  DEBKA-Net-Weekly out Friday dispels some of the fog around the killing of Osama bin Laden by a US special force - such as: Why now? Where were his bodyguards? What was he doing with five computers, 100 storage devices and no gun?
This issue also laid out information on al Qaeda's next steps and answers another question: Where to look for its dead leader's avengers?
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Far from dispensing with electronic devices and Internet connections as widely reported, photos of Osama bin Laden's  fortress-villa in Abbottabad, Pakistan, prove it was equipped with both and therefore vulnerable to penetration and surveillance. Puzzling questions include: Why did the US and Pakistan who must have known where he was not lay hands on him sooner?  Why was May 1, 2011 chosen for the operation? And why did US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton tie it in with the Arab uprising?

US sources report that Osama bin Laden was buried at sea to avoid creating a shrine for jihadist terrorists to visit.

US sources disclose that Abbottabad, where a squadron of US Seals killed the al Qaeda leader Sunday night, May 2, is a Pakistani garrison town housing a large military base. His walled villa was just 100 meters away from a military academy and 120 kilometers from the capital, Islamabad.

The announcement that al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden had been killed in an American operation in Abbottabad (150 north of Islamabad in Pakistan) was made early Monday, May 2, by US President Barack Obama at the White House. The first lead to his whereabouts had been received in ...

American TV networks interrupted their broadcasts at 05:45 IST Monday, May 2, with the news that the head of Al Qaeda, the most wanted terrorist in the world and author of the 9/ll attack on America, is dead. The US is in possession of his body.  There are no further details about the circumstances of his death. President Obama is to make a statement from the White House shortly.

The day after Osama bin Laden warned France to remove its troops from Afghanistan, French Defense Minister Herve Morin announced Thursday, Oct. 28 that the withdrawal of French troops would begin in early 2011. Paris then raised its terror alert level to "red" after confirming the authenticity of the Bin Laden audiotape aired Wednesday. debkafile's sources report: Paris takes the threat very seriously, apparently convinced that al Qaeda teams may already be in Paris to back it up.