Just months after killing Osama bin Laden, the U.S. may have just taken out al-Qaida’s newly anointed second in command — a terrorist that experts consider “irreplaceable” to the organization.
U.S. officials are confident that a drone strike in Pakistan last week killed Atiyah Abd al-Rahman, the new deputy to al-Qaida leader Ayman Zawahiri. Unlike some terror leaders felled by the drone program, observers consider the loss of Atiyah — a prominent mouthpiece, ideologue and operations chief for al-Qaida — to represent a major blow to the terrorist group.
“Atiyah is irreplaceable because he combined the skills of a diplomat, an operator, and a strategist–a rare combination in any organization,” Will McCants, an al-Qaida expert at the Center for Naval Analysis, told Danger Room. “For that reason, he was one of Bin Laden’s closest confidants at the end of his life, even though he was less popular in the wider jihadi community than some of his more bellicose colleagues.”
Read More: http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/08/drones-kill-another-irreplaceable-al-qaida-leader/
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