Al-Qaeda's North Africa branch reportedly replaces commanders

PanARMENIAN.Net - Al-Qaeda's North Africa branch has chosen replacements for two deceased commanders, including the former head of one of its most violent brigades who was killed in northern Mali in February, the Associated Press reports.

The ANI website, which has previously been used as a publicity tool by al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, or AQIM, reported Monday, Sept 23, that "knowledgeable sources" had said Algerian Saeed Abu Muqatil would replace Abou Zeid, one of two main al-Qaida commanders operating in northern Mali before France's military intervention earlier this year.

The website also said Mauritanian Aderrahmane would replace Muhammad al-Ameen Ould al-Hasan, who was also killed during the intervention. Aderrahmane was involved in controlling the city of Timbuktu after northern Mali fell to Islamic extremists following a March 2012 military coup.

Last month, the BBC published the list of the remaining al-Qaeda leaders, namely:

Ayman al-Zawahiri, an eye surgeon who helped found the Egyptian militant group Islamic Jihad, was named as the new leader of al-Qaeda on June 16, 2011, a few weeks after Osama Bin Laden's death. In a statement, al-Qaeda vowed to continue its jihad under the new leadership against "crusader America and its servant Israel, and whoever supports them". Zawahiri was already the group's chief ideologue and was believed by some experts to have been the "operational brains" behind the September 11, 2001 attacks in the U.S.

Nasser Abdul Karim al-Wuhayshi, a former private secretary to Osama Bin Laden, is the leader of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), which was formed in 2009 in a merger between two offshoots of al-Qaeda in Saudi Arabia and Yemen. Wuhayshi replaces "the Libyan", Abu Yahya al-Libi, killed by a U.S. drone strike in Pakistan's north-west in June 2012. U.S. counter-terrorism officials have called AQAP the "most active operation franchise" of al-Qaeda beyond Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Khalid al-Habib, thought to be either Egyptian or Moroccan, was identified in a November 2005 video as al-Qaeda's field commander in south-east Afghanistan, while Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi was named as its commander in the south-west. In early 2006, Pakistani officials reported that Habib had died in a U.S. airstrike near the Afghan border, but Pakistani security officials have since retracted that claim, saying that no al-Qaeda leaders died. U.S. military officials say he oversees al-Qaeda's "internal" operations in Afghanistan and northern Pakistan.

Adnan el Shukrijumah is said, to have taken over as chief of al-Qaeda's "external operations council" in August 2010. Having lived for more than 15 years in the U.S., he is the first leader intimately familiar with American society to have been placed in charge of planning attacks for the group outside Afghanistan. Born in Saudi Arabia, Shukrijumah moved to the US when his father, a Muslim cleric, took up a post at a mosque in Brooklyn. They later moved to Florida.In the late 1990s, he became convinced that he had to participate in jihad in place like Chechnya, and left for training camps in Afghanistan. Shukrijumah has been named in a US federal indictment as a conspirator in the case against three men accused of plotting suicide bomb attacks on New York's subway system in 2009. He is also suspected of having played a role in plotting al-Qaeda attacks in Panama, Norway and the UK. The U.S. has placed a $5m bounty on his head.

Saif al-Adel, an Egyptian in his late 40s or early 50s, is the nom-de-guerre of a former Egyptian army colonel, Muhamad Ibrahim Makkawi. He travelled to Afghanistan in the 1980s to fight Soviet forces with the mujahideen. Adel was once Osama Bin Laden's security chief, and assumed many of military commander Mohammed Atef's duties after his death in a U.S. air strike in November 2001. He is suspected of being a member of the group which assassinated former Egyptian President Anwar Sadat in 1981. In 1987, Egypt accused Adel of trying to establish a military wing of the militant Islamic group al-Jihad, and of trying to overthrow the government. He is believed to have been involved in the 1998 US embassy bombings in East Africa, training the Somali fighters who killed 18 U.S. servicemen in Mogadishu in 1993, and instructing some of the September 11, 2001 hijackers.

Mustafa Hamid Mustafa, the father-in-law of Saif al-Adel, served as instructor in tactics at an al-Qaeda camp near Jalalabad and is the link between the group and Iran's government, according to the U.S. After the fall of the Taliban, he is said to have negotiated the safe relocation of several senior al-Qaeda members and their families to Iran. In mid-2003, Hamid was arrested by the Iranian authorities, but one report says he was released in 2011 and returned to Egypt after its revolution.

Matiur Rehman is a Pakistani militant who has been identified as al-Qaeda's planning chief. He is said to have been an architect of the foiled "liquid bomb" plot to explode passenger aircraft over the Atlantic in 2006. He has also been identified by Pakistani police as being involved in the kidnapping in 2002 of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, who was subsequently murdered, and was last reported to be hiding in Pakistan.

Abu Khalil al-Madani. Little is known about al-Madani, who was identified as a member of al-Qaeda's Shura council in a July 2008 video. His name suggests he is Saudi.

Adam Gadahn, is a U.S. citizen who grew up in California, has emerged as a high-profile propagandist for al-Qaeda, appearing in a string of videos. After converting to Islam as a teenager, he moved in 1998 to Pakistan and married an Afghan refugee. Gadahn performed translations for al-Qaeda and become associated with al-Qaeda's captured field commander, Abu Zubaydah. He is also thought to have later trained at a militant camp in Afghanistan. In 2004, the US justice department named him as one of seven al-Qaeda operatives planning imminent attacks on the US. Shortly afterwards, he appeared in a video on behalf of al-Qaeda, identifying himself as "Azzam the American". In September 2006, he appeared in a video with Ayman al-Zawahiri and exhorted his fellow Americans to convert to Islam and support al-Qaeda.

Abou Mossab Abdelwadoud, is former university science student and infamous bomb-maker, Abdelwadoud is the leader of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). He became leader of the head of the Algerian Islamist militant organization, the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC), in mid-2004, succeeding Nabil Sahraoui after he was killed in a major army operation. After university in 1995, Abdelwadoud joined the Armed Islamist Group (GIA), a precursor to the GSPC which shared its aim of establishing an Islamic state in Algeria. He is said to have become a member of the GSPC in 1998. Abdelwadoud, whose real name is Abdelmalek Droukdel, was one of the signatories to a statement in 2003 announcing an alliance with al-Qaeda. In September 2006, the GSPC said it had joined forces with al-Qaeda, and in January 2007 it announced it had changed its name to "al-Qaeda in the Land of the Islamic Maghreb" to reflect its allegiance. Abdelwadoud said he had consulted Ayman al-Zawahiri about the group's plans. Three months later, 33 people were killed in bomb attacks on official buildings in Algiers. Abdelwadoud allegedly supervised the operation. That December, twin car bombs killed at least 37 people in the capital.