Seif al-Adel, a former Egyptian armed forces officer and now the “undisputed” leader of Al Qaeda, has a $10 million bounty on his head (about $9.35 million), according to a new UN report on the organization. euros), according to Reuters.
Al Qaeda has not formally named a successor to Ayman al-Zawahiri, who was believed to have been killed in a US missile strike in Kabul last year, but Seif al-Adel is said to be operating as the group’s permanent leader.
Zawahiri’s death has increased pressure on the group to elect a strategic leader who can carefully plan deadly operations and command a jihadist network. Unlike his predecessors, who were highly visible and starred in menacing videos, Adel has a more stealthy profile, having planned several deadly attacks in the shadows.
Adel was indicted and indicted by a US federal grand jury in November 1998 for his role in the bombings of US embassies in Tanzania and Kenya, which killed 224 civilians and injured more than 5,000.
Adel, one of the FBI’s most wanted men, participated in operations in Africa and training camps, and was also linked to the 2002 murder of American journalist Daniel Pearl in Pakistan, according to US investigators. Little else is known about the leader of the terrorist group.
The US State Department believes Adel lives in Iran and is offering up to $10 million for information on the Al Qaeda leader.
However, the Iranian mission to the United Nations denied that Adel was in Iran. “This disinformation could hurt counter-terrorism efforts,” reads a Twitter post.
The website of the US State Department’s Rewards for Justice program states that the former Egyptian army lieutenant colonel moved to southeastern Iran after participating in attacks in Africa, after living on Italian soil under the protection of the country’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Adel and other Al Qaeda leaders were placed under house arrest in April 2003 by Iran, which released him along with four others in exchange for an Iranian diplomat kidnapped in Yemen.
Ali Soufan, a former FBI special agent who followed Al Qaeda operatives, wrote in a profile released by the Combating Terrorism Center that the nom de guerre Adel, whose real name is Mohammed Salahuddin Zeidan, means “sword of justice.”
“He is capable of threatening violence to anyone who displeases him and is known to meet infidelity with swift and unrelenting violence. He is dismissive and even rude to subordinates in the heat of the moment, but is also known as a source of advice. In happier times, showed talent for football and a penchant for joking”wrote Soufan.
Experts in the jihadist movement say Adel’s long and bloody career began in 1981, when he was suspected of involvement in the assassination of Egyptian President Anwar al-Sadat at the hands of Islamist soldiers during a televised parade in Cairo.
“Seif al-Adel’s professional military background and valuable experience as head of Al Qaeda’s pre-9/11 military committee means he has strong qualifications to assume overall leadership of Al Qaeda,” said Elisabeth Kendall, an expert at the University of Oxford.
Source: DN
